Survey techniques in underwater archaeology

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The land archaeologist is, in most instances, helped by the topography of the ground; there are generally good reasons for believing a certain area to be of archaeological interest and the irregularities of the ground will give him leads as to where he should dig. The underwater archaeologist may have no such indications on which to base his search, especially if he is interested in finding a well-preserved ancient wreck. Shallow wrecks can often be found near dangerous rocks but such wrecks are liable to be broken up by succeeding storms with the result that they have little or no interest to the marine archaeologist. There are three ways in which ancient wrecks may be discovered. Amateur or professional divers find sunken ships in the course of other diving activities. For instance in the eastern Mediterranean hundreds of sponge divers have been active during many years and have covered large underwater areas visually. This has resulted in the accurate positioning of many wrecks. The divers involved have in most instances not precisely pin-pointed the wreck position and although the general area is known they have to be refound. Secondly, the possible existence of wrecks have been suggested by trawler operators either working for fish or sponges. Amphora and in exceptional instances bronzes have been found in their nets. These will give approximate positions and again precise location must be accomplished by other methods. The third approach to finding ancient sunken ships is by searching large areas in the blind hope that something of interest will be found. Unfortunately the sea is very large! Even when using methods having a wide sweep, such as sonar, the time and effort involved make this approach almost impossible except in confined areas where there are reasons to believe that wrecks would have occurred.