Page 285 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

264 Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook, Second Edition
Figure 9.16 X-ray of a complex concretion of pistol from the Pandora wreck site. Upper, concretion; center, x-ray; and lower: pistol after conservation. (Courtesy of Jon Carpenter, Department of Materials Conservation, Western Australian Maritime Museum.)
tion should be directed toward a strategy of extracting the complete object. This is not always possible and the concretion may have to be broken under water. In such cases the temptation to drive the point directly into the concretion and to split it in one go should always be avoided, because there is no way of telling what is under the tip of the hammer. It is better to work so that flakes of the surface are chipped off bit by bit and work with the