JOIN TODAY
JOIN TODAY

Conservators Begin New Work on H.L. Hunley

News August 12, 2014

(Courtesy Friends of the Hunley)
SHARE:

Hunley-Deconcretion-Conservation
(Courtesy Friends of the Hunley)
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA—The Post and Courier reports that conservators have begun to scrape away the layer of sand and shell encasing the hull of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which went down in Charleston Harbor in 1864 just minutes after it sank the Union warship USS Housatonic. The layer, known as concretion, has obscured many of the specific features of the vessel that scientists are interested in studying, especially evidence of bullet holes or other damage that might reveal clues about why the submarine sank. "We have been waiting for this a long time," says Nestor Gonzalez, associate director Warren Lasch Conservation Center, which is responsible for the project. "We will know if there was any damage to the submarine pre-sinking or post-sinking." The painstaking work, carried out using dental chisels and small hammers to remove concretion that is in some places a couple of inches thick, could take up to a year to complete.

 

 

 

Recommended Articles

Top 10 Discoveries of 2022 January/February 2023

Aztec Offerings

Mexico City, Mexico

Read Article
(AdobeStock)

Digs & Discoveries September/October 2016

Mask Metamorphosis

Read Article
(Courtesy Michael Eisenberg)

Digs & Discoveries July/August 2015

Open House

Read Article
(Pasquale Sorrentino)

Artifacts July/August 2025

Maya Ceramic Figurine

Read Article
Courtesy Ken Seligson

More to Discover

Features July/August 2014

Under Mexico City

Beneath the capital's busy streets, archaeologists are discovering the buried world of the Aztecs

Read Article
(Roger Atwood)

  • Features July/August 2014

    The Tomb of the Silver Hands

    Long-buried evidence of an Etruscan noble family

    Read Article
    (Marco Merola)

  • Features July/August 2014

    Revisiting the Gokstad

    More than a century after Norway's Gokstad ship burial was first excavated, scientists are examining the remains of the VIking chieftain buried inside and learning the truth about how he lived and died

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway)

  • Letter From Scotland July/August 2014

    Living on the Edge

    Were the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral squatters or hard-working farmers?

    Read Article
    (Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen)

  • Artifacts July/August 2014

    Neolithic Wand

    Read Article
    (Courtesy L.C. Tiera)