Post-Excavation Documentation

Full scale drawings after excavations are very important for determining ship building techniques, but more importantly for reconstruction work. As a traditional way of documenting shipwrecks in laboratories drawings with colored permanent pencils on acetate have been practiced on a glass plate over the timbers. The main thing here is to mark the shape of the ship, tool marks, nail holes, nail directions and similar details. In Yenikapı Shipwrecks Project, a 3D documentation device “Digitizer” was used for making full scale drawings of the shipwreck members.

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality reserved a 2000 m2 area for a 300 m2 center to be built where drawing and evaluation processes can be applied. The center was split into two main parts, the wet area for cleaning and bathing of wood members and temporary storage with pools and the dry area where hand drawings, visual evaluations, computer drawings, data storage in computer environment and such work to be done. Wooden ship members without visible junction details in situ position were documented after being dismantled to be able to prepare the reconstruction project. Each shipwreck member is photographed with general and macro shots. The most important documentation step at the center is transferring each member into a computer environment with the 3D measurement device (FaroArm). Tool marks, plan and cross section views, wood and metal fastening elements, wood veins, damaged areas which can be a reference when determining the ship building techniques are being drawn using different colors with the FaroArm device used for the first time in Turkey by the Istanbul University team and documented in 3D with the help of the Rhinoceros program. Making full scale drawings is the most important step to be able to elaborately research and evaluate these surfaces which carry the clues of the technology of the period about ship building techniques.