Tagging in the dust cloud

Wednesday 31.8.2016

Our goals for today were simple and straightforward. Go down to the bow trench, and first tag 3-5 amphorae just west of the keel. Then use the airlift south of the lead weight trying to locate the other lead weight. Christos had already enlarged the sandbag fence in our trench and moved the airlift closer. Simple and exciting dive expected. We were also excited, because this was our first excavation to Mazotos without instructors.

Once we got down, the first thing was to get our bearings. And then everything went bad. Another dive pair aiming to work on trench A came down with us, and they were tasked to lift an amphora from the apotheke at the end of their dive. To make it easier, they decided to move an amphora in our apotheke to a lifting net at the beginning of their dive, and then just pick it up on their way back to the ascent line. While doing that, they created a huge dust cloud covering the whole bow trench.

We tried desperately to get our bearings right, but finally gave up tagging, and moved to excavation. We were eventually able to remove some sand also from the assigned area, but overall the dive was a bust. Fortunately Chris and Dom were able to tag and document those amphorae, and saved the team's bacon.

Jouni excavating the bow trench.

Jouni picked up 2 sherds and one shell to our loose finds bag, and so we did not return completely empty handed. But almost. Things happen. Better dive next time.

Two sherds to be recorded to the project database and then delivered for desalination.

On the way back to port in Spiros' RIB, a flying fish was racing us in air right next to the RIB, no more than 2m from us. It won! Spiros challenged it to another race by speeding up his RIB, but the fish was gone. Why race again and risk losing! It was neat to see it up close. With fluorescent colors it looked more like a humming bird than a fish.

I do not write any more now, as I am writing today also to the Mazotos Fieldschool blog. You can find that blog here.

Anchor stock weight

Tuesday 30.8.2016

Today we had two airlifts working in the bow trench. Jouni was working close to the keel, and I was excavating the lead weight for the main anchor stock. Nick tried to stay in between us and above the sediment cloud, and collect all loose finds that we would stick up from the sediment cloud for him to bag. He had two bags, black and white, with different loose finds number. Work was very difficult, because the airlifts had really been set up to work in midship trenches A and B. They barely reached our excavation sites of today.

Christos had build an inverted U-shape sandbag wall around our trench during the first dive of today, so that we would swim around the wall and lie on top of the sandbags when excavating in the middle of that "U". Good plan, but the airlift hoses were too short today. They just would not reach around to that sandbag wall.

I found two sherds, but when I raised my hand for Nick to bag it, he was not there. Finally I rested the sherd on top of a sand bag in front of me, and picked it up later on for Nick to bag properly.

In 2300 years ago some anchor stocks were carved hollow, and then lead weight was cast in there. Odysseus probably had an anchor like this in his ship! When Mazotos ship sunk, the anchor landed on the sea bottom and was exposed. The wood around the lead then disintegrated and only the lead weight was left behind.

After some 10 minutes of airlift work the lead weight was located and I was able to pretty much make it completely visible. Even the original tag was there, which confirmed that today's excavation target was reached. The tag id for metal finds begins with an "M", when pottery find tags begin with a "P".

I never really saw the weight completely, because most of the time I was in sediment cloud and just brushed sediment from the weight and around it towards the airlift head. And finally, when the 20 minute bell rang, I was busy returning the airlift hose into its own place at the bottom of the vertical airlift shaft and remembering to close the valve. We have allocated about one minute for that.

The lead weight had been found in earlier excavation, and then covered with sand. So, we have finally reached the point where the earlier excavation ended, and can now proceed to new adventures. For example, we could try to locate the other lead weight for this anchor. We just do not know which side it is in, and it will be under lots of sediment to excavate. Or, we could try to see what is underneath it, but that might be lots of excavation to do, unless we want to dig a hole there.

This was so far the high point of my excavation. I had followed Mark's advice and left my right hand bare, so that I could also feel the texture that I was brushing. It felt surprisingly good just to touch that piece of lead. It was cast over 2300 years ago by some unknown anchor maker. It may sound funny, but we all get our kicks in different ways.

In the evening we had three talks. Eleni Loizides is the conservator for Department of Antiques in Cyprus. She gave us nice presentation on how sites should be protected in situ, and then how different types of finds can be conserved. We learned about different decay mechanisms and factors affecting the decay, including biological and human factors. For an excavated wreck site you need 60cm of sand to protect the excavated wood from the elements. No wonder we have been digging that sand away for a week now! Waterlogged wood should normally be impregnated with 100% PEG (polyethylen glycol), but because that may take time, they now often use a short cut by achieving only 45% PEG, and the freeze dry the remaining water away. Yes, it does require quite large freezers.

Irene Katsouri gave a presentation on how they are making a complete 3D-model of all the amphorae in the Mazotos wreck. It is not supposed to be exact, but it is trying to give exact original location and position of all amphoras. The idea is that once (many years from now) all pottery has been removed from the wreck (and practically destroying the wreck in the process), you have retained all salient amphora information. For example, you can still make conclusions based on original amphora positions. Without a 3D-model this type of information would be very hard to convey.

Finally Dimitrios Skarlatos presented the 2.7M€ three year iMareCurture EU-funded project, where his team is one of the 11 partners. The project will study how under water tablets could be used by underwater archaeology, or how advanced virtual reality could be used in museums to raise public awareness in maritime cultural heritage.

Dimitrios giving the very last lesson in Fieldschool 2016 

Three presentations took so long, that Stella did not even have time to tell us what we will be doing tomorrow at the wreck site. Or then she has not decided yet. We will probably at least continue to excavate the lead weight and the sediment layer around it. We will find out in tomorrow morning diver's briefing.

There will be no more lessons. We students will make our presentations on each trench tomorrow and Thursday evening, and then present them on Friday.

Off-gas day

Monday 29.8.2016

Today is off-gas day. That means no diving, so that Jouni and me will completely recover from earlier dives. This is playing it really safe, because of the conservative decompression procedures and only one dive per day we have usually recovered completely before the next dive - according to our dive computers. However, we do not mind at all playing it safely with our health.

Initially we were supposed to go to MS Queen Zenobia and help out there with dive and other operations. Then we were offered to help out Irene in the office. That sounded much more fun that spending all day on top of the wreck site and not being able to dive it.

Well - then it turned out that Irene was off today, but someone else would be at the office, and we could be of some use that way. Finally Andri came around at 10:30, and said that we can help her out when fetching more sea water for the amphorae in desalination. Then she was off to somewhere, and we just waited loitering by the pool. Not a bad way to rest on your 1st day off in the project. The logistics are quite large, and every now and then things seem to be not so well organized. But eventually everything gets done.

In the morning I needed to get laundry detergent, because this seemed like a perfect day to do laundry. There is only one detergent box somewhere, and finally I was able to get some of it in a small container. There was only one such container available, and so I had to be careful to return it, because otherwise nobody else could do laundry. A very complex protocol just get your laundry detergent! You could simply place a detergent box in the office, and everyone could get it from there when needed.

Andri came back around 11:30 with two new amphorae. It turned out they (Andri and the students helping her with amphorae) did not need our help getting the sea water. They have only a few 20L canisters, and so they have to make many trips to the Alaminos harbor to get enough sea water. This is another example on not so perfect logistics. For the price of a few water canisters you need to spend hours of time to get the sea water needed for desalination. Gas and volunteer time is cheap...

We ended up walking to Mazotos village for lunch. The project is paying for lunches, and we were allowed to have a sandwich or hamburger at the same Mazotos tavern, where we eat all our dinners. We found a backgammon board there and played a game while munching our cheeseburgers. We did not quite remember the rules, but the tavern owner was kind enough to show us the starting position. The rest of the rules were decided during the game. Most were correct but close enough. Better player won, with one piece left in the home board.

In Mazotos it is customary for older men to spend their afternoons in taverns playing local board game. We fit right in.

Once we got back to the accommodations, people were already coming back from the wreck. So, in practice we ended up doing nothing useful on our off-gas day. Well - I did get that laundry done.

The afternoon/evening program started at 1600. Rachel gave us a very nice introduction to archaeological illustration. We covered different illustration types and what advantages illustrations have over photographs. For example, you can unwrap any given structure, or you can emphasize on salient aspects of the find which might not be so visible in a photograph. We discussed the conventions used in illustrations ("the light comes from up-left", etc), tried out different ink pens and then we practiced for more than an hour doing simple illustrations with shading done on different methods. We all understood that this was just an introduction, we were not masters yet, and it showed in our work. At the end we went through today's trench work with Stella and planned for tomorrow. Exciting day coming again.

Amphorae measurement and photography

Sunday 28.8.2016

Days begin now with Stella's morning briefing, once all divers are on-board. Now we are supposed to collect more sherds (i.e., broken pieces of pottery). To help us decide what kind of sherds we can put in our nets and which ones should be left there, tagged, and photographed before bringing them up, she had a very illustrative examples on sherds that are small enough to be put in your bag right away. Loose small sherds are not so important, because they have been moving around the wreck for over 2300 years, and their original location is impossible to determine. For example, a 1-2 years ago they noticed a turtle moving finds from one place to another. Before that they had spent years to find out the culprit, who was "messing with the wreck site".

Stella demonstrates what types of finds can be brought up right away in your net. Of course you need to report on what area in your trench the finds were from.

Our dive was again with Andonis. He first tagged two wooden parts that came visible in yesterday's excavation. The we concentrated enlarging the bow trench carefully, and to see whether we would encounter any significant sherds layer. We did not, and there was lots of loose sediment that killed the visibility. I was operating the airlift all the time, and Andonis just guided me to keep it in given position, when he brushed sediment into it. Most of the time I was in sediment cloud, and barely saw the trench under me. Every now and then there was a tug from Andonis to move the airlift this way or that way. Jouni spend the whole time upside down above us ready to receive any sherds we might give to him. They were none. At the end of the dive, we tried to remove most of floating sediment, and Andonis placed a North-marker and a scale next to the new tags for those newly found wooden parts. Some other team later on today would photograph them, and hopefully recover the marker and the scale. That team's plans were changed, and tags need to be photographed tomorrow.

Other teams again raised at least one amphora. There was also lots of sherds brought up, and they had to also cleaned, cataloged and photographed. There were also many finds found in the airlift sieve, including possible olive pits. Assisting archaeology students, maritime ecologists, and the conservationist were kept busy. All amphorae must be inspected and cleaned also from inside. That is done by emptying it with your hands, and then using a water hose to rinse of all sediment. Everything is covered with mud, and so it is nice to be able to take a swim afterwards. Contents are poured into a sieve, so that no finds are lost. In addition to the archaeological finds there can be ecological finds, so you need two types of researchers working together. There is amazing amount of work done based on the finds we bring up. And be do not bring up that much!

We got back very early, already at 14:30. Evening program will begin at 16:00. So, I have time to do some laundry and write most of this blog!

In the evening we had an amphora lesson, where we learned all about measuring and photographing amphorae for archiving purposes. We had two groups, one led by Stella and the other by Agatha. And each group got their own Mazotos amphora to practice with! The amphorae were in desalination, and we had to moisten them every now and then. Then Andonis gave us hands-on practice on how to document amphorae with photographs.

Amphora parts are named after human features, just to make it easier to remember: shoulder, neck, body, toe or foot, etc. The idea is to describe it so well with descriptive text and measurements, that you would recognize it even without a picture. There are lots of measurements, and it is not always so obvious where neck ends and shoulder begins. Try that with humans, and it is not so precise then either!

Amphora height measurement is team work. Five to make the measurement and one to document the measuring. That seems about right for all work in the project.

Before dinner we still had short 30 minute planning session with Stella, to set the goals for tomorrow's dives. Our trench has again very interesting plans, though I will not be diving. It is my off-gas day to let the body completely recover from one week on continuous diving to 43-45m. I will not go to the work site at the M/S Queen Zenobia, but instead help Irene at the office. Irene keeps overall track that the project data base stays in order. All trench team leaders report to her at the end of each day, so that all finds recording, dive logs, and all other documentation is kept up to date. She works very late, but hopefully she will then sleep a little bit later also. I probably will still wake up at my usual time at 5:30.

More amphorae and side planks in bow trench

Saturday 27.8.2016

The day begun surprisingly. When the 6:40 group was to be picked up in the port, the RIB had two amphoras on their way to desalination. I carried one to our truck, and it felt like carrying a baby, though this baby was over 2300 years old. It weighted surprisingly much, maybe some 15-20kg. It was wrapped in moist cloth and then in bubblewrap for protection, both for small dings and for keeping the moisture inside. If you drop a baby, some parents might be angry, but if you drop a 2300 year old amphora, ... you would feel real bad for a long time. Babies are tough, amphorae are not. I asked a friend to escort me to the car, just in case I would get tired.

The amphorae raised yesterday could not be transported the same day, because the weather was too rough. The RIB-rides can be really bumby. This morning it was nice and with no waves. The amphorae were brought to a special facility set up here in one hotel room. They actually have a hotel room of their own. There they started their 1st phase of desalination process by being immersed for a 2 months or so into half sea water, half fresh water mixture. Without desalination the salt will cause a chemical reaction in the drying pottery, and eventually it will just crumble. If it takes about one year to desalinate one amphora, how long would it take to desalinate 12 amphorae?

Then we got to diving. Jouni and me dived today with Andonis, who seems to know all about marine archaeology. After yesterdays 4-5 minutes of practice we were now ready to start excavating bow trenches wood layer at keel level. The area had been excavated earlier, and the protecting silica sand above it had already been removed.

Marine archeology tools for excavating a trench with old wet wood. Carefully showel or brush the sediment to the airlift. The idea is that the airlift sieve is just a backup. You should look carefully and try not to let any finds get into the airlift. They should instead be left in situ, or raised to surface in a bag. 

We took with us new types of tools, wooden spatulas and a thick paint brush. Andonis was guiding us carefully when we carefully practiced excavating some 2-3cm new layer in small area of the bow trench. Excavating a trench with wooden artifacts is difficult, because wooden finds are very easily scratched or broken. The sediment silt took visibility pretty much away every now and then, but you just had to carefully wait until the airlift has sucked all silt away. I was not allowed to brush wood yet, but I practice with the spatula. Tomorrow someone needs to tag the two wooden pieces that appeared on the new layer that we excavated. They might be parts of the ship's hull, or maybe something completely different. Overall, a very successful dive.

Other teams did their own work in other trenches, and raised three amphorae. The raised amphorae had all lots of sea life attached to them. So, marine ecologists got first their turn on the finds, before the conservationist cut all non-pottery elements away. They also check the insides of the amphora very carefully, and look for other finds and marine life. It is a dirty job.

In the evening Mark gave as general description on what archaeological excavation really is, what conventions might cover it, how is has evolved, and what ethical decisions are involved. The main point is that excavation is always destroying process, and so you better document everything well in advance, because you can never go back. So, we are right now in a process of destroying the Mazotos wreck,... and we must have a good reason to do it. We also must have the resources to conserve and store the raised finds forever.

The project is really speeding up, now that we have got into actual excavation. Plans change quickly, as new findings are made daily. You almost feel like a real marine archaeologist. That is, until  you remember that the real scientific work only begins, once this field work is completed. Finds need to be conserved, and based on them and earlier work deductions can be made on how people lived 2300 years ago. Finally you publish your work in peer-reviewed journals, so that other scientists can build on that. That is how science is made, and that is the work for real marine archaeologists. I just do the fun part involving diving.

Recovering amphorae and using airlift for excavation

Friday 26.8.2016

We knew things would progress today, as we got four new crew members - three marine biologists and one conservator. They were not disappointed.

Raising the 1st amphora of this season

Already before noon we had recovered the few amphorae. The very first one was exciting as the whole crew was watching and applauding when we finally got it to the deck. It had been placed on a net, which was raised from the bottom with a pulley. Immediately it was getting lots of attention both from the marine biologists and the conservator. One quarter of our diving work area was now taken by a finds sieving and conservation station, and now we have to be even more organized with our dive gear.

Conservator starting her work on the 1st raised amphora

Me and Jouni dived with Mark this time. We first took series of photos from the bow area for creating a photogrammetry model on how the bow looked this morning. Then we moved the top part of one amphora into a net to be raised by us, and moved one whole amphora to the apotheke. Apotheke is a fancy word for storage area for amphorae and other finds to be raised to surface later on. Jouni and me got each 4-5 minutes to practice (under Mark's guidance) using the airlift by removing mostly white sand placed on top of the the earlier bow excavation. While I was doing my practice, Jouni tagged two pots that we had missed yesterday.

Finally we closed the airlift, picked up the amphora net and 3 sherds that Mark had picked up. He had two of them in his pocket, and I brought up the third bigger one up in my hand. Mark carried the amphora net (hooked up to his rig) all the way up through the decos.

All this fun took so much time, that we did not even have time for lessons tonight before the dinner. Too bad! But, of course, we still have to select all photos to be included in our report, rename them, and write the report after the dinner.

More tagging

Thursday 25.8.2016

Well, quess what - we need to do all those tags that were not done yesterday and then some. So, our team had to locate and tag 10 amphorae, If any time would be remaining, then we should document as many amphorae with a North arrow and scale. The idea is that all amphorae to be lifted should be well documented before. Especially the scale was a valuable commodity, and there was only one in the whole ship. The other ruler is personal property of arrow certain staff member, and we could not use it. So, the bag carrying it had to be transferred from one team to another, and only one trench (A, B, and now Bow) could document that way at a time. Sometimes people save money in strange places...

There was clearly again too much room for Mr Murphy to do his dirty work. The first pair from our Bow team was about to start their dive and they were asked first to get the arrow and scale from the previous team still in deco. They dived there, found no measuring bag, and decided (after heated hand signal discussion) to proceed to the wreck. Once there, they somehow (nitrogen narcosis again?) decided that they should really do the documentation, even though they did not have the tools for it. But they did take plenty of beautiful pictures. They tagged only one pot.

Our pair did not get even the arrow and scale bag, because we had so much to do. We needed to tag 9 amphorae and move one tag from an incorrect pot to the correct one. The archaeologists had figured that out from our yesterday's report and photos. Right after getting into water Jouni complained that his back felt wet, but maybe it was just lots of sweat in the undergarments.

We succeeded tagging 6 amphorae. One had an old tag already, one was too much buried in silt, and one needed a tag pin (to be pushed in ground next to the pot or inside it), because there was no handle, neck, or toe to use for tagging. We took photos of all amphorae we tagged, except for the one which was tagged with a pin inside the broken amphora. There was just too much silt flying around for a decent photo. You just could not get a photo with readable tag on it, and then the time run out. We also fond one tag just lying around after it had been detached from its amphora. In the evening Stella decided that the old tag for pot P0375 should be replaced with the new tag tomorrow.

Our tags or ties are by no means fancy or everlasting either. When taking photos of them, one also noticed quickly that we should have used a thicker permanent pencil while writing down the tag number. Thicker letters would be much easier to read or take photos of, especially from further away. Mazotos archaeologists will suffer for this feature for years.

Amphorae tags that we brought back to surface. Nr 266 was the old tag that had become loose when its tie had broken off after a few years in the sea. We did tag that amphora with a new (better?) tag. All this tagging work was just to replace tags placed in earlier and which had broken off somehow.  Lots of expensive work due to cheap materials.

The water in Jouni's back was not sweat, but water leaking in from a hole made by too long bolts in the tanks. The bolts were sticking out so much that (possibly?) when wrestling into his rig while suiting up, he must have snagged the back of his dry suit back to one of the bolts sticking out. Hopefully the suit will get fixed soon. I asked for extra protection for just similar bolts in my tanks. Some people need very long bolts, because their harness back plate or buoyancy control device is so thick. But not us. It could have been just as easily my suit that was snagged and cut. Luckily the water is not that cold and there was not very much of it, so that Jouni could finish his dive while diving in very expensive wet suit.

In the evening Andonis taught us basics of Daminion, which is digital asset management software that can be used to help documenting (e.g.) archaeological photos. We each practiced slightly with it with our own photo sets. Later on we need start using it to document all our photos. Andonis also gave us the very basics of camera properties.

Tagging visible pots

Wednesday 24.8.2016

Today our task was to tag all visible unmarked bow area pots, that had lost their tag for some reason. Stella and her team of archaeologists has identified 18 such pots. First we had to make new tags for them and plan for the dive. We had the bow area plan with all amphorae drawn on tracing paper, which was taped to a slate.

The bow trench team prepares the slate and makes finds-tags to be attached to the amphorae. Each tag has a unique number (e.g., P0154, where P stands for "pot" type of a find). These amphorae had been tagged earlier, and it was important to tag them again with the same number. It would have been so easy (and fast!) just to place some tags for all those untagged amphorae, document it, and then map each new number to given old number. You would imagine that an archaology finds management software would easily handle such cases. You would be wrong.

The idea was for diver A to handle all tags, and give them one-by-one to diver B in predefined order. Tags were attached to a string to keep the order correct.  Diver B would then use then given plan on the slate to locate that amphora, and attach the tag to it with wire. Best place for the tag would be one of the handles (amphorae have always two handles), then the neck, and finally the narrow amphora toe. Diver A would then give diver B the next tag, and, while diver B was looking for that amphora, diver A was documenting the previously tagged amphora with GoPro. Etc.

This all sounds easy, simple and straightforward, but it is far from it in 43m depth with some nitrogen narcosis. On top of that the first pair found wreck site in real bad visibility, only some 2-3 meters. Locating correct amphorae ("if you are not absolutely sure, do not attach that tag!") turned out very difficult and they got only 4 amphorae marked. They were actually worried about finding the ascent line in time. So, the first pair brought back 14 tags to the the second pair. We had better visibility, and located and tagged five amphorae in just 6 minutes. Then things got confusing because the map was not perfect and the first team had made some misleading notes there. Or maybe it was just our nitrogen narcosis that prevented clear thinking, because the notes had looked just fine on the surface. Either way, we tagged only those 5 amphorae, and then rummaged around the dig helplessly chasing our own tail... until mercifully the 20 minutes bell rang.

So, we tagged altogether only 9 amphorae out of 18. We will probably continue from that tomorrow, and hopefully then start practicing with the airlift. Overall plans on the dig change quite often based on circumstances and what each team has achieved/found so far. It is not clear if we have to locate and tag all remaining 9 amphorae in the bow, before we start lifting amphorae to surface. However, only properly marked amphorae will be raised.

In the evening we had very interesting lecture on photogrammetry. We also got to practice it a little bit with given photographs and control point data set. Photogrammetry is a novel way to create 3D-models from given object (e.g., wreck site) just from multiple photos of that object. Each photo should have pretty much overlap will neighboring photos, and there must be a defined set on control points around the object. For good results, you also should have a good (i.e., expensive) camera and very accurate relative locations of those control points.With proper software that data can be processed to something called a point cloud, which in turn can be processed to a 3D-model or a large high definition photomosaic of that object. Or you can create a virtual reality model with proper texturing, so that it would also look like the real thing instead of just a wire model (e.g.). The model can be so accurate, that you can do all object measurements from that data, instead of loitering around a wreck (e.g.) with a tape measure. However, to get exact control point data, you might still have to do in situ measurements. So, an archaeologist carrying (or diving with) a tape measure is not quite passé yet. But almost.

Pre-excavation work and post-dive report

Tuesday 23.8.2016

We will have two trench excavations, one in mid-ship and the other in the bow. The bow area has been excavated before, but it will be redone now better. Today we started to record the current state of both areas before actual excavation begins with airlift. Our task was today to find and locate as many amphora tags as possible in the bow area, record them and photograph/video the tags and the amphorae they are attached to. We located over 20 tags, but some of them only from watching the video afterwards. My GoPro (with Goodman handle) turned out to be quite useful in recording the whole dive, and then writing down all the tags we found from the video. However, this type of post-dive work can be tedious.

We will probably continue pre-excavation recording tomorrow, and then start practicing using the airlift in the bow area. It has lots of new sand on top of the earlier excavation. The sand was placed there to protect the excavated trench from elements. The idea is to excavate, raise amphorae and other finds, and then refill the trench to protect remaining artefacts there. What you can not study now, preserve for the future. Of course that means that now there is just sandbags and loose sand where amphorae used to be. It is not as pretty any more. That new sand seems to be a good place to practice airlift use as there is no big danger of hitting any valuable artefacts immediately...

Trench A divers are collating their pre-excavation work into one comprehensive report. All pictures/videos and other files must be named according to a fixed standard. Tutors are helping and guiding us to keep the report useful for real archaeologists to use tomorrow, or 50 years from now. 

In the evening we collated the results of each team that worked on the same areas. The mid-ship excavation will be the main one, and it is divided into two parts, Trench A and Trench B. We create full daily report in the evening, before we forget anything. It is placed in project files, and then processed by the archaeologists in our project. It was kind of surprising to realize that we 12 technical divers are pretty much the only divers doing the field work. The "old hats" are really there just to help in logistics and guide us to do the work properly. For example, putting together an airlift is done much faster by people who have done it before many times. Anyway, we are the only ones collecting research data. At least until we start raising amphorae and the real archaeologists on board get to do their work on the surface.

We were also shortly introduced to certain software that archaeologists like to use. We should now download them into our laptops, and then hopefully use them soon. Some software is used help in finds documentation, some to stitch together many pictures, and some are used to create photogrammetry point cloud images. We will learn details and practice with them later on.

The days are kind of long. You wake up at 5:30, get back on-shore maybe at 15:30, start lessons and post-dive work at 17:00, eat dinner at 19:30, and go to bed at 22. And yes, this is (so far) a fun way to have vacation.

Tag cleaning and airlift

Monday 22.8.2016

We actually did some useful work already on the 2nd day of diving. Our task was to located tag attached on top of the amphorae, and clean them up with a sponge - just the same yellow sponge with green rough bottom that everyone has in their kitchen to rub pots and pans. I found a dozen tags or so, and one loose tag that I collected. We kept good bookkeeping on all tags that we found and cleaned.

It seems to be a big problem at nautical archaeological sites, that tags either become unreadable, or get loose from the finds. Good tags cost serious money, and even they can become corroded in just a few years of time. You can not use just any material to tie the tags to finds. You need to consider that the ties must not cause corrosion in finds, or that they do not hamper other research by, e.g., introducing metals to the site, etc. On the other hand, lost tags cause plenty of problems in research, and locating, checking, and cleaning them takes also lots of resources and very valuable time. If someone would invent "forever" (even 10, or 30 years) tags and ties for them, there would be serious money to be made in nautical archaeology circles, because cleaning and replacing tags in underwater sites is also very expensive. But, of course, that money is paid by the next project and not this current one...

Bottom time was 20 minutes (with air) and max depth about 43m. Deco was 2 minutes at 12m with air, 6 minutes at 9m with 80% oxygen, and then finally 12 minutes at 6m with pure oxygen. Divers are prompted for their maximum operating depth and bottom time once they advance to the 9m stop, after which they can proceed upwards only when prompted from topside. This is very conservative and safe schedule. I had my own computer set up time to work normally (with gradient factors) this time, and it cleared after the first few minutes at the 6m stop. So, we did something like 8-10 minutes of extra decos. Either way, this is how we do all dives in future during this project. It feels very safe.

We had four divers in the group and we all do the same decos at the same time. If one member (or pair) of the group stays longer than 20 minutes in the bottom, then the whole group will suffer the consequences in longer decos. You would hear from that a long time.

There is a safety diver attached to each group. He monitors us from the surface during the whole dive and especially carefully during the decos. For possible emergencies, we have the rib always available. Today the rib had to run an errand (pick up the fixed airlift head from shore), and dive operations were stopped until the rib came back.

We also helped to put together the other airlift. Airlifts are like giant vacuum cleaners that can be used to suck silt and other materials to access the finds and to expose whatever is underneath. The "engine" is a vertical rigid tube that sits somewhere on top of the dig. Air is pumped to the bottom of that tube, and rising air creates significant water flow towards the surface, and that creates suction. In our case, the tube is some 30m long and 15cm wide. A flexible "hoover" hose is then attached to the bottom, and with that the suction point can be "easily" moved to proper location. Just like at home you have flexible vacuum cleaner hose to reach all all dusty places.

The airlifted material is pumped to a large sieve, that collects all small finds, in addition to any other larger stones and solid dirt. Solid material falls eventually into a "sieve bucket" under the large sieve, and the bucket can then be detached and brought up to the deck to be searched for finds.

Airlift is put together from shorter components and laid down horizontally before it is sunk. There is a diver at each buoy, and they release their buoys from the tube in fixed order, the furthest one first. The air hose from the compressor is already tied to the tube. The tube ends up floating upright, and then you attach the sieve on top, compressor to the air hose and anchor the airlift at proper place in the bottom. 

We were kind of late coming back to the accommodations, and there was not much time for coursework. This time we used only the measurements done yesterday to draw up the measured site on paper. It turned out that we had done all the usual mistakes that we were originally set up to do. The finds were roughly at correct locations, but their shapes were often funny. I guess the idea was that you learn best from your mistakes.

First day on wreck site - checkout dive

Sunday 21.8.2016

First day started promptly very early in the morning. We had staggered departure times from the hotel, at 6:00, 6:20 and 6:40. They were too tight and it took us a few hours to get to Queen Zenobia, which is now semipermanently anchored right on top of the work site. The boat might look large but it gets quite small with 30-some people on-board.

Queen Zenobia is usually catering divers on a little bit newer wreck site, MS Zenobia.

The work today involved actually getting ready to do real work later on. We put together one airlift, which is not as easy as it sounds. It is some 30m long plastic pipe, that needs to be placed vertically on top of the work site. It can break and it can not be bent. The pros did the work and we helped whenever extra hands were needed. We have also another airlift, but the air hose attachment was broken and the airlift could not be installed today. It was actually good, because we run out of time anyway.

Simultaneously we worked on the airlift compressor, which had to be unwrapped and installed properly on the upper deck. We were surprisingly short of tools. A large spanner works equally well as a hammer and as a nail removal tool! Archaeologist are used to working on tight budgets, and they will make do with whatever they have! Another compressor (for the other airlift) also waits for its turn to be unwrapped from its shipping container. Most of our work does not involve diving, and there is lots of waiting.

Finally we students also got into diving. We made a short practice run to the wreck site, and it was great. It is so neat to dive on 2300 years old wreck site. I took some GoPro videos on it, but they probably will stay with the project. We also tested the logistics for fixed line decompression. First deco stop is at 12m with air, then at 9m with 80% O2, and finally at 6m with 100% O2. The deco-gases are delivered from 50L tanks with long hoses from Queen Zenobia. Communication with surface crew is with a plastic writing tablet attached to weights.

At the beginning of the dive I learned, why you should always check your zipper after someone else zips you in. Surprisingly, not everyone knows how an watertight zipper works as it needs to be closed completely. I started to get some water in the suit right after jumping in, but I quickly guessed what must have happened. I just reached out to close the zipper on my back. It was about 1 cm open. That helped, but I did have to dry my underclothes afterwards.

I was on the first boat back to the hotel, and I would have plenty of time to work on my wet diving undergarments and writing this blog before our course work would begin. We have only one key for each room, and a very well defined protocol on how that key will always be found when needed. The system broke down completely, because the last person to leave to the room just put the key in his pocket. Coincidentally, he was also in the last boat from Queen Zenobia back to shore. We had terrible time waiting for him for more than an hour by the poolside...

In the evening with still had practical work on learning to measure a wreck site. This was part of our earlier web-course. We practiced finding 2D-locations for given objects in a wreck site with two different methods, which would also work in poor visibility. Old technology, but still needed sometimes.

Intro day

Saturday 20.8.2016

We all got situated at the Mazotos High View Gardens today. It certainly does not look your normal university project housing, though the apartments are packed full with many extra beds at use. Our lessons are in Mazotos village 1 km away in facilities provided for us by the town.

The intro was very informative and interesting. It was nice to see that also Mark (B-E) was quite excited to be able to dive here, and it is not just us students who feel privileged. Mark introduced the whole team and gave the layout of basic logistics for the fieldschool. For example, they do not let us start using the airlift dredging device on an important archaeology site without us first practicing using it. So, we will go to some other, not so important, site that has loads of sand to be removed from top of the wreck. Hopefully that is also in shallower water, so that our bottom times would be longer.

We were briefed on diving practices, and it came with some surprises. First of all, we all dive with just bottom timers, and not using our dive computers at all. That makes sense, because the site is so clear, and this way you do not need to keep track on individual dive plans. Everyone has the same dive plan every dive.

First you work the site (using air) for 20 minutes, descent time included. That is not much diving work done in one day! We were emphasized to keep that schedule tight. We will be monitored with a ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle), and very much yelled at for even one minute relapses. We do not carry buddy-phones, so I guess howlers are delivered afterwards. All decompression is done with gases provided from surface hoses, with fixed regulators. First you decompress with 80% O2 at 9m for some time, and then with pure O2 at 4-6m for the rest of the time. Use of decompression gases is monitored continuously from topside. Feels straightforward, simple and safe.

Our first dive is tomorrow, and it is a checkup dive on us students. It is only 10 minutes bottom time at the wreck site with no decompression needed on ascent. They want to check our diving, and at the same time familiarize us to the dive logistics and the site. You do not want to spend 5 minutes going down to 44m, and have only 5 minutes to look around. However, if drop down in 1 minute, you might be in steep nitrogen narcosis once you get to the wreck, and then not remember anything you see there for the next 5 minutes. Moderation is good also in descent speed. Two minutes descent time would be perfect.

We dive early. We leave the hotel in three groups, first group starting at 6:00. And they call this a vacation! The weather is usually calm in the morning and then we have plenty of time for other work and studies.

Stella (D) introduced us to the site, its importance, and the previous work done there so far. The importance is important, because you need to have good justification to work on any archaeological site instead of just leaving it alone. They have so far raised 126 amphoras, and there are maybe some 670 left. We might raise some of them in our excavations.

We will dig one trench in the middle of the wreck. That part of the wreck has not been studied much so far. The other trench will be reopening the bow trench done earlier, and redo the photogrammetry work there, with new better methods. At the same, we can monitor how well the covered trench has survived for a few years, and thus evaluate the in situ site protection method used. Initially they were thinking of doing three trenches, but I guess that was deemed too challenging. It is likely that we can not even complete these two trenches this year, and there will be work left for many years to come.

Stella was clearly a little bit worried, that our fieldschool will hamper her archaeological dig objectives. In her point of view, it would better for us just do the archaeological work, and more of it instead of getting an education at the same time. I can understand that. Either way, this fieldschool is kind of an experiment to see, whether this type of project with both archaeological and educational objectives will work out. In aspite of her worrying, Stella is clearly in on educating us very well during the fieldschool!

Afterwards we ate a real nice dinner in local tavern. We had one long table for over 30 people. The food was simple, very tasty, and there was plenty of it. It will be nice to have one good meal every day. Of course, the meal would have tasted even better with some local vine, but you can not have everything. Water is just fine...

Overall, the fieldschool had a very good start. All the people are very friendly, and there is neat positive feeling all around. This should be fun. We will get some interesting and important work done, and get an education at the same time.

Acclimation at Zenobia

Friday 19.8.2016

Jouni and me have been acclimating to diving in Cyprus by diving at Zenobia wreck for almost a week. We have come here to dive Zenobia for many years in a row, and it was especially nice to do it also now before the fieldschool. After all, we would not be here unless Sheri from Dive-In Larnaca would have posted that newspaper article in Facebook. Last two days we were joined by Christopher Drew, who is also coming to the fieldschool starting tomorrow.

We dived with Dive-In Larnaca, of course. Chris there was especially happy to see us (go?), as you can see from his photobombing my picture on our last day there. I was wondering, why Jouni insisted on taking more pictures after the one I asked for... For good reason: this was the best of them all!

Chris Demetriou from Dive-In Larnaca, Teemu

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Friday 12.8.2016

Fieldschool 2016 has also its own blog. It will get daily updates during the fieldschool.

Blog website: https://archcyprus16.wordpress.com

Course schedule

Tuesday 9.8.2016

We will stay at Highview Gardens Apartments, which looks quite nice. However, due to tight schedule, we do not have much leisure time to spend there. We make our breakfasts in each apartment and eat it there. We are provided breakfast items somehow. Then we dive every morning, and have sandwich lunches on the dive site whenever we have a chance to eat it. Afterwards, we maintain the dive gear and move back to the hotel. In the (late?) afternoons and early evenings we have lectures and other practical work in Highview Gardens, and finally late in the evening we eat dinner together at a local tavern in Mazotos village. Repeat this for 15 days, and then we are all cooked well done. There will be some days off with no diving to off-gas, so that your body can recover completely from deep dives.

It takes some time just to get to the Mazotos dive site. First we take a 15 minute car ride to Alaminos Harbour, We have some cars for the project. From the harbour we take a rib (rigid inflatable boat) to get to a larger boat anchored on top of the work site. The rib is kind of small, and we do not all fit into it at once. Several trips are needed each way. The boat ride will be some 4-5 miles, and it takes us at least 15 minutes to get to the work site. Altogether, it will take 1-2 hours for all of us to get to the dive site from the hotel. Dive operations probably last 3-4 hours. And then another 1-2 hours to get back. All this to work on the dive site for maybe half an hour or so!

MARELab's rib Andreas Ioannides
(https://ucy.ac.cy/marelab/en/education) 

We keep most of the dive gear in the boat on top of the work site for the whole fieldcourse duration. I do not know, but I would guess that tanks can be filled up there also. We would need a compressor for air and a booster system for oxygen. A booster can boost the lower pressure oxygen in large 50 liter O2-tanks to 200bar pressure needed for our decompression tanks. A normal compressor can be used only for gases containing max 40% oxygen, and that is not suitable for pure oxygen. Oxygen fill-ups are slow, because for safety reasons the maximum gas flow should be only 50 liters/min, and even the smaller 7 liter decompression tanks hold 1400 liters of oxygen. However, they might be only half empty after each dive. If the compressor and the booster are not stored in the vessel on top of the work site, we will have significant extra logistics transporting the tanks to the onshore fill-up station.

The 1st dive is on Sunday, and it will be an introduction to the work site. On Monday we practice tagging artefacts and taking notes. All the rest of dives are marked "photographing and excavating". We are split into 3 groups of 4 students, and each group will do their own excavation, under guidance from the professionals. That will include documenting it thoroughly with photographs and drawings before, during and after the excavation.

Lectures will cover topics like UW (underwater) Archaeological Photography, UW Excavation, Photogrammetry, and Shipwreck Archaeology. All lectures are from real experts in the field. Practical work will include hands-on practice with (e.g.) Finds Tagging, Pottery Recording, Artefact Drawing and Artefact Photography. Each group will also make a presentation on the results of their own excavation.

The real scientific work begins only after our fieldschool, when the finds are preserved and maybe displayed, conclusions are made, and the results published in peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and conferences. That will take years, and is the work for professionals. Our job is to help out in collecting basic data on which science can be made. Depending on your point of view, uw excavation can be the fun part, or the grunt work.

Which diving gases to use for archaeological work in 45m depth?

Friday 5.8.2016

We are going to dive with "back gas" air, and "deco gas" pure oxygen (O2). This means that during the normal dive we breath plain compressed air, and during the last 6m on ascent we use pure oxygen. Term back gas comes from the fact that (usually) we carry that gas on our backs in two 12 liter 200 bar tanks. The decompression gas is carried in a separate 11 liter (and 200 bar) tank hanging in front under left elbow. This is not quite what I expected, but it is a workable solution. Better solutions do exist, but I guess they would be too expensive or too difficult to organize.

The basic solution (Air + O2) has a few consequences. First of all, plain air has about 79% nitrogen, and than tends to be slightly narcotic already starting at 30m depths. At 45m depth the narcotic effect is such that you must take it into consideration for all divers. Doing simple things will become difficult. For example, just making a simple bowline ("paalusolmu" in Finnish) requires lots of concentration and time even if you can do it in a few seconds on surface. If you just learned how to do it on surface, it might be really difficult to remember how to do it at 45m. Tasks for such divers must be really simple: go there, do this and then this, and finally come back.

You could alleviate this nitrogen narcosis problem if you would use nitrox as your back gas. Nitrox is enriched air, where some of the nitrogen is replaced with oxygen. For example, Nx28 has 28% oxygen and 72% nitrogen. With that, you could dive to 40m, and it would have the same narcotic effect as diving with air to 35m. The trouble with nitrox is, that when you put in more oxygen then your maximum operating depth will decrease. After such depth limit oxygen will become poisonous. So, for 45m depth your oxygen content can be no more than 25%, and that gives you very little gain as compared to plain air. Narcotic effect of Nx25 at 45m is equal to that of plain air at 42m. That does not help you very much. It is like the difference between having 6 or 7 beers.

Another advantage with nitrox is the effect on your ascent time. Just 25 minutes diving with air at 45m depth would (with certain other settings) give you in 67 minutes of ascent time. With Nx25 the ascent time is cut to 49 minutes. That is clearly less and it also reduces the total amount of consumed gas significantly. It is especially nice because the back gas tanks would not last for 67 minutes.

Having O2 for decompression will speed up ascent significantly. With air as back gas, ascent time would be reduced from 67 minutes to 36 minutes. With Nx25 back gas, ascent time would be reduced from 49 minutes to 30 minutes. So, with pure oxygen for decompression, using air as back gas (as compared to Nx25) will cost you only 6 minutes of ascent time. That is tolerable. However, if you lose your own O2 gas for any reason, your do not have enough back gas to decompress safely. That would ruin your whole day. So, you need to have extra O2 tanks staged somewhere on the ascent line, just in case.

How else could you reduce nitrogen contents, when you can not increase oxygen proportion too much? You could use helium, and such mixture of helium, oxygen and nitrogen is called trimix. For example Tx20/40 would have 20% oxygen and 40% helium, and only 40% nitrogen. Helium is not narcotic, and diving with such trimix at 45m would feel like diving with air at 28m. You could do a bowline with your eyes closed.

Why would we then not use trimix? There are three reasons: cost, training and making it. First, trimix is expensive. Such mixes cost like 50-150€ per dive, when plain air costs some 5-10€. Multiply that by 20 divers per dive, and you start talking real money. Using trimix requires more training than using nitrox, and the requirements for participating this fieldschool did not include a trimix certificate.

Making trimix requires a special skill called gas blending, and that might make logistics difficult. You also need to have a special gas blending site suitable for making trimix, and blending gases properly takes time. It is so much simpler just to pump plain air in your tanks. You can run such compressor anywhere. The same reasoning applies also to nitrox, even though it is easier to blend than trimix. Both require handling of pure oxygen, which by itself requires strict safety protocols to be followed.

Why are we using pure oxygen for decompression. I would personally rather use of 50% oxygen, which would result to slightly smaller ascent times than with O2. You could start using the decompression gas earlier and it would also avoid the sudden oxygen concentration jump from plain air to O2.

Even better solution might be to carry both 50% oxygen and pure oxygen tanks for decompression, one under each elbow. However, having so many tanks of front of you might become cumbersome while working on the site. It might be better to stage both decompression gases somewhere close to the ascent line, and then pick them up before starting the ascent.

But again, making 50% oxygen requires gas blending. Topping up O2 tanks from larger O2-containers is much simpler. Also, using just one decompression gas is simpler than using two, and requires less training.

Summa summarum, we will be using air as back gas and pure oxygen for decompression. Both gases are easy to fill up, and relatively cheap. Our ascent times are reasonable.  We will all be in slight narcosis while working at 43-45m depths, but hopefully we are not asked to do anything requiring deep thinking, like tying a knot. We are strongly discouraged from drinking alcohol during the fieldschool, but I guess we all will get our kicks from sipping nitrogen at 45m instead.

Taking photographs and videos on site

Wednesday 3.8.2016

I was planning to take GoPro Hero to the Mazotos, and use them to expand my YouTube video collection and maybe take some still photographs also. Maybe not this time.

We were advised that all recreational photography is very restricted. We can take photos and videos while on site, but they all belong to and are copyrighted to the project. Images will be downloaded to project servers after each day, and the deleted from the camera memory cards. We need special permissions from the archaeological director to keep any of the them.

In a way I can understand this. The project wants to keep a tight lid on how and when to publicize the photographs, videos and other deliverables of the project. Images can be worth something, at least in a way of creating goodwill and interest in further funding. And of course, low quality images will reduce interest and hurt future funding. Also, it could be that the funding agencies for current project want to be able to use the images for their own commercial use. Those who pay, they can say.

Either way, I hope I will get permissions to bring home at least some of the photographs/videos that I will take on the site.

Mazotos wreck, Maritime Archaeological Research Laboratory, Univ of Cyprus.
(https://ucy.ac.cy/marelab/en/research/mazotos-shipwreck)