Photo courtesy of EYA
Ship excavated at building site in Alexandria.
Archaeologists are continuing their work excavating, documenting and stabilizing piece of three very old ships and other artifacts discovered at the site of the EYA housing development Robinson Landing.
"We're learning so much from this incredibly unique site, where more than 100,000 artifacts have been found," said City Archaeologist Eleanor Breen. "Right now, we are working on the largest, most intact discovery so far -- a wooden sailing vessel made with trunnels [wooden pegs] and iron fasteners that held the ship's timbers together."
(Read our recent story on Breen and her work here.)
EYA has a team of contract archaeologists, who are working with Breen, conservators from the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory and City staff to document the remains of the three ships — both three-dimensional documentation techniques and traditional methods are being used.
Some of the ship will be preserved in the ground, while much of it will be removed from the site and preserved.
The three ships, along with a ship previously recovered at the Hotel Indigo site, are thought to have been used by late 18th and 19th Century Alexandrians for part of the process of filling in the Potomac River shoreline, according to a City press release.
These four discoveries, all located within a two-block area, provide insight into Alexandria's early history of trade and commerce as well as the larger maritime world of the late 18th and early 19th-century.
Visit the City's web page for more details about the ship's excavation.
