Big Kid...and your point is? Conservation cost money. Most of the major artifacts like the Enfield rifles, bayonetts, swords, were conserved at the time. The stuff that wasn't includes thousands of nails, tacks, and a variety of other small objects. I'm not saying these aren't important, but nevertheless, I think such was often the case back in the early days of Scuba diving. In a perfect world everything should have been conserved, but we don't live in a perfect world. People just didn't know back then what we know today. Look at how many cannons were recovered in the Florida Keys and just left along the roadside. Sure they looked cool for a while, but without proper preservation eventually crumble to dust. There have been tremendous advancements in conservation over the past 20-25 years.
It is a shame these artifacts have been sitting in wet storage for 50 years, but don't think the article does justice to what types of artifacts they are...relatively common items. At the same time, think this is quite common practice. I know an old treasure hunter who pulled up some anchors and cannons off a wreck 30 years ago...they are still sitting in a canal behind his house.
The article fails to mention how and by whom the bulk of the artifacts were recovered. Once recovered, you can't just put them back on the wreck. This recovery happened pre-NC Underwater Archaeology Unit. Still, many of the artifacts were conserved. The collection was studied... Publications were generated including the outstanding work The Blockade Runner Modern Greece and Her Cargo by Leslie Bright and many of the artifacts are on display at various museums for the general public to view.
The Modern Greece, Ranger, Condor and other Civil War vessels like the USS Picket, USS Peterhoff, USS Iron Age and others have been used as a training ground for underwater archaeology students at East Carolina for years. I have dove them all and much can still be learned from these wrecks. The USS Peterhoff was actually the first shipwreck to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Anyway, the article is a little misleading.
It is not like everything was hauled up by archaeologist, put in a shed, never conserved, never studied and never again to see the light of day.
Here is some additional information on the Modern Greece:
1862. British iron-hulled screw-propeller steamer Modern Greece, 1,000-tons, owned by Z.C. Pearson & Company, bound for Wilmington carrying a cargo consisting of 1,000 tons of gunpowder, 7,000 Enfield rifles, whiskey, clothing and miscellaneous military and civilian supplies, was run ashore by the U.S.S. Cambridge and U.S.S. Stars and Stripes near New Inlet on June 27. The Modern Greece grounded ? mile north of Federal Point, some 200 yards offshore. The Confederates saved ?enough liquor to keep most of the Fort Fisher garrison in high spirits for more than a week.? They also managed to salvage six Whitworth cannons, 500 stands of arms and a large amount of powder and clothing.
Over the years, the wreck was covered over with sand and nearly forgotten for the next hundred years. However, the ?Good Friday Storm? of 1962, shifted tons of sand and uncovered the wreck. Eleven divers from the Naval Ordnance School at Indian Head, Maryland were on vacation at the time and discovered the exposed shipwreck. By 1963, divers from the U.S. Navy and the North Carolina Department of Archives & History had recovered more than 11,500 artifacts, including about 1,770 rifled muskets, shells, bayonets and bullet molds along with several tons of lead pigs. Many of these artifacts have been preserved and are on display at the Fort Fisher Historic Site, in Kure Beach. Additional artifacts from the Modern Greece can be seen at the Cape Fear Museum in Wilmington, the Southport Maritime Museum in Southport, North Carolina, the Mariner?s Museum in Newport News, Virginia and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
The wreck of the Modern Greece lies ? mile offshore about ? mile northeast of Fort Fisher. The surviving hull structure rests on a sand and coquina rock bottom in 30 feet of water. The hull lies parallel to the beach with the bow pointing south. The exposed remains of the blockade runner consist of intact sections and disarticulated fragments of the hull structure and the steamer?s machinery and boiler. (Note: The Z.C. Pearson & Company of Hull, England was one of the most prominent firms to engage in blockade running. The company was owned by Zachariah C. Pearson, the mayor of Hull and a successful shipping merchant with a fleet of vessels that included the steamers Circassian, Modern Greece, Stettin, Lodona, Phoebe, Merrimac and Peterhoff. Pearson entered into an agreement with Caleb Huse to transport military supplies to the Confederate States of America. However, unlike Fraser, Trenholm & Company, whose steamers boasted many successful trips through the blockade and generated immense profits, Pearson and his associates found their efforts to be disastrous. Six of the seven vessels that the Z.C. Pearson sent to run the blockade were captured and the Modern Greece was run ashore.)
