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276 Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook, Second Edition
to the work vessel or diving operations base where registration and record- ing can take place. Provided there is not too long a delay, the object and the record notes taken on the site can be related and the object can be prop- erly registered with the associated information. Where there are large quan- tities of material involved, the situation is quite different, because the excavator is unable to correlate everything that has been recovered with the records taken on the site. In this case, some form of artifact registration in situ will be required.
In either case the archaeologist or diver needs some method of record- ing information used to identify or survey the original location of the object. The simplest solution is to use a writing slate on which the data can be noted. A simple clipboard, as discussed in Chapter 4, is ideal for this. It can also be complemented with photographs to record the location of an arti- fact. Alternatives to this are a cassette tape recorder that can be used under water or diver-to-surface communications to record the details.
Where artifacts have to be registered in situ, the most straightforward method is to tag the object under water, prior to raising it. This is particu- larly effective where a ship is dismantled piece by piece; each piece of timber can be tagged (Figure 10.1), photographed (Figure 10.2), and then disassembled (Figure 10.3). It is sometimes worthwhile to take large general photographs of the site to provide a general record of the layout of the material. Such illustrations can be invaluable for future reference.
When a grid system is used, some predetermined system needs to be decided upon so that each major grid unit is defined and then subdivided
Figure 10.1 Tagging timbers on the Batavia wreck site prior to recording and raising. (Cour- tesy of Patrick Baker, Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum.)
 




























































































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