Page 199 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

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relevant to utilize, whether mechanical (micro- sandblaster, micro-chisel, and scalpel), chemical (immersion), electrochemical (electrolysis) or a combination of methods.
o Restoration (finishing and long-term con- servation): following cleaning, stabilization is essential, especially when objects come from a marine environment. It is above all based on the swift extraction of salts, especially those based on chlorides and sulphate ions. Some new technologies have been developed to accelerate the salt extraction and reduce the stabilization time, which includes techniques such as subcritical and supercritical fluids and computer controlled electrolysis.
Once stabilized, the objects are submitted to a controlled drying process. The dual finishing phase then begins: restoring their original sur- face so as to make them “readable” at a glance, and long-term conservation. This step generally consists of a gentle cleaning with vegetable or mineral abrasive, with a view to revealing the original surface of an object with its or- namentation, its designs and/or its inscriptions. The choice of abrasive depends on the hardness of the material.
Sometimes, it is necessary to consolidate the ori- ginal surface through a specific consolidation and/or filling treatment, using reversible varnish, resins and so on. Decisions on such treatment should be taken in coordination with the curator
 © Parks Canada. Reassembling the bones of a whale fin, Red Bay, Canada.
After recovery and conservation of artefacts and whale bones from wrecks in the framework
of the Red Bay Project it was important to store them appropriatly, protecting them from damaging influence and above
all identifying them and their provenance correctly. Only a well ordered and documented project archive guarantees the maximum preservation of scientifical data. The bones found during excavation and depicted here stem from right and bowhead whales. Once plentiful in the waters of coastal Labrador,
these attracted whalers from
the Basque country during the 16th century. A thriving industry based on the production of whale oil developed along the Labrador coast during the mid to late 1500s.The busiest port for this historic enterprise was the sheltered harbour of Red Bay.
Conservation and site management