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Wreckers: The "Wreck gear rigging" thread generated some good debate, and got a few hackles raised, so its time to open another can of worms: underwater archaeology and archaeologists. Just one anecdote to get it rolling. On November 10, 1975 the EDMUND FITZGERALD sank in a Lake Superior gale, taking all 29 hands down with her. The wreck was located in 535 feet of water, and over the intervening 21 years several expeditions have been made to the wreck, using ROVs, manned submersibles, NewtSuits and one dive on scuba by Mike Zee and Terrance Tysall in 1995. Also in 1975, an expedition was made to raise the bell, to be used in a memorial to the crew members. The whole business was filmed and featured in National Geographic, and the bell was cut loose by a Newt Suit driver with a Broco torch. After a memorial ceremony the bell was taken to one of our state universities for conservation. The archies at the university carefully blasted the brass bell clean with corncobs so as not to remove any metal, finished the cleaning with dental picks, then exactly matched the original gray paint on the bells stand. The bell was then returned to the museum at Whitefish Point for dispalyas a memorial. (The fact that you have to pay the $5 admission to the museum to pay your respects is another debate....) The museum decided that the bell would look better with its brass polished, so they had a guy smooth it up and polish it to a beautiful mirror finish, removing all the mold flash, parting lines etc. Well, this really got the archies' knickers in a twist! They proclaimed that the museum had destroyed the archaeological value of the bell. I guess my question (rhetorical) is this: Just what WAS the archaeological value of the bell before polishing? Was it a valuable source of information about mid-20th century bell making in an industrial-transportation setting or what? Just a twist of the tail to any closet archaeologists on the list. Dan ========================================================= Daniel R. Fountain [Lake Superior] dfountain@ao*.co* CIS 76545,1467 "I try to learn from the mistakes of others, since I can't live long enough to make them all myself." ========================================================= +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Please send messages for the WreckDiver list to: wreckdiver@wreckdiver.com Send subscription and help requests to: wreckdiver-request@wreckdiver.com +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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