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Wednesday, April 30th,
2003 -- A special press session was held
for journalists to get information about the White
House Bay Marine Archeological Discovery, yesterday.
The project dubbed the St. Kitts
Maritime Archeological Discovery Project is being
undertaken by the Anglo-Danish Maritime
Archeological Discovery Team (ADMAT). The team is
headed by Dr. Simon Spooner who is the President and
Excavation Director for ADMAT. He explained that his
organisation is non-profit and mainly benefits
students since internationally there are limited
opportunities for joining archeological dives.
Dr. Spooner said that his team
raises, recovers and sorts maritime artifacts. He
said that due to the high expense of raising the
ship at the White House Bay, his team was only able
to photograph and document the lumber of ship. It
then was covered back up. This particular project
Dr. Spooner said, took two years.
The most significant find was
described as French Bar Shot which was used in sea
battles. The artifact was described as being a
weapon that could be used to cut off the masts of
ships thus disabling them.
Dr. Spooner said that the ship
was probably one of the troupe vessels involved in
the Battle of Frigate Bay which involved some 60
ships of the line. He said approximately 300
artifacts were found and some would be handed over
to the National Museum for display and preservation.
Recovered artifacts included a wooden pulley rod,
ballast stones, grenades, uniform buttons, partial
bottles and trucker pins. It was interesting to note
that Dr. Spooner said that as they continued to work
on the sunken ship, more and more fish frequented
the area. |
