For the Mary Rose, the cut-off points were designed to present the least
possible threat to the ship if the project had to be aborted. In the early years,
the site was backfilled at the end of each season. As work progressed, the
Mary Rosesite became too large (roughly 40 25 3 m) and the work
involved in backfilling and re-excavating the site would have been counter-
productive. Therefore the exposed timbers of the hull were draped in Terram,
an inert geo-textile, held closely in position by carefully chosen exotic gravel
that could be easily recognised and removed if work continued in the follow-
ing year. This cover protected the hull timbers from mechanical attrition by
current-borne detritus and inhibited colonisation of the timbers by larger
marine animals and plants.
Only after the decision to lift the hull was made in January 1982, was the
final excavation begun to undercut the hull and leave the empty hull for
recovery the following autumn. Work to define the engineering strategy to
recover the ship had begun two years before, and in the spring of 1982, work
began to prepare the ship for recovery and conservation.
A conservation laboratory equipped to deal with finds had functioned at
the Trust headquarters at Portsmouth since 1979, and the external Advisory
Committees met regularly to review progress and monitor the work as it pro-
gressed. In 1982 a suitable dock in the Royal Naval Base was equipped to
receive the hull while it was cleaned, restored and conserved. The salvage
plans and a detailed research programme to define passive and active conser-
vation techniques went on concurrently with the excavation offshore between
1980 and 1982.
2.3 Preservation of the Evidence: A Multi-discipline Task
Organic material recovered from the sea, where it has been buried in a rela-
tively stable anaerobic environment, is often well-preserved with fine detail.
The obligation to preserve and record the evidence during excavation is para-
mount. Even on land sites, archaeologists have to contend with natural and
man-made threats during excavation, and temporary shelters from rain, wind
and frost are often necessary. Trying to excavate and record the remains of
a timber building during a typical English summer is sometimes heart-
breaking. The evidence is usually preserved as a series of changes in colour
and texture and if the natural subsoil is clay or brick–earth, then it is often
difficult to record and there is little to distinguish between the remains of a
clay and daub structure and the natural subsoil. Summer weather is unpre-
dictable and one day the archaeologist will be using a garden syringe to spray
the site and reveal the features for photography while next day he will be
erecting scaffold supports and tarpaulins to protect the site from a deluge of
rain. In England it is often bad enough but in tropical regions a site that has
Introduction 7