Laser Scanning the Alexandria, VA Ships for 3D Digital Reconstruction

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Current Research at Texas A&M University's Conservation Research Laboratory" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In early 2018 three ships were discovered during construction along Alexandria, Virginia’s historic waterfront. These three ship remnants were likely scuttled and dismantled in the late 18th, early 19th centuries to be used in banking out efforts to expand the City of Alexandria to bring the shore closer to the deep channel to ease shipping. The ship timbers were recorded in situ and subsequently disarticulated, removed, and stored in the city’s old bus warehouse. As a result of having been purposely destroyed, the three wrecks retain none of their historic context. To better understand the construction or these ships, nautical archaeologists from Texas A&M University’s Conservation Research Laboratory were hired by the City of Alexandria Archaeology in 2019-2020 to laser scan each of the approximately 1,000 disarticulated ship timbers to digitally reconstruct the ships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Research at Texas A&M University's Conservation Research Laboratory   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology