Rediscovering Airship Artifacts

Summary

USS Macon, the last large Navy airship, was lost along with the bi-planes it carried off the Coast of California in 1935. The wreck site was discovered in 1990 and surveyed in 1991, 1992, and 2006. Before the site was included within the boundaries of the Monterrey Bay National Marine Sanctuary a small diagnostic recovery effort was made and several artifacts were brought up, conserved, and then distributed to museums around the US. Twenty years later, that information is lost - it is unknown how and in what condition the artifacts arrived in the museums and not only what the conservation process was, but how it has held up over the years. This session describes rediscovering the life of underwater aviation archaeology artifacts from recovery to present day, as well as current documentation efforts, 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry, and the relevance of all these efforts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• It’s All in the Details: Examples of How Focused Study Can Help Tell a Story   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 485