Conservation plays a crucial role in maritime archaeology, ensuring the preservation of submerged cultural heritage, including shipwrecks, cargo, and other artifacts that lie beneath the water. The role of conservation can be broken down into several key aspects:
- Preventing Deterioration: Underwater environments, especially saltwater, can accelerate the degradation of materials like wood, metal, and textiles. Conservation practices, such as stabilizing materials, help prevent further deterioration of these artifacts once they are recovered.
- Long-term Preservation: After artifacts are recovered from the water, they need to be carefully treated and stored in controlled environments to prolong their lifespan. This includes processes like desalination, drying, and sometimes chemical treatments to remove harmful salts or bacteria.
- Documentation: Conservators work closely with archaeologists to document the exact condition of the artifacts and track changes over time. This documentation is essential for both preservation and understanding the context in which the items were found.
- Restoration: In some cases, conservators may restore artifacts to a certain degree, making them stable enough to be displayed in museums or used for further research. Restoration can be a delicate process, as it aims to retain as much of the artifact’s original integrity as possible while ensuring its survival.
- Preventing Looting and Damage: Conservation also involves efforts to prevent the loss of artifacts due to illegal looting or environmental factors like storms. This often includes monitoring and protecting sites and artifacts in situ (in their original location) before they are excavated.
- Ethical Considerations: Conservation in maritime archaeology also involves addressing ethical concerns about how artifacts should be handled, who has the right to access and study them, and how they should be presented to the public, particularly in the case of human remains or culturally sensitive materials.