18th-Century Ship Uncovered at Ground Zero

This story certainly speaks to the "archaeology of memory" (Benjamin). An 18th-century ship has been uncovered at the Ground Zero site. Strangely, I read about this in the Spanish paper El País, but have yet to see any coverage in the NYT. The article below comes from The Guardian:


Ground Zero diggers uncover hull of 18th century ship

Archaeologists examine timbers found at site of World Trade Centre bombings

Workers excavating the World Trade Centre site have unearthed the 10-metre hull of a ship believed to have been buried in the 18th century.

The vessel was probably used along with other debris to fill in land to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson river, archaeologists have said.

It was hoped the artefact could be retrieved by the end of today, said archaeologist Molly McDonald. A boat specialist was going to the Ground Zero site to examine the find.

McDonald said she wanted to at least salvage some timbers; it was unclear if any large portions could be lifted intact.

"We're mostly clearing it by hand because it's fragile," she said. Construction equipment may be used later in the process.

McDonald and Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist, were at the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks when the hull was discovered on Tuesday morning.

"We noticed curved timbers that a back hoe brought up," McDonald said. "We quickly found the rib of a vessel and continued to clear it away and expose the hull.

"We're going to send timber samples to a laboratory to do dendrochronology to help us get a sense of when the boat was constructed." Dendrochronology is the science that uses tree rings to determine dates and chronological order.

A 45kg (100lb) anchor was found a few yards from the hull on Wednesday but the experts are not sure if it belongs to the ship. The anchor was about a metre across, McDonald said.

The archaeologists are racing to record and analyse the vessel before exposure to air makes the delicate wood deteriorate.

"I kept thinking of how closely it came to being destroyed," Pappalardo said.

Documenting Ruin

I saw this in a University of Chicago Press email and thought it related well to this blog. We spend so much time thinking about memorials, but it's true that ruins tend to get overlooked. I can't help but think of Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations when pondering the title of Yablon's book. The pertinent info. follows:



Untimely Ruins
An Archaeology of American Urban Modernity, 1819-1919
400 pages, © 2009
Cloth $70.00
ISBN: 9780226946634 Published February 2010
Paper $25.00
ISBN: 9780226946641 Published February 2010

American ruins have become increasingly prominent, whether in discussions of “urban blight” and home foreclosures, in commemorations of 9/11, or in postapocalyptic movies. In this highly original book, Nick Yablon argues that the association between American cities and ruins dates back to a much earlier period in the nation’s history. Recovering numerous scenes of urban desolation—from failed banks, abandoned towns, and dilapidated tenements to the crumbling skyscrapers and bridges envisioned in science fiction and cartoons—Untimely Ruins challenges the myth that ruins were absent or insignificant objects in nineteenth-century America.

The first book to document an American cult of the ruin, Untimely Ruins traces its deviations as well as derivations from European conventions. Unlike classical and Gothic ruins, which decayed gracefully over centuries and inspired philosophical meditations about the fate of civilizations, America’s ruins were often “untimely,” appearing unpredictably and disappearing before they could accrue an aura of age. As modern ruins of steel and iron, they stimulated critical reflections about contemporary cities, and the unfamiliar kinds of experience they enabled. Unearthing evocative sources everywhere from the archives of amateur photographers to the contents of time-capsules, Untimely Ruins exposes crucial debates about the economic, technological, and cultural transformations known as urban modernity. The result is a fascinating cultural history that uncovers fresh perspectives on the American city.