| Subject: |
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Re: Subway Archaeology |
| Name: |
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Pat Clyne |
| Date Posted: |
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Dec 4, 06 - 11:50 AM |
| Website: |
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http://,2 |
| Message: |
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As daunting as that recovery process might be, the archaeologists still have the luxury of somewhat controlling their site environment unlike ones found in the depths of the ocean.
Too often archaeologists who base their judgment strictly on their limited knowledge of the underwater environment criticize the professional underwater salvors for having developed the tools and techniques to adequately recover marine artifacts.
Several cases in point come to mind on the hypocrisy of many archaeologists and government agencies who use Mailbox’s (Underwater deflectors) against the private sector as a divisive tool they claim destroys artifacts when in fact they use it themselves (mostly when they think no one is looking). The French ship LaBelle is one that was uncovered using Mailboxes by Texas A&M, one of the private sectors staunches critics.
In the early nineties Mailbox use was one of the chosen methods of underwater excavation listed in NOAA’s own illustrated handbook, but was quickly deleted when it’s case against Mel Fisher wouldn’t stand up in court if the government looked like it was agreeing with the very method of use they were dragging him into court for in the first place.
Besides jealousy, hypocrisy usually rears its ugly head among the many things dividing the two sides. One would think that these simple “social diseases” should be the first to be eliminated in mending our differences. If we could just agree on ADMITTING that the methods we ALL use are compatible for the job at hand maybe it could be a start.   |
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