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Underwater

The Battle for the Mediterranean: Digitally Recording an Underwater Roman Battlefield

Several kilometers off the Sicilian coast, in over 100 meters of water lies an underwater battlefield that stands testament to one Age replacing another. Using the latest technology and scientific methods from Archaeology, Engineering, and the National Oceanographic Centre at the University of Southampton, these ancient warships are being reverse engineered in order to understand one history's most critical junctures: the slow decline of the Hellenistic Period and the start of the Roman Period. Continue reading →

Underwater RTI HMS Invincible

On February 19th,  1758 the HMS Invincible set sail out of Portsmouth Harbor for Canada to join the British fleet to fight the French.  Unfortunately, due to a domino effect of extraordinary bad luck, she ran aground on Horse Tail Sand not far from the harbor.  Invincible was a French ship launched in 1744 and captured by the British in 1747.  At that time the British out-number the French on the sea. Continue reading →

Underwater Reflectance Transformation Imaging…a success.

I’ve been working on Reflectance Transformation Image capture in a sub-aquatic environment.  On 2 May, 2013 the first ever PTM file from an RTI dataset captured entirely underwater was successfully processed in the Archaeological Computing Research Group computer lab at the University of Southampton using RTIBuilder software.   Images were captured in 1.5 meters of water at the campus Jubilee pool using a common 12mpix digital camera and a 15 watt 1000 lumen HID dive-light. Continue reading →

Digitally Recording A 3rd Century BC Underwater Battlefield

One of the most exciting archaeological discoveries of the last decade has been an ancient naval battlefield off the Egadi Islands in Italy. Located in over 100 metres depth and requiring robots to survey and record the artefacts, the site dates to the decisive climax of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage in 241 BC. Previously, only two waterline warship rams had ever been discovered, but ten have been found at the battle site together with thousands of other artefacts. Continue reading →