Queen Anne's Revenge
Conservation Laboratory Report
UAB Conservation Laboratory, Greenville
Sarah Watkins-Kenney QAR Project Conservator
Wendy Welsh, QAR Laboratory Manager
May/June 2006

 


2006 Spring Field Season

The 2005 May/June report explained the strategies employed during field season by the conservation staff for artifact documentation and storage. As the conservation staff geared up for the 2006 spring field season, small changes were made (i.e. pre-printed lab sheets) to make life easier for the conservator, but the procedures and protocols remained much the same. Crew working off of the R/V Martech getting ready to bring up cannon C5.Operations were based at the US Coast Guard Station at Fort Macon, which was ideal for the safety of the artifacts until their journey to the lab. The first week of May, archaeologists prepared the site for excavation on the UAB vessel, Snap Dragon. The work platform for the second week was the NC Division of Marine Fisheries vessel R/V Shellpoint, the third week we worked from Cape Fear Community College's R/V Martech, and the last week was onboard UNC Chapel Hill's R/V Capricorn. On all vessels, excavation and recovery resumed without skipping a beat because the crew works so well together and is very adaptive to any working situation.

 

 

Grinding StoneThe majority of the artifacts recovered this year are encapsulated in concretion (c. 170).Other artifacts recovered 'clean' from the site include three ceramic sherds, two glass shards, one brick/tile, eight lead objects, a few lead shot, ballast stones (c. 400), and one complete grinding stone. The grinding stone was the very last artifact found in this year's excavation. The grinding stone is 16" in diameter and 3" thick. The project recovered a portion of another grinding stone in 1997 in the midship area of the wreck, just south of the main rubble pile. The complete grinding stone was found northwest of the pile in the forward section of the wreck.

 

 

This year Cannon 5 (C5) from the main pile was raised from the site on Wednesday, May 17th. The cannon came up with no complications and when it came to port the cannon was taken to Fort Macon parking lot where hundreds of people showed up to see it. On Friday, May 19th the North Carolina Pine Knolls Shore Aquarium had their grand opening and C5 was on display outside the aquarium, before being transferred to the Conservation Lab in Greenville. Crowd came out to see Cannon C5 at the NC Aquarium.The PKS Aquarium houses a small replica of the QAR site and visitors enjoyed being able to see part of the real life exhibit after seeing the replica inside.

ECU Graduate Assistants that worked at the lab this past year, Kim Smith and Valerie Grussing, were hired by the project to help with the field season and post excavation processing. During the field season Kim and Valerie helped with processing the objects as soon as they were recovered. They measured the concretions, marked the tags with the correct information, kept up with paperwork, and made sure the objects were in wet storage once recovered from the site. Back at the lab, Kim and Valerie entered all the information into the database and then obtained the weights of all artifacts and concretions.


Display in Raleigh

May 23rd & 24th the NC QAR Archaeological Conservation Lab put on an artifact display at the Legislative office building in Raleigh to help illustrate to the public and legislators what it takes to recover and conserve the artifacts from North Carolina's oldest shipwreck. Many people stopped to view the exhibit including legislators, former Governor Jim Hunt, lobbyists, school groups, and many passersby. Our public displays are important to spread knowledge about underwater archaeology and the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. Many from the Office of State Archaeology like Steve Claggett, Lea Abbott, John Mintz, Dolores Hall, and Dee Nelms made it possible for the project staff to have the nice display, tables and chairs and we would like to thank you.

Visitors


Marshall Scheetz and Stephen Mankowski examining the cask material. On June 13th a cooper, Marshall Scheetz, and a blacksmith, Stephen Mankowski, of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation came to the conservation lab to examine and discuss with us the collection of cask material excavated from the wreck site 1997-2004. The recovered cask assemblage consists primarily of approximately 200 fragments of what were originally wrought iron cask hoops. All but two of these hoops pieces however were recovered from concretion as epoxy castings into the voids left behind as iron corroded away. Although not the most inspiring artifacts visually a lot of information can be gleaned from the fragments. Through examination and analysis of the assemblage we are gaining information about the types of casks represented on the wreck, about how they might have been carried, what they might have contained as well as information on the practice of coopering that they demonstrate. Thus to have the input of a practicing cooper and blacksmith into the examination of this material is invaluable and we very much appreciated their visit. A full report on the cask assemblage will be included in the QAR Project Interim Report (1997-2004) in preparation.


Upward Bound is an academic support program funded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide the necessary support for economically disadvantaged and/or first generation high school students to complete high school, enroll in college, and successfully obtain a four-year college degree. Matt Ruble, the Associate Director of the Upward Bound Program at Appalachian State University organizes a trip for the students in his area every year to visit other colleges in North Carolina as part of the SAGE (Senior Adventure Group Experience) Program. East Carolina University was among the schools to visit, so Ruble thought it would be good to arrange a lab tour after their campus tour. Tuesday, June 27th Program Coordinator, Corrine Sackett and sixteen rising seniors were given an introduction to the project and a tour of the QAR Conservation facilities. All students were very interested and asked clever questions during and after the tour. We were delighted to have the students and hope they enjoyed their experience at the lab.


Media

Media interviewing Mark Wilde-Ramsing (project director) about the expedition.The local media does a great job of covering exciting events such as raising a cannon from the site. Sometimes they get impressive footage of the cannon breaching the water and coming onboard. On days that the media can't make it out to the site for the recovery they often meet the vessel at port to cover the process of unloading the cannon to the dockside. Often the cannon is taken for a Cannon C5 on display at Fort Macon State Park.public viewing for an hour or so, but that is the extent of what the public would see of the cannon after it is raised from the site. WCTI Channel 12 covered the raising of C5 on May 17th. WCTI-12 Reporter, Rob Holiday and his Videographer Spence Bailey came to the lab on June 7th to follow up on what happens to the cannon once brought back to the lab. Rob focused on the different processes that a cannon and similar objects (i.e. cannon balls) go through to get to a stable condition. He focused on the importance of the conservation of the artifacts and the time it takes to get these objects to a state for display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. We would like to thank the local media for their interest and support in the project.       

..Back to Conservation Reports   On to July/August/September 2006..

Home | Archaeology | Artifacts | Conservation | Contact Us | Education | Environment | History | QAR Project