News - Week 7: Survey and Architect Dream Team complete

The Wizard of Survey – Richard behind the Total-Station

The Wizard, the wizard’s apprentice and the magic prism wand holder – Richard, Eva and Panagiotis

Wizard’s apprentice Mette downloading survey data to the field computer

Author: Bjoern Loven

This week we said goodbye to Mette Arenfeldt. We will miss her hard work and wonderful cakes. Wednesday we welcomed Richard C. Anderson (Architect to the Agora Excavations, Emeritus) to our team. Richard has been adding precision to our work since the begining of the project in 2001 as survey and architect consultant. As a full staff member Richard will complete our survey, architect and 3D-modeling dream team – a team which, I believe, is one of the strongest of its kind in the field of archaeology.

Richard C. Anderson reports
I am very privileged to be the ‘father’ of the surveying system used on the Zea Harbout Project and now to see this work developing into the most important documentation of a very major and significant archaeological achievement. This week I re-joined the Zea team on a more formal basis having assisted as an advisor and occasional volunteer and trouble-shooter for several years and, of course, initiating the use by the project of the Fradgley-MicroStation surveying system seven years ago. I am thrilled to see my ‘baby’ growing and growing, from an exciting visualization of a few tiny parts of what lies hidden under the sediments of the harbour into a much bigger and more complete view that is now revealing the truely impressive scale and complexity of the surviving ancient naval installations. The ability to really ‘see’ what lies hidden below the mud and murky water over a large area provides the key to interpreting these substantial and complicated remains. Each day, as a few more lines and details of the mostly rock-cut edges, channels, cuttings and occasionally surviving placed stone blocks are added to the picture, the picture becomes bigger: it is beginning to be a breathtaking one!

My baby has been in good hands thanks to the foresight of the Zea team to invest in actually training several of its people how to do this work. A number of really good people have assisted me with my architectural surveying work at the Athenian Agora and thereby gained the essential, hands-on experience with the not-so-easy hardware and software that is utilized by the system. My recent visits to Zea have all been to find everything nicely under control and the work proceeding efficiently in the hands of these people. But it is only in the last three days that even I have been really excited to re-join this remarkable team and to witness, of course, the ever-bigger picture that is emerging but to again assist and actually see tiny details emerging for the first time from their invisibility under the silts. But these details are hardly themselves seen below the muddy water of the harbour: they are only ‘seen’ as they fall into their correct, three-dimensional places on the screen of the field computer. The whole process is enormously difficult, labour-intensive and slow but the impeccably trustworthy result makes it compellingly worthwhile and satisfying. Here is an archaeological process that is truly scientific in that it could be repeated to give exactly the same result (and for that reason, needs never to be repeated). It is a job being done right and it is a pleasure to be part of this process now and to know that I helped to steer the project in this direction from its outset.

The dedication and excellence of the team was revealed in these last three days because of recent poor weather that even further decreased the underwater visibility. But it is not so unusual for underwater archaeology to be done as much by feel as by sight so until thunder and cafe-au-lait coloured storm water emerging from nearby drains to stopped work Friday morning, the team cheerfully worked on, dredging, hand-fanning and carefully plotting point after point on the newly discovered edges and features that were being felt more than seen. It was my privilege to be the first to ‘see’ these results on the computer and it is a privilege indeed to ‘see’ seemingly insignificant rock-cuttings fall into place to reveal the complicated but unquestionably extant features of a place that played such an important part in shaping our world today. I am excited and delighted to again sense this thrill of discovery! Discovery almost tangibly revealed to the world by three-dimensional surveying, coming from under the uninviting ooze and opacity of the silts in the harbour at Zea.