This is an online event.
Sponsored by: Archaeological Institute of America
Between 2015-2018, construction crews excavating along the Alexandria, VA waterfront revealed the broken remains of four 18th-century wooden ships in what was once the shoreline of the Potomac River. The identity of these ships is unknown, but to study them, each ship was disarticulated and the individual timbers were laser scanned, allowing researchers to virtually reassemble the ships and develop theoretical reconstructions of how they would have looked when they were in use. These highly accurate digital timber models were also 3D printed and assembled by a master ship model maker, further informing these reconstructions. One of the four ships, excavated during the construction of the Indigo hotel, was sent to the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University for conservation by freeze drying, a process that is currently underway. This lecture will summarize this project, give an overview of the techniques used, and present our latest findings about the ships.
Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:
https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic/archaeology/default.aspx?id=87317
McCann/Taggart Lecture
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