Page 123 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

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(f) Documentation and analysis. Every object extracted needs to be inventoried, documented and studied. The information thus obtained, in conjunction with what has been learned during the excavation, will then allow conclusions to be drawn. The number and variety of the artefacts yielded by an underwater investigation mean that a large team of specialists usually needs to be involved. Thanks to technical advances in archaeometry, key objective data can be obtained by laboratory analysis. See Rules 26 and 27.
(g) Conservation and restoration. Proper restoration using secure, tried and tested methods ensures that pieces are better conserved, restored and can be exhibited to the public. See Rule 24.
 © Wessex Archaeology.
Image of a protected shipwreck in British waters obtanied by combining multibeam and side scan sonar survey data, United Kingdom.
This image is created from millions of echo points, collected as geophysical survey data (multibeam and side scan).The wreck is one of the protected vessels in British waters.The integration of the multibeam data with other datasets originating from side-scan sonar allows the assessment of seabed processes from a 3D perspective. Moreover a precise bathymetric map can be created by means of multibeam echo-sounder and side scan sonar measurements (digital relief of the bottom).The use of multibeam and side-scan sonar facilitates collecting a large amount of spatial information in a limited period of time and establishing
a bathymetric map thereof.
This map allows archaeologists
to accurately determine the positions of underwater cultural heritage sites and distances between them, to document sites and to establish the first maps
of sites.
Objective, methodology and techniques