thejoiner Posted April 10, 2016 Posted April 10, 2016 A large, heavy ship, scuttled between 1775 and 1798, is being dug out of its damp grave at the site of a new hotel construction project in Old Town Alexandria. Archaeologists found the partial hull of a ship at 220 S. Union Street, part of the city’s major redevelopment of the Potomac River waterfront. It’s on the same one-block site where workers two months ago discovered a 1755 fondation from a warehouse that is believed to have been the city’s first public building. “It’s very rare. This almost never happens,” said Dan Baicy, the hard-hatted field director for Thunderbird Archeology, the firm watching for historic evidence during construction. “In 15 years that I’ve done this work, I’ve never run into this kind of preservation in an urban environment where there’s so much disturbance.” On Monday, naval archaeologists joined the crew at the site to help dismantle the vessel, timber by timber, looking for artifacts and markings that could identify it and show where it sailed and what it carried. watch the full video .
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