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, ,    The decision to reassemble the remains of the Serçe Limanı medieval vessel and display them in a museum expanded the scope and importance of the reconstruction process . Graphic and three-dimensional laboratory and archival reconstruction processes were still required, but now they had to include plans for physically assembling, supporting, and displaying the remains. These steps were undertaken by several teams in various locations over a long period. In what follows , the leader of each phase describes the procedures and results of these efforts. Laboratory Reconstruction J. Richard Steffy The reconstruction of the Serçe Limanı vessel was a particularly challenging, sometimes discouraging, project. There was so little of the hull left, and what did survive was mostly in poor condition. Except for a few scattered fragments, the sides and bow had disappeared. So had the lower port stern, the entire starboard stern, and most of the starboard bottom. Nevertheless, what did exist was intriguing and mostly unparalleled , at least in the combinations seen here. There were no mortise-and-tenon joints, but planks were joined into strakes with three-planed scarfs reminiscent of those used on Greek and Roman ships. The keel was very small, yet there was a chapter 9 Reconstruction, Reassembly, and Display J. Richard Steffy, Sheila D. Matthews, Frederick M. Hocker, and Robin C. M. Piercy keelson above it that was twice as large. Why? There was no false keel and no garboard rabbet. The bilge was so sharp that ordinary compass timber could not be used for most frames. And those frames were spaced unevenly and arranged in a very strange pattern, one that we had not seen before. The ceiling was perhaps the oddest feature of all—it ran athwartships , rather than fore-and-aft as had all the ceiling we had recorded previously. And in addition to all of this structural rarity, the weight of the ballast and cargo we excavated did not seem sufficient to keep our little merchantman from capsizing in a crosswind. Intriguing indeed! Here was a set of specifications that somehow had to be turned into drawings, models, reassemblies, and anything else that would make sense to scholars and amateurs alike. More than that, here was a ghost waiting to be united with its history, to have its voyaging and trading ventures recognized through a wedding of surviving wood and artifacts. A Preliminary Reconstruction Before lengthy research and reconstruction processes could begin at Texas A&M,1 a more pressing problem had to be addressed . Og¨uz Alpözen, director of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, wanted the hull remains displayed along with cargo and artifacts in a new building inside the castle that houses the museum, and architect Kadir Çakır needed dimensions and details of the vessel in order to design the ship gallery and supporting displays. #   ,  ,    Furthermore, Alpözen wanted this new gallery constructed during the conservation process so that it could be opened for visitors as soon as possible. Ship reconstructions such as the one we planned are involved and lengthy; ten years or more might pass before the work would be completed. Gallery design and construction could hardly be delayed that long. Consequently , a preliminary reconstruction was planned that would provide basic dimensions required by the architects. First, a scale of : was selected as the most convenient to use for the many drawings and models that would be required before research and reconstruction were completed. Original wood drawings were reduced to that scale, beginning with the ones to be used in the preliminary reconstruction and eventually encompassing every surviving fragment of the hull. Next, partial hull shapes were taken from surviving frames at several strategic locations. Planking widths were also tabulated for various locations between midships and the posts. The sweep of the surviving sternpost and the run of the existing stern planking provided upper hull information for the after part of the vessel. This information, along with measurements taken from the wreck plans and analysis of the seabed distribution of cargo and artifacts, allowed us to write a basic set of hull specifications that would supply the information required for design of the ship gallery in Bodrum. We also produced a preliminary set of lines to satisfy our own curiosity about the depth of the vessel. Those drawings and specifications are not reproduced here, since they might be misleading if used out of context; still, they were surprisingly close to the final list of principal dimensions. The Diorama Formal reconstruction began with assembling...

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