10/4/18 Report - Sheathing on Early Ships. Treasure Coast Beaches. Erosion at One Beach.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

With the rougher surf we've been having lately, I've been checking the beaches more often for you.  Very little has changed.  Even though the surf has been bigger, the waves have been hitting consistently from the east.  As a result, we've had almost no erosion.

There is still seaweed and the beaches are pretty mushy.  At John Brooks, and I suspect elsewhere, there was a little more scalloping.  

The surf this morning didn't look any more than six feet to me.  Maybe it will get higher later.  

Surf This Morning a Little Before Low Tide.

I just looked at three beaches on South Hutchinson Island this morning.

Breaking Swells.

At Fort Pierce South Jetty Park, there was some erosion and one fellow was metal detecting.  There were a good number of coins and a few other things.

Erosion South of Fort Pierce Jetty.

As I mentioned the other day, you can find erosion around rocks and other obstructions.

This sand is new renourishment sand but still there were good numbers of coins.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Leslie is still hanging around but won't affect us much, other than sending some more of the same.

The system down by Central America could come up into the Gulf.  That remains to be seen.

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Two Large Crumpled Pieces of Copper Sheathing Dug on the Treasure Coast.

I've talked about sheathing used on ships before and wanted to post something I found in a book I've been reading -  Six Galleons for the King of Spain by Carla Phillips.

… To protect against shipworms, tarred cloth and a thin layer of lead sheathing were often nailed to the hull below the water line.  As a final step, the entire hull was coasted with a  mixture of tar and some of grease...

I've talked about the transitions in sheathing before and I've shown some dug lead sheathing as well.  It is not uncommon for cloth marks to be found on the lead.

The six ships discussed in this book were built between 1625 and 1628.

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We're still supposed to have more high surf, but I'm not expecting much improvement in beach detecting conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@ comcast.net

11/15/17 Report - Artifact Research Process: Thoughts and Considerations. Example of a Lead Find. Three Days of North Wind.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Lead Found by Darrel S. A Couple Days Ago
Photo by Darrel S.

We're supposed to have three days of north wind.  The surf will be three to five feet, but the swells have a bit of a north/northeasterly direction.  That is the thing that could make it interesting even though I wish the surf was bigger.

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You might be asking yourself why I am showing this piece of lead again.  That is a good question.  The answer is that it gives me an opportunity to discuss my approach to researching finds.

If you dug up this piece of metal you might quickly conclude that it is junk and toss it, or you might respond very differently and quickly conclude that is something more exciting - maybe the lead lining of a treasure chest.  If you are on a TV treasure hunting show, you might be more PT Barnum than archaeologist, in which case you would hold it up and breathlessly announce that it is definitely from a treasure chest, and you know that is true because you've found hundreds of them before.  No matter if you are on a TV show or not, you might hope that it is something exciting and jump to the first exciting conclusion that comes to mind.  The fact is that it can be really difficult to be sure what an item like this is, so what I am going to try to present today is a very thoughtful, systematic, almost scientific way of proceeding that might be slow but will give you a good chance of coming up with a very good conclusion. The process of unraveling the identity, meaning and significance of a find can be a lot of fun as well as very informative.

It is a natural tendency to jump to a conclusion based upon your current knowledge, understanding or hopes, and then do everything you can to support that conclusion.   The key to what I am suggesting today is avoid jumping to quick conclusions, but rather to question everything, seek evidence, and carefully consider whatever the evidence might suggest.  It is better to start with questions rather than conclusions.  Ask yourself a lot of questions and carefully weigh the evidence as it is discovered.

I'm thinking of one item I found that I posted in this blog years ago.  I've changed my mind about that item a number of times, but now I feel about 95% confident that I know what it is.  It took a long time to get there and I changed my mind ( that means "learned something" ) a number of times.  When you learn something significant it will often cause you to change your mind.

Back to the lead item at the top of the post.  Could it be the lining to a treasure chest?  ( No one ever said that it was, I'm just using that as an example.)  I doubt it.  Why?  Lead-lined treasure chests have been found before, but according to what I've read, that is not how the coins on the 1715 Fleet were shipped.

The Cargo of Coins Aboard Nuestra Señora de Atocha, or “The Treasure Chest Defined” is an article written by Corey Malcom reprinted online from The Navigator: Newsletter of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, Vol.16 No.5, June, 2001.  Here is an excerpt from that article.

 From impressions seen on both the coin masses and the interiors of the chests, the coins were put into cloth bags before being boxed. The fabric appears to have been a plainweave of fairly large, crude thread, yielding a cloth quite similar to burlap. Unfortunately, none of the actual material survived. Other examples of shipwrecked coin chests are rare - in fact, only one other has been found. An example from the 1715 Nueva España fleet was recovered in 1965 off Florida’s east coast. This crate was also of a simple design, and had dimensions comparable to those from the Atocha. A length of 54.0 cm, a width of 28.5 cm, a height of 27.8 cm, and a plank thickness of 2.5 cm yielded a chest with a storage capacity of 0.026 cubic meters (0.91 cu. ft.) - approximately 60% greater than the 1622 examples. It had no apparent decoration, hinges, or lock. Somewhat differently, its sides were not beveled, but flat. No data is available for the coins carried inside. All in all though, there appears to have been little evolution in the manner of shipping coins...

What, if any part of that, applies to the lead find shown above?  The article seems to suggest to me that the treasure chests, or coin crates, on the 1715 Fleet were not lined with lead.  Could there possibly be any exceptions?  I would think so.  Who said this was from a typical coin chest?  Might the hypothetical treasure chest be a passenger's personal chest and therefore be different from the typical coin chest?  Again, I think that is possible, however I would also guess that finding something like that would be less likely than finding something from one of the many coin chests stored as cargo.  However, I have not presented any evidence that it would have anything to do with a treasure chest or anything like that.

Dr. Lori on the Oak Island TV show suggested that a metal plate with holes in it could be from a treasure chest and everyone seemed to be very impressed.  There was no analysis or evidence presented at that time.  Maybe there will be some in the future.  We'll see.

For more of the Malcom article, here is the link.

http://www.melfisher.org/pdf/The_Treasure_Chest_Defined_Atocha.pdf

Now that we've considered one hypothetical idea and done a little research relative to that, lets consider another idea.  Could it be hull-sheathing?

We know that lead hull sheathing was used and you can see examples in the Mel Fisher artifact database.  Lets look at what an authority has to say about lead hull-sheathing to see if we can learn anything.

Lead Hull-Sheathing of the Santa Margarita is another article authored by Corey Malcom and reprinted online from The Navigator: Newsletter of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, Vol. 16, No. 1 December, 2000/January, 2001.

Here is an excerpt.

Lead sheet in one form or another has been found on other Spanish vessels roughly contemporary to the Santa Margarita. The wrecks of the 1554 fleet found along Padre Island, Texas; the 1618 Honduran fleet’s San Martín, wrecked on Florida’s East coast; the mid-1500’s St. John’s wreck, the 1559 Emanuel Point wreck in Pensacola Bay, and the wrecks of the 1715 Nueva España fleet, have all produced lead sheet which was being used to cover seams, patch holes, or guard against shipworms. The sheet from these sites is generally described as similar to that from the Santa Margarita - thin, with a cloth impression - indicating that it was all used, or created in a comparable manner...  

Here is more from the same article.

The recovered lead bears many holes pierced by the fasteners that held it in place. Though none of the fasteners has survived (likely due to the aforementioned electrolysis) these holes, along with impressions in the lead, reveal the type that was used and the density of their spacing. The tacks that held the sheets to the hull had broad heads of 22mm diameter, and shanks 5mm square. They were spaced at 5-10 centimeters, with their placement tending toward the edges. The direction from which the tacks pierced the lead show that the sheets were placed with the cloth impression toward the hull, leaving a smooth exposed surface that was less friendly to adhering organisms. 

You can read more of that article if you want.  Here is the link.

http://www.melfisher.org/pdf/Lead_Sheathing_from_Santa_Margarita.pdf

Now we have some information that we can use to analyze the lead find.  If we were holding the item we could look for holes near the edge, measure the size, spacing etc.

If you look at the photo you can see what might be a cloth impression.  The reason I picked that photo is that is shows the cloth impression.  The impression could esaily be over-looked or thought to be insignificant.

Some people think the impression lead sheathing was made by the lead being installed on the hull over a layer of cloth.  Other people think the impression has to do with how the lead sheets were manufactured.  In either case, we can see what appears to be a cloth impression.  If you have any interest in this at all, I would recommend reading the entire article.

Some peope will say all of this is unnecessary.  They might be able to look at the item and immediately know what it is.  If they can do that, they have previously accumulated the necessary knowledge through long experience.  That is great, but when you are unsure, a research thorough research process is necessary. And I would encourage anyone to avoid being "too" sure, and continuing to learn and see if there is anything they can add to their knowledge.

One book on artifacts ( I had the reference here earlier but lost track of it somehow ) strongly makes the point that in the 18th century, items were used and repurposed and reused time and time again.  That would certainly be true of lead.  It could be used for a lot of things and it can be very difficult to say what it was last used for.  If it was sheathing, it could be kept for a variety of other purposes including being melted to make lead shot or fishing sinkers.

What I tried to do today was give you some idea of the slow process of researching a find rather than jumping to rash conclusions without sufficient continuing research.  The individual resources and facts were only presented to illustrate the process.

I know that some of you will find very little if anything new or interesting in this post, but I hope some of you benefit from what I tried to show of the long slow process of researching a find.

Disciplined research and thorough analysis can be key to unlocking treasure mysteries, while jumping to premature conclusions, no matter how exciting they might seem, can delay or prevent the solution.  I highly recommend an analytical scientific approach.


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I'm eager to see what three days of north wind will do.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/18/2011 - Blackbeard's Sword & Lead Sheathing

Bleackbeard's Sword?

Photo by Wendy Welsh of the North Carolina Board of Cultural Resources.

Nobody knows and probably never will know if this is Blackbeard's sword. That is part of the fun and frustration of digging up old stuff. It is almost always a mystery. The best you can do is take all of the clues you can find into account and figure out which scenario best fits the evidence.

Often it is a matter of context. What other things did you find and are they related to the other things you've found in any way? Still there is a lot of conjecture.

After you take into account everything you've learned about what you found, you might have a good idea about where to look next and what you might expect to find. When your predictions are proved time after time, you might conclude that your hypotheses are right. Nonetheless, always be open to new evidence and be ready and willing to change your mind when that seems warranted.

Here is the link to the National Geographic web site where you will find more pictures of the sword.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/pictures/110112-pirate-blackbeards-sword-shipwreck-queen-annes-revenge-science-treasure/?now=2011-01-12-00:01

That is one neat find. And I would guess that it was recovered with the support of generous and hard working tax-payers who seldom get the recognition they deserve.


I just read a report on the "Lead-Sheathed Wreck." I was interested in learning a little more about exactly how lead was used to sheath ships of the colonial period.

I learned a number of things. One thing that I didn't know before is that a type of concrete was used for ballast on ships like the Margarita.

You might find this eight-page archaeological report interesting. Here is the link.

http://194.65.130.238/media/uploads/revistaportuguesadearqueologia/2_1/14.pdf



If you find dead birds, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission would like to know. Here is a link to their web site for reporting dead birds.

http://myfwc.com/bird/


Yesterday I mentioned that I was checking out one of my old detectors in my back yard and was reminded of a couple things that should be kept in mind.

Among the lovely items I found in my back yard was about twenty nails that were found in a few square feet. I think I might have dropped them not too long ago. Anyhow, after picking up the twenty odd nails, I found another nail at a deeper layer that was definitely from an earlier time period than the ones I found first. I was tempted to quit digging up the more recent nails a couple of times, but kept on digging until I got them all.

Although the older nail was not any great prize, it did illustrate how junk can hide older items. Sometimes you might say that junk actually protects older items.

I was reminded of one place that I used to hunt where there was once an old fort. The area was now a picnic area and was covered with a thick layer of pull tabs that served as sufficient deterrent to most detectorists. As a result, if you had the patience, you could find musket balls and other old stuff hidden under the junk.

Surface trash generally gives loud signals that tend to mask deeper targets. Once you clean out the surface trash you'll start to hear the softer deeper signals. But until you remove the items that give loud signals, you will not hear some of the softer signals from deeper targets. At least that seems to be the true for me.

Another thing I learned is that history repeats. Here is a simple backyard example.

I've been thinking of building a brick barbecue pit out back. When I was using my detector I dug up pieces of an old grill in the same spot that I was going to build mine. I guess the people that originally built this house saw it the same way I did. That is the way it goes.

If there is a spot that looks good for a picnic, swimming, a boat ramp, a camp, or whatever, there is a good chance that somebody else saw it the same way at an earlier time in history. That is something to remember when you are out scouting around for a new spot to detect. And as I said yesterday, it's not a bad thing to do when your regular spots aren't producing.


Forecast and Conditions.

The wind is out of the west and the seas are calm. The seas will only be about three feet or less for the next few days. That means no significant change in conditions.

The west wind might also give you a chance to get a little further out at low tide.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@oomcast.net