Salt is bad for most things; it breaks apart glass and ceramics, corrodes copper alloys, and contributes to the decay of organic materials.
Topics Related to Conservation Highlights
After 300 years on the sea bed, the condition of objects is highly variable. When objects are in very good condition it’s easy to tell what they are made of, but when things have rusted, rotted, and decayed away that gets a lot harder.
After resting on the ocean floor for 300 years, it is only natural that the artifacts would become salty. The salt in seawater is soluble (dissolved in a liquid, such as water) which allows it to enter most of the materials found on the site.
In following along on our adventures in conservation, you may have learned a new term often heard in the lab: concretion. As described in previous entries, concretions can contain a wealth of artifacts, made of many different materials.
The bulk of artifacts recovered from maritime environments, the Queen Anne’s Revenge included, are found in a concreted state, which is a cement like formation over the artifact that must be removed before further treatment can continue.
The Queen Anne's Revenge has been hidden off the coast of North Carolina for almost 300 years. Those years have not been kind, slowly eroding away the organic components of the ship and encasing the metals of the ship in concretion.
Archaeological conservation is the applied science of preserving artifacts.