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In a message dated 12/21/98 9:51:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, scubait@ix*.ne*.co* writes: << (1) Most "rescues" of artifacts end up in garages or basements of wreck rapists. They ain't rescued and they ain't artifacts. They are trophies of the hunt. (2) The only people who see these "historic artifacts" are the diver's buddies or visitors who wonder what the hell that port hole is doing in the downstairs "entertainment" center. They ain't on display at museums. (3) Museums don't want another porthole from the USS Minnow. They already have rejected dozens of donated portholes that have been "given" to them by other wreck rapists. (4) Ask the folks who visited the Edmond Fitzgerald about all of the treasures that they brought back. If I remeber correctly, they left (left not removed) a plaque commemorating the sailors who died on the Edmond. (5) Ask the divers who visit the warships at Truk (or whatever its now called). How many of them bring home skulls or other "trophies" or "collectables" (6) Many of us have already seen the results of wreck rapists at work. Anything of "value" has been stripped off and the only things we see underwater are the pitiful remains. (7) Don't use the monitor example with me. I separate the issue of visitng vs. plundering. If I'm no longer permitted to "visit" a wreck, it is probably because its been plundered by folks who can't leave their crowbars at home. It is safe to say that the wreck rapist have "wrecked": it for the rest of us who either prefer to just visit or take pictures. (8) Why not leave it. If we don't plunder, then we do have a convincing argument that we can make with various governments that we should be permitted a visit - >> S'funny, Just last month I went to the new dive show down in Jersey where there was a breathtaking display of artifacts, both from the bottom and from a life long search topside, from the Andrea Doria.....including video, magazines, ship diaries, china, vases, material donated expressly to Moyer from museums. The center piece of the exhibit was the Gambone Panels recovered by John some years ago now, it took this long to get them cleaned and restored. They came from an area called the winter garden, as I recall, a fairly funky area probably only visited by several handfuls of divers for maybe a max of 20 minutes each. Over this past winter, that area peeled away from the ship and dropped some 40 or more feet to the 'sand'.....a process which surely destroyed whatever remaining frescos were left. So which scenario is more pleasing to you? Recovered and restored topside for anyone interested or destroyed on the bottom???? Also at the show, as always at any dive shows in the area was the phenomenal display put on by Atlantic wreck divers.....all materials recovered from rotting, dissapearing wrecks....all restored in whatever appropriate manner, all carrrying fabulous tales of the ship, its wrecking, the process of discovery of the wreck and then of course the process of recovery.....all this history given out both orally and photographically..... Re the monitor, what would you rather have recovered, a rotting round of metal or all the small pieces of the wreck that were used daily by those who sailed her, which can make the time of the Monitor immediately alive to us, pieces which can only be recovered by individual accomplished wreckers who know how to dig, how to find, how to recover..... At this show were many other very accomplished "rapists" who while admittedly doing a great deal of lusting also passed the time in the discussion of best ways to restore these treasures, for they are treasures and they are rescued from the oblivion of ocean depths, the best ways to document what they found, ways to encourage these kinds of displays.... Yes you are right museums dont want another porthole.....it can be argued that there are enough portholes out and about.....altho a grouping of all the diff types from different eras and different styles can be quite pleasing. Anyway, altho most divers start out with a serious case of brass fever, after a while they develop more discerning tastes, passing over the portholes for other mementos... But just because museums dont want another porthole doesnt mean that all the bits and pieces that come up by individual divers do not have a phenomenal value and fascination.....these are capsules of humanity caught at that exact moment in time when mans ambition gets given a reality check by the force of nature ..... Real wreckers spend almost as much time researching and studying and then restoring what they have found as they do diving and raping......maybe even more...and then this all gets displayed .....yes often in their homes, which of course are open to any and all who profess interest....but also displayed in open forums when the opportunities arise.....and also 'displayed' via oral histories continuallly wherever these divers go.....often to the incredible boredom of the non'diving members of the family , but it leads to the general publics awareness and fascination . This isn't large history, but an accumulation of small bits.....a sort of folk history, recovered in bits and pieces and eventuallly woven together to make up llittle stories that accumulate to make up history Dont start with the argument about responsible archeology. If you want to go that tack, then all the great museums of the world will be emptied, back buried under mountains of dirt or other cities built on top or stashed away in attics and barns.....even the great high minded Getty has had to make some serious returns and restitutions over the past few years. What about all the holocaust art that just fell into museums laps???? So some individual divers may have brought back skulls....shame on them as individuals for no sense of history or place, not the whole wreck diving community. I know of a diver who recovered some personal effects from a war wreck, the research was done and the materials returned to the family.....and what are the pyramids of Egypt anyway????? I once gave one of my restaurant owners a shadow box with materials recovered from a wreck along with photographs....not a day goes by in that restaurant that people dont ask for more information and stories about those things. See thats the thing about wreck diving,......its not simply raping .....its a continually growing fascination with ships and shipwrecks and then the process of recovery and restoratiion.....none of this as easy as simply jumping in the water with a crowbar, my friend. Were that the case, it would be as popular as golf... This is all a very immediate form of human history, albeit on a very small scale....but still human history which each and every one of us can nurture and spread and most of us do via the telling.....many of my friends and co- workers willy nilly pick up an interest in shipwrecks and their histories thru association. At the end of a dive digging on a 100 plus old wreck, a diver finds something, not having time, it gets tucked into the glove gauntlet.....upon peeling back the sleeve back on deck, finds an ornately filigreed silver frame holding a photgraph of a not quite smiling woman with one of those impossible 1800s hairdos.....who was she? a wife, a mother, a teacher, someone left behind in Europe or someone on her way to a new life in the Americas??? Where did she go? What happened ? Why was her photograph there? No museum wants that photo or frame, however to my mind it is without price...as I recall no museums wanted anything to do with Van Gogh either and he died a pauper.....Should that frame and photo have been left buried way under the sand??? Forgotton and lost to all time?? According to you the answer is affirmative. I disagree. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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