CIPA 2005 XX International Symposium, 26 September - 01 October, 2005, Torino, Italy
2. UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAMMETRY
Some ship wrecks excavations with photogrammetric survey
and three-dimensional restitutions have already been carried out
in France since 1975. It was initially the case of the wreck
carrying Roman amphorae called la Madrague de Giens, then in
1986; on the site Grand Riband D, with a cargo of dolia ([
Hesnard, 1988 ]) and another wreck with a limestone blocks
cargo, the Carry-le-Rouet (Long, 1988 ]).
Underwater stereo photogrammetry was already largely
developed in the 1990s, with the help of various submarines,
using semi-metric or metric film-based cameras. It was in
particular the case in 1993 of the Roman wreck Plage d Arles 4,
662 m depth, then the case of the vessel La Lune, lost in 1664
by 88 m depth, near Toulon. Lately, in 1996 the method was
improved, out of the bay of Marseilles, on the Roman wreck
Sud-Caveaux 1, at a depth of 64 m [Long 1998 ]. However, in
1964, the submarine Asherah, with the financial support of the
National Geographic Society, had inaugurated in Turkey, at a
depth of 35 m, the first stereoscopic survey, on the Byzantine
wreck Yassi Ada 2 [Bass 1970; Bass, Rosencrantz 1973]. This
kind of survey can be done today in only one day at a depth that
can reach 6000 m (intervention limit of the submarine Nautile,
IFREMER). The campaign needs a first phase for equipping the
site with scale bar and buoys for the vertical orientation. The
photogrammetric orientation is performed by bundle adjustment
with digital photographs.
The authors have already work on this problematic, in particular
on the Grand Riband F Etruscan wreck [Drap, Seinturier, Long,
2003], [Drap, Long, 2005].
3. ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Less than 300 meters away from one of the most famous
beaches in Marseilles, ancient Greek and Roman vestiges were
discovered in October 2004 during the underwater excavation of
the “Anse of the Catalans”. The operation was led by the
DRASSM (Department of Subaqueous and Underwater
Archaeological Research) with L’Archeonaute, the means of
the 2ASM association, the Map-Gamsau (CNRS, Luminy)
laboratory and the financial supports from the city and through
its Workshop of Cultural Heritage (Atelier du Patrimoine).
At the very time the works were being undertaken, the inventor
Pierre Giustianini located the vestiges of two marble statues that
have been successfully excavated. The first piece consisting of a
foot fitted of a finely chiselled sandal, belongs to a female
character who must have been at least 1.5 meters high. The
second one corresponds to a headless bust representing
Dionysos or more likely Apollon, one of the guardian divinity
of Marseilles. The hardly noticeable swaying walk, the
suggested discrete muscular bulk added to the curls on the right
shoulder confer the character an effeminate and youthful aspect
which brings him closer to the Hellenistic representations.
During a previous mission of the DRASSM in the same area, in
2001, a little brass statue representing Apollon had been
removed from the sludge, among numerous fragments of
ceramics and amphorae.
Besides, explored in 2004 at a depth ranging from 8 m to 15 m,
the Catalans area includes a number of architectonic blocks and
drums of fluted columns, some of which stem from Greece and
were part of one or several buildings of small or average size,
private or public (peristyle, gantry, small temple...). One can
notice some bases and Tuscan capitals, drums of columns,
blocks of base, flagstones but perhaps also some elements of
pediment bases. The Tuscan columns, through the way they
were turned on the lathe and through the addition of a portion
of barrels at the base, refer to the late Hellenistic technique, well
attested in Provence in the 2 nd and l sl centuries BC.
These items, all damaged owing to their long submarine stay
and the action of lithophage organisms, are so scattered and
fragmented that their presence cannot be accounted for by a ship
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