Writer seeing information about Shipwrecks & Artifacts
Hello, my name is Eric Haury. I am a writer of fiction. You wouldn’t have heard of anything I’ve written. But I am currently researching a new project, and some of what I need to research involves shipwrecks and salvage.
I was a bit hesitant to post to this board, since the treasure part of underwater salvage is not the focus of my research. I’m more interested in the rigging than in and bullion found. Still, a glance ant your Shipwrecks sub-board shows a generous allowance to question in the general subject of shipwrecks. And I have questions involving knives and plates, and the like, which should make my question defensible as treasure-based.
Just so you know, the story I am researching is a mermaid novel. But what I am trying to do is take mermaids as we tend to see them – fish tail, but human upper body, etc. And put those unrealistic creatures in a rigidly realistic oceanic environment. So no castles at the bottom of a sea somehow blessed with an infinite euphotic zone. And one thing I want them to do is to scavenge from human shipwrecks and also to trade with humans – keeping the artifacts underwater and thus subject them to the same conditions as items that are found in a shipwreck. Well, except that the mermaids would use the objects instead of having them only sit around collecting silt.
Basically what I want to ask you underwater Treasure hunters is how long different materials survive underwater. And also **how** they degrade. What do they look like, feel like, at different times in the process? And what would disturbing the objects and/or taking them out of the water to them? Since many of you have gone to new wrecks and old ones, you many have a sense of how things change over time. (Because the setting is the equivalent of 1700s Europe, some of the materials would be a bit archaic).
So what I want to find out about is:
—Cloths: Linen, silk, cotton, wool, canvas even, and any other pre-industrial cloth I’m not thinking of. Because, I will have one mermaid who likes to wear human clothing, how long are such clothe wearable? (I doubt many of you have tired wearing clothes found in a shipwreck, but any guesses?)
—Sacks, used to carry things when traveling.
—Wooden chests & lockboxes
—Leather
—Wood in general. Untreated by tar or treated by tar – or another preservative.
—Baskets woven form plant material, wicker etc.
—Metal in general –iron and steel --and knives in particular.
—Bottles. Not just the glass itself but the cork. Can they survive holding their original contents?
—Barrels
—Broken glass. Can
—Ceramics, dishes and cups especially.
—Rope (Non-synthetic)
—String
—Keys & locks – how long can a key and a lock be underwater before they stop working?
Also, what about the general degradation of the ship. How a ship goes down must affect how it decays, but re thee any guidelines for what decays and what falls apart first? Any good picture I could be directed to?
And finally, can you think of any objects that you commonly find in older shipwrecks that could be used as weapons/cutting tools or as containers that someone could swim with that one normally wouldn’t think of as being a cutting tool or a container?
I recognize that some of these subjects are vague. Different conditions could really effect things. One thought I have is that my mermaids will bury their precious possessions in sand by where they dwell to further protect them. So if they started in sand to begin with, this would make them last longer intrinsically (right?). Also, since this isn’t the 1700s, none of you have been to a 1700s shipwreck that was only a few years or decades old. You would have seen modern wrecks with different materials or older wrecks (like 18th century ones). Still, no everything about ships have changed.
Whatever answers you can give me from your expertise hunting for treasure in shipwrecks, If you can think of materials I have forgotten, don’t limit yourself to what I’ve asked. I would be grateful. If you have reasonable guesses based on comparable knowledge, let me know they’re guesses, but I’ll be gad to listen. If you can’t answer any question but can direct me to a person who could (and seems likely to be interested in doing so) or a relevant book or web site that a non-expert could understand, I would be grateful for that as well.
Thank you all for any help you are able to give.
Hello, my name is Eric Haury. I am a writer of fiction. You wouldn’t have heard of anything I’ve written. But I am currently researching a new project, and some of what I need to research involves shipwrecks and salvage.
I was a bit hesitant to post to this board, since the treasure part of underwater salvage is not the focus of my research. I’m more interested in the rigging than in and bullion found. Still, a glance ant your Shipwrecks sub-board shows a generous allowance to question in the general subject of shipwrecks. And I have questions involving knives and plates, and the like, which should make my question defensible as treasure-based.
Just so you know, the story I am researching is a mermaid novel. But what I am trying to do is take mermaids as we tend to see them – fish tail, but human upper body, etc. And put those unrealistic creatures in a rigidly realistic oceanic environment. So no castles at the bottom of a sea somehow blessed with an infinite euphotic zone. And one thing I want them to do is to scavenge from human shipwrecks and also to trade with humans – keeping the artifacts underwater and thus subject them to the same conditions as items that are found in a shipwreck. Well, except that the mermaids would use the objects instead of having them only sit around collecting silt.
Basically what I want to ask you underwater Treasure hunters is how long different materials survive underwater. And also **how** they degrade. What do they look like, feel like, at different times in the process? And what would disturbing the objects and/or taking them out of the water to them? Since many of you have gone to new wrecks and old ones, you many have a sense of how things change over time. (Because the setting is the equivalent of 1700s Europe, some of the materials would be a bit archaic).
So what I want to find out about is:
—Cloths: Linen, silk, cotton, wool, canvas even, and any other pre-industrial cloth I’m not thinking of. Because, I will have one mermaid who likes to wear human clothing, how long are such clothe wearable? (I doubt many of you have tired wearing clothes found in a shipwreck, but any guesses?)
—Sacks, used to carry things when traveling.
—Wooden chests & lockboxes
—Leather
—Wood in general. Untreated by tar or treated by tar – or another preservative.
—Baskets woven form plant material, wicker etc.
—Metal in general –iron and steel --and knives in particular.
—Bottles. Not just the glass itself but the cork. Can they survive holding their original contents?
—Barrels
—Broken glass. Can
—Ceramics, dishes and cups especially.
—Rope (Non-synthetic)
—String
—Keys & locks – how long can a key and a lock be underwater before they stop working?
Also, what about the general degradation of the ship. How a ship goes down must affect how it decays, but re thee any guidelines for what decays and what falls apart first? Any good picture I could be directed to?
And finally, can you think of any objects that you commonly find in older shipwrecks that could be used as weapons/cutting tools or as containers that someone could swim with that one normally wouldn’t think of as being a cutting tool or a container?
I recognize that some of these subjects are vague. Different conditions could really effect things. One thought I have is that my mermaids will bury their precious possessions in sand by where they dwell to further protect them. So if they started in sand to begin with, this would make them last longer intrinsically (right?). Also, since this isn’t the 1700s, none of you have been to a 1700s shipwreck that was only a few years or decades old. You would have seen modern wrecks with different materials or older wrecks (like 18th century ones). Still, no everything about ships have changed.
Whatever answers you can give me from your expertise hunting for treasure in shipwrecks, If you can think of materials I have forgotten, don’t limit yourself to what I’ve asked. I would be grateful. If you have reasonable guesses based on comparable knowledge, let me know they’re guesses, but I’ll be gad to listen. If you can’t answer any question but can direct me to a person who could (and seems likely to be interested in doing so) or a relevant book or web site that a non-expert could understand, I would be grateful for that as well.
Thank you all for any help you are able to give.
