Ship from 1700s unearthed during Virginia hotel development

[Recursion]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/preserved-in-a-watery-grave/2016/01/04/e2fe6188-afd4-11e5-9ab0-884d1cc4b33e_story.html

Cool.

This is in Old Town Alexandria, right on the water (side note: DC owns all of the Potomac up to the 1789 high water mark, which makes a lot of this Alexandria riverfront development controversial).

The ship’s blackened bow was discovered as construction crews excavated the site where the 120-room Hotel Indigo will soon rise. Digging by hand, archeology crews uncovered a nearly 50-foot-long remnant of the keel, frame, stern and flooring, estimated to be about one-third of the original hull. The wood did not decay, Baicy said, because once it was buried, oxygen could not reach it .

Luck also played a factor in the preservation. A huge brick footing for a later warehouse “barely missed the boat,” Baicy said.

The find has archaeologists surprised and ecstatic. Unlike the warehouse, which was noted in old city records, there was no known documentation of the buried ship’s existence.

“This is like the jewel in the crown for us right now,” said John Mullen, Thunderbird’s principal archaeologist.

[murielm99]

1. I love stories like this!

[applegrove]

2. I love Alexandria. Visited a house there from the 1700s.

They had a beautiful walled garden with a back entrance. I always feel giddy when in the middle of old historical neighbourhoods.