Mazarrón

In 1993, the "Phoenician Ship Project" was started by the Museo in the Playa de la Isla (Mazarrón), following the discovery of Phoenician remains in 1988. The first campaign lasted from October 1993 to June 1995 and had as main objectives prospecting the entire bay in search of any archaeological evidence and excavating the Phoenician ship (the so-called Mazarrón 1). A secondary objective was the possibility of eventually transferring it to the museum.

More than 70,000 m2 of the bay were carefully prospected in search of any evidence. Finally, the Museum developed for the first time a methodology of prospecting microspacial methodology new at international level. Thanks to this, in the spring of 1994 the second Phoenician boat (Mazarrón 2) was detected. A small survey was carried out in the central part of the ship to evaluate the importance of the discovery and it was detected that the ship was sealed by a layer of posidonia, whose tests were sent to date by C-14 in Gröningen . The five dates sent confirmed that it was a ship of the late 7th beginning of the 6th centuries B.D. While waiting to be able to undertake its study, the ship was protected with an internationally unprecedented system that has given an extraordinary result: the "Strong Box" of Mazarrón.

On June 30, 1995 the ship Mazarrón 1 was extracted and taken to the Museum for study and restoration, based on the impregnation of poly-ethylene glycol and lyophilization.

Between October 1999 and December 2000, Mazarrón 2 was excavated. The "Strong Box" was opened and the stratigraphic levels that sealed the archaeological levels were removed. All the cargo was meticulously numbered and documented by photography and drawing. After these operations the materials were extracted to immediately enter the restoration laboratory. The ship was then documented by a 1: 1 scale drawing, so it was decided to remove the resin that protected the wood inside the ship, only in its half: the other half was decided to leave it for research for the coming decades. Subsequently, the whole ship was covered with sand and closed the "Strong Box" that protects the deposit until today.

In the context of the very important innovations that the Mazarrón Project has contributed to the world's underwater archeology, of which we have already mentioned three, it is not the least the discovery of the formula for silicones to forge in the sea bottom, Which allowed us to make molds of the ship, as, mainly, to consider its extraction; It was, also, the first time in the world that it was successful to extract a small boat of the antiquity.

In 2007 the Museum made a small campaign in Mazarrón 2, with the stated purpose of checking the status of the "Strong Box".

Bibliography:

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