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Arqueología a profundidad, del Titanic al Galeón San José · El futuro fue ayer con Juan Guillermo Martín

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  The future was yesterday? It' s an archaeology podcast where ghosts, conspiracy
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  theories and aliens have no place. I am Juan Guillermo Martín archaeologist and university
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  professor and with the hand of different specialists, would be scientifically addressing our fascinating
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  past, a past that offers us answers to face in the future. Welcome
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  to the podcast The future was yesterday? I' m with Guillermo Martín archeol.
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  Today' s theme is topical and conjunctural. It is the Galeón San
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  José, that Spanish boat that was part of the fleet of Tierra firma and
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  that, after the fair of Cortobelo in Panama, on the way to Cartagena
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  de Indias, ended in the bottom of the frame in a thousand seven hundred
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  and eight, during an attempt of the English navy to make itself to its
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  tesotre. The ship apparently exploded and its remains today rest at the bottom of
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  the sea, very close to the islands of the Rosary. It is a
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  vessel that has aroused the greed of powerful unscrupulous political entrepreneurs and treasure hunters of
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  various hairs for several decades. Attempts to find and plunder this galleon date back
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  to the decade of the nine hundred and seventy, although history is complex and
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  involves high levels of international politics and national entrepreneurship. The two hunting companies that
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  are still round in San José are the Cicercha Armada, which claims to have
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  found the petio in nineteen hundred eighty- two, and the Marita in Archaeology
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  Consultans, which claims to have done it in two thousand fifteen. The coordinates
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  of both companies have just been made public, but the truth is that,
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  whatever they are, the depth of the shipwreck exceeds 200 meters. Officially,
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  the remains are said to be more than 600 metres deep. Given the characteristics
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  of this context, we are going to dedicate this episode to maritime archaeology and
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  depth, and for this I have a luxury guest. This is Rodrigo Pacheco
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  Ruiz Rodrigo welcome Hello. Nice to meet you. Thank you for the invitation.
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  For those who do not know him, Rodrigo Pacheco is an archaeologist at
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  the National School of Anthropology and History of Mexico and a PhD in Maritime Archaeology
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  from the University of Southampton in England. He has more than a decade of
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  professional experience in underwater archaeology projects, being one of the key co- investigators
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  of the Black SEE martim Archaeology Project, given his extensive knowledge in mapping,
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  trid mentions underwater, making use of state- of- the- art remote
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  operation vehicles and having participated, among other things, in the deepest archaeological excavation
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  that has been done on the planet at two hundred twenty- one meters deep.
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  He is currently a researcher at the HMS Victory Museum and co- director
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  of the deep- sea archaeological research program at the Maritime Archaeology Center of the
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  University of Southand Rodrigo. Yeah. To begin with, I know you'
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  ve been following the subject of Colombia since two thousand eleven. He' s
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  been paving the way for hunting companies to operate legally in the country. As
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  a result, we have the law sixteen seventy- five that was sanctioned in
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  the two thousand thirteen during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, starting with the
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  announcement of the discovery of the Galeón San José. In two thousand and fifteen
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  it was emphasized that this project of archaeology of depth was the only words more
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  or less of the minister in turn. This was like the arrival on the
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  moon in a thousand nine hundred and sixty- nine. That' s right.
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  There is no record in the world of deep water archaeological research. Yeah,
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  well, if there' s a record. In fact, since the
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  1980s research has been done in deep waters to begin the discovery of the Titanic,
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  which is one of the most famous. By the way, although not
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  necessarily, it was an archaeology project. It was another defense project where the
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  IVES Naby hired Bob Ballad, who was then director of the Wood Hol Cenography
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  Center and through the research they did, the Titanic and other sites like these
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  were discovered at the time. Since then, since the eighties it already is,
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  there is this interest to explore the bottom of the sea in depth,
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  with last- of- a- kind robotics. No. Bob Ballard has
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  also done a lot of work in the 1990s with his team in Turkey,
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  in particular some Byzantine- era sites, Byzantine- period boats such as the
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  Sino and other sites that have been mapped in the Black Sea, in the
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  Turkish side and also in Israel, which we have many Roman- era sites,
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  where only the amphoras that also come to be at high depths, more
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  than a thousand meters deep, survive. So let' s say it doesn
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  ' t exist in Latin America. It exists in the world and it is
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  important to recognize the work of other academics and institutions that have dedicated themselves to
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  developing these technologies and exploring these sites, because it is from them that we
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  learn a lot about how things are done and how to improve things. We,
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  fortunately, had the Martha Sea Theology Blas and Martin Marcheology project in Bulgaria,
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  which was to explore from a paleo landscape point of view submerged the Bulgarian
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  coast, including also let us say that the Abismal space, which goes up
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  to two thousand two hundred meters ours. Let' s say that from the
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  two thousand fourteen to the two thousand nineteen we dedicated ourselves to exploring this area
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  with the University of Softhampton and many other universities, the University of Connecticut,
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  this Sosopol Maritime Archaeology Center in Bulgaria, in many involved institutions and commercial companies
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  dedicated to exploration. Let us say that the exploration of the marine fact in
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  depth, as was the case of Menti and many institutions to which we support
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  ourselves in terms of the experience they had and the novelty that we bring.
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  As for mapping, in three of these sites, which is photogrammetry and link,
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  these technologies have been introduced in the last ten to fifteen years in the
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  archaeological field and which, from the point of view of archaeology of depth,
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  therefore, helped us to map sites at an incredible speed. Let' s
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  not say that although it took us four years, we managed to map with
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  high quality, with high resolution, more than sixty- five individual species,
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  from the Greek period, through the Roman period, ships from the Byzantine period
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  to 19th century vessels. So, and this has been public and there are
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  articles in different academic publications where methodologies are described. We have an article in
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  Gurnal archeologicole Science which describes the depth methodologies and the risks that exist in this
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  type of operations, risks above all economic, but also scientific and archaeological,
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  so that the exploration of San José at six hundred meters is the only thing
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  that is known in this type of work, because it is not or,
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  in reality, true. What is true is that, of course, it
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  is novel in Latin America. We know that there are several interests in North
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  America, there is the noa, with different explorations in the Pacific, in
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  the Atlantic there are all the ships of the Second World War that have been
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  made at great depths and that are actually pioneers today of such inspections. As
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  for the characteristics of the site of the Galeón San José, the depth is
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  not as extreme as in these places and let us say that the same technology
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  is required, but it is not no. I do not see from what
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  point of view, this could be unique, unless it is simply one in
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  the sense that it is in Colombia and Latin America and in countries that have
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  not actually participated in these kinds of activities that yes, yes, it is
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  true, yes, it is very likely that it has been presented. Obviously,
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  that would be the first time that is done in Colombia, but yes,
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  it is important that people know that there is a background that, obviously,
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  you have mentioned, makes them listed, even in the most recent,
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  where You have directly worked. You could tell us a little bit about that
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  experience in the Black Sea project, that project, in addition to its duration,
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  what budget it had and what its objectives will be? Yes, the
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  objectives of the Black Sea, the deaf black sea project, are still kind
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  of pieces of projects, numerous lots, fragments, grams, type of producing
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  repository. In reality it was simply trying to understand material pleasures of everything from
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  the last glaciation to leaving twenty thousand years has of conservation, including terms of
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  connective palotalization. How he changed for black ceramics, collections or the sea,
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  the configuration of the coast, where you can lumas search for sites at some
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  point in the valociation good was lauda of land material submerged by formation of the
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  base and, obviously to the area that was documentary, instruments incripción double of
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  the area of the city of Ros, a repository where are the photos of
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  the squares, download the information obviously we find ourselves. That was a lot
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  of parking that had been explored before. It' s honest places that gave
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  us that truth. They are individual from every period of the maritime history of
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  humanity, because obviously we have sites from the Greek period until the 19th century.
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  Almost people populate a lot of people. The budget, everything the Museum
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  exhibits, was a budget designed for the four years when, in the way
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  that having as research, development, analysis and conservation of a few materials in
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  general is generated. They did five Portuguese excavations, but of which the maximum
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  area we had of excavation was two square meters. They were very small areas,
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  because we knew the restrictions that an excavation would say complete of an archaeological
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  site. We simply did not have enough budget to make a single site of
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  one size. Let' s say that a ship of the largest we found
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  in the Greek period was twenty- four meters, which is much smaller than
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  the size of a Spanish galleon than we are talking about San Jose. So
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  our excavations weren' t total site excavations, they were spot excavations to try
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  to understand the process of site formation. For example, we try to understand
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  how it is possible that the Black Sea archaeological sites survived the way they survived.
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  Or we have boats that are complete and that are more than 2,
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  000 years old and this is due to the lack of oxygen and that there
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  are no people. It is where we say there is no fauna that makes
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  modifications in the processes of sedimentation and changes of generation of the archaeological context.
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  So it' s, as Bob Ballards put it well in many years,
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  it' s the largest museum in the world, the Black Sea, because
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  it' s just a giant refrigerator, a fridge, as they say.
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  Thus, in this perfect temperature four degrees, there are no bacteria that consume
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  organic elements. Then the sites remain almost as if they had sunk. Yesterday.
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  The type of operations we did was through the experience of the companies that
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  a large part of our colleagues and collaborators offered us their services from their experience
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  of years exploring and mapping the marine fact for petrochemical exploration purposes and they up
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  to date. This type of research and this type of work is done at
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  tremendous precision and because they need to know elements of damage, for example infrastructure,
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  small cracks that appear in particular, and everything is done from a high
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  precision point of view. That high precision helped us a lot to be able
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  to carry out very precise archaeological mappings and we developed a technique that, in
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  fact, we published as novel, which we called from the cusa the fourth
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  dimension, the fourth dimension, being the time, not only then we were
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  mapping sites in third dimension, we were mapping them more through the excavation process.
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  Then a model was generated in three before the intervention, a model of
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  three d was generated during the intervention and a model of three d was generated
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  after the intervention. And that allowed us to quantify the change that the impact
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  that we, as archaeologists, generated on the site. Without that precision,
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  without that experience, without those equipment, that kind of technology and that kind
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  of comparison, it would not have been possible then, and he is very,
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  very important, because we know of the restrictions that exist economic and access.
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  They are places that obviously, it' s very expensive to access and
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  we just wanted to do the best job as fast as possible. Then our
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  budget was around£ 40 to£ 50 million. This obviously includes the budget
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  for the preparation of publications, including the budget for the recruitment of staff specialized
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  in this type of operations and the time of academics and other things that were
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  necessary, such as security. We did six dives in high depths, using
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  rebreader, using buses at ninety- five meters and required, for example,
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  because we were five or six hours a helicopter flight from the nearest hyperbaric camera,
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  we needed to have a hyperbaric camera aboard the boats. Then all these
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  kinds of costs were obviously planned well in advance to be able to carry out
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  this operation without any delays. Our greatest risk in terms of budget was,
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  in fact, delays and breakdowns. We had two teams working 24 hours a
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  day and while a team of Arrob pilots were in the water doing the inspection,
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  the other team was on deck doing repairs, making preparations for inspections on
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  the team to monitor. And let' s say it' s all set.
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  And as soon as the other Robby touched the surface, the second Robby
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  came down at work, then never. Actually, we had very few days
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  of breakdown loss. In fact, we had in some cases in the four
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  years that we were doing the work and, in fact, what we suffered
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  the most was the inclement weather in which even though the equipment we were using
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  was not designed for the work in North Sea conditions in Norway and in the
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  winter of the European North, where, if we say waves of more than
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  six meters, the position of the ship is still within the ten centimeters of
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  precision, precisely because of the depth at which we are then. It'
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  s a complex operation, it' s a difficult operation and it required a
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  lot of planning in advance. That I imagine, and well, the results,
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  or at least part of the results, can be read and consulted in
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  the publications that you made and that are, of course, reference of depth
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  archaeology worldwide. And there, about that experience of yours on this team,
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  because the next question comes. The government of Gustavo Petro now seems to have
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  left the hunters aside, which is to a large extent positive, thanks to
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  the fact that the Galeón San José was declared well of cultural interest at the
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  national level during the Government of Duque in January of two thousand and twenty.
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  That, of course, meant a change in the course of shipwreck management.
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  For some time now we have been presented with a new governmental initiative with an
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  apparent archaeological project, with an ozone vessel that has Colombia, the Caribbean rc
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  and a remote operating vehicle that was also purchased in the Government of Duque.
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  Given your experience what you have now told us about this deployment of technology.
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  You can do depth archaeology. You can do depth archaeology, but it depends
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  on what you want to do. There are many levels of operation in depth
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  archaeology. The most basic thing is what is done every day in the commercial
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  sphere, the one that is done every time you set up an oil platform
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  or every time you make a change in the marine fact through the impact of
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  the infrastructure. For example, in Europe, if you want to put in
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  communication cables, you have to send archaeologists and that happens. It' s
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  happening today. We' re talking about it and there are people on board
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  boats doing this basic level of depth archaeology that is inspection. Inspection is what
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  it is? What is it? What it is is simply to lower those
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  depths with video and photography equipment and photograph the site and document it from the
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  point of view, in photo, in photography, in two of say,
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  not in video and then. That is a type of operation that, while
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  I understand, the four- point budget,$ 5 million is very high
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  for one site, one site, a basic inspection can be carried out in
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  less than five hours, not from the beginning to the end of the inspection.
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  That' s not even taking a day to be on the site.
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  If you are a scientist, let' s say that if you want to
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  do a scientific inspection if you want to know the site well, if you
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  want to know, for example, how the site has changed in different phases
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  from spring to winter. Algae appear, if algae disappear, if there is
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  fauna that modifies the site. Archaeological can be returned every month and an inspection
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  can be done, but those inspections do not last more than five hours on
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  site doing the inspection, then. Related to that, as for the San
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  José project and the$ 45 million budget is the budget is excessive for that
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  type of work. Now there is a level two, a second level of
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  depth archaeology operation, which is precise inspection, precision inspection. We are talking
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  about positioning systems that allow to map sites in depth, not in shallow depths,
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  but at more than 500 meters precisely and without more error and errors in
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  centimeters. Let' s say so, to get to that point we need
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  the boat being used to have a dynamic positioning system that in the industry is
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  called dip or dip free Tippet. It is a system that allows the boat
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  to be in a place without an clubs. Obviously, it cannot be anchored
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  to depths of more than 500 meters, because there are no anchors from that
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  size, from that length, and the boat must be kept at a specific
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  point on the planet with high precision, in order to map a place where
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  one cannot secure oneself in any type of object that is anchored to sea milk.
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  Same with the depth p. The system of de means that and is
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  something that, for example, we do not know about the San José project.
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  We don' t know if the Caribbean RC has an up- to
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  - date DIPTU system that can maintain that accuracy on the ocean surface, where
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  the ROB teams can be deployed at eight hundred meters from there. We talked
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  a little bit. The precision begins in the boat and that position, since
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  there is no GPS underwater, because the waves do not get transmitted underwater,
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  we know where the Robbie is by means of acoustic pulses called VS biel.
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  The VSBIS allow us to know where the ROB is located at more than 500
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  meters with respect to the boat and what we want to know is what position
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  each photo has in space three d by means of the satellite that passes to
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  the boat, which is transmitted through the umbilical and that reaches the robin.
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  We do not know, for example, the, the, the, the
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  technical specifications of the ubs BIL the USBL to communicate with the arrob from the
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  boat has to be of umbilical type. The acoustic type does not work to
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  greater opportunities, at greater than two hundred and fifty meters, simply the error
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  is too much to be able to make an inspection that is only visual,
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  but of precision where the video has, has positioning of the artifacts and that
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  is absolutely basic and necessary to make the archaeological record more basic that one can
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  make of a site. As for the scientific point of view, then let
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  us say that level two of inspection is sufficient to carry out inspections from the
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  point of view of infrastructure, but for a scientific research is the minimum that
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  is required. And we don' t know today what these technical specifications of
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  the boat and the roff are. Now I always say it' s if
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  you don' t know where your Arrob is, it' s how to
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  take your dog out on a two- kilometer long leash. If you get
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  lost, you don' t know where they are. So losing an arrob
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  underwater is pretty expensive. It' s something that happens quite often, especially
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  if there' s bad weather. These kinds of problems that exist in the
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  operation have not been defined either. So we don' t have a definition
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  of what' s going to happen, when there are these kinds of problems
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  that we see later. We are now talking about the precision inspection. So,
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  an accurate inspection with the basic and minimal equipment that we' re mentioning,
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  might be possible with the budget that you have of four five million and
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  with the time that you can devote to the site. This is the most
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  likely operation that can happen with the information we have regarding the project. A
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  precision inspection. Now that' s it. It' s just going down
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  with a camera and knowing where the artifacts are. With high precision. In
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  terms of feelings, there is level number three of precision. As for depth
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  operations in archaeology, which is the recovery of artifacts, to all the complexities
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  of operation number two let' s say precision inspection. We must now add
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  to it the manipulation of physical mechanisms that allow a fine extraction and in this
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  I mean a scientific and fine abstraction of archaeological materials. There is in the
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  construction industry what is called saving or saving, which involves getting to a place
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  where one is going to be a construction operation. Put down the arrobi for
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  a basic inspection. The arrobin keeps the visual of what is, what is,
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  what is happening and from the boat lowers a gigantic mechanical shovel and removes
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  elements of the marine fact to make kind of I do not know any type
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  of construction and that this type of methods are used a lot by the hunters.
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  The treasures go only for the material that are found inside the ships and
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  inside the wrecks. Then there is no need for them. Unfortunately, for
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  archaeologists there is no need for a precision inspection and fine recovery. Now,
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  with all these bemoles, our level three implies that we have to be a
• 30:49
  precise inspection and a precise recovery of archaeological materials that already requires a team that
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  is not the basic equipment for this type of operation is no longer. Let
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  ' s say that the equipment that exists in the project today, in terms
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  of the boat and the safe rob because the ROF is an inspection rock,
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  is not a role of work. It' s a little short. Then
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  we go from doing operations that make sense with budgets of four million dollars,
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  with the time of the navy to do a precise inspection to spending a little
• 31:37
  bit and being a little more ambitious. And that' s where a lot
• 31:44
  of problems start to happen. If one does not have a clear budget for
• 31:48
  the type of operation that is required, problems begin to happen. One begins
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  to push the team to the limits to which it is not designed. They
• 31:56
  start seeing mistakes, they start seeing breakdown, there start to be things that
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  involve loss of time in the operation, a waste of time that means in
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  commercial operations around forty to eighty zero dollars a day. Now, this is,
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  from a commercial point of view, where companies are willing to lose that
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  silver, to generate more money through the infrastructure they are going to rent,
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  etcetera, etcetera. A project that is run by the state, paid for
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  the taxes of the people has to be very specific with what, what strategy
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  is there for these kinds of problems that happen and that are going to happen,
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  but how can they be avoided. So that' s still not very
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  clear. And if that is the ambition of the San José project, this
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  has to be clarified immediately. Finally, there is the most ambitious part of
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  excavation. The excavation not only requires all these steps that come out absolutely perfect,
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  but that one can maintain a rhythm of work where one can recover the
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  materials, archaeological ones can be documented in an archaeological way, can be taken
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  to that point of scientific knowledge, where the site can be known in a
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  greater way. And with all this, on top of what happens to artifacts,
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  where they' re going to give, what conservation strategy exists, where
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  they' re going to go. All these things have to be very well
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  clarified, because, from a commercial point of view and how deep commercial archaeology
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  works in other countries, these budgets have to be in advance of any operation
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  happening. They' re already crazy about that kind of thing they' re
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  already into that kind of operation, so, if you don' t know
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  the methodology yet, it' s not and it' s good. My
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  point of view is that there is either a lot of clarification as to what
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  is being done with the San José project and what approach it will be given,
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  if it is basic inspection, accurate inspection, inspection and recovery or excavation
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  of whether it is the last one. We still have a lot of questions
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  to ask and we need a lot of answers, because I tell you that
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  everything seems to indicate what would be an operation that you mention of type three
• 35:16
  inspection and selective removal of objects in Colombian authorities talk about taking out some artifacts
• 35:22
  to evaluate their behavior on the surface and that' s where my question is
• 35:27
  directed. It must be experienced in that sense, or we know what happens,
• 35:31
  obviously, when objects that have been stable for several centuries under water are
• 35:37
  finally met with the oxygen of the natural environment. What should or should the
• 35:43
  authorities consider in that case. Well, actually, the authorities there would obviously
• 35:50
  have to ask. Let' s say the international academic body, let'
• 36:02
  s say national. There are many studies of what happens to artifacts after they
• 36:07
  have been rescued from the Sea Fund. It' s worth it. Of
• 36:15
  course it' s worth it because it' s a depth we don'
• 36:17
  t know. It is a place that has a lot of material to study,
• 36:27
  it is worth doing the work, it is worth taking out this type
• 36:34
  of artifacts to be able to understand the dynamic processes of site formation. Of
• 36:38
  course, what we don' t know is what kind of basically we'
• 36:52
  re dark about how that kind of inspection and recovery is going to be done.
• 36:59
  As you say, then it' s level three. I think the
• 37:01
  systems they have are in pain, because there is no redundancy of any,
• 37:08
  of any, at least of what I know. There is no redundancy in
• 37:12
  teams. There' s no second roff There' s no second roff.
• 37:19
  Let' s say it took a little while to try to explain the methodology
• 37:25
  and once these artifacts are recovered, first what artifacts will be recovered, because
• 37:31
  that can be decided in place, ceramics, glass. We know that it
• 37:38
  does not undergo much change, such as wood or metal or organic elements that
• 37:46
  need many stages of salinization, that there are many experts in the world,
• 37:54
  where most of the museums that have materials, geological arts that have been rescued
• 38:00
  from the bottom of the sea, have the infrastructure to be able to realize
• 38:04
  it. They have the infrastructure to be able to study this type of material.
• 38:09
  I think it' s worth it for the only thing that' s
• 38:15
  the place. But from my point of view, I think that if you
• 38:22
  don' t do more to try to do an accurate inspection, you may
• 38:29
  lose context information. And that' s not like the team doesn' t
• 38:31
  have it, it' s just that they haven' t made them known
• 38:36
  to us. I don' t know how it works in legal terms in
• 38:40
  Colombia, if it' s something that the government' s scientific bodies have
• 38:45
  to make known to the people in general how they' re going to do
• 38:54
  a methodology or if it' s just let' s say in committee,
• 38:57
  in a technology committee. I do not know that, for example, in
• 38:59
  Mexico there is the Council of Archaeology and the National Council of Science and Technology.
• 39:05
  In England there are inglis Hearthage and there are too many institutions that they
• 39:09
  have the expertise and specialists to be able to help understand this type of process.
• 39:17
  Once the artifacts have been recovered, now recovering the artifacts is not the
• 39:27
  difficult thing, but it is to recover the information from the site without losing
• 39:32
  the archaeological context. And that' s very important, and that' s
• 39:37
  the part that we say, that' s what I do, more than
• 39:40
  I do, is if we don' t know where things come from,
• 39:45
  we can' t know the story more than the object itself, and that
• 39:50
  ' s very basic archaeology. And the truth is, I don' t
• 39:53
  see the team doing this kind of job and I don' t doubt capacity,
• 40:00
  but they do. I am of the idea that you have to clarify
• 40:04
  a little bit better, because let' s say that here the limiting part
• 40:12
  is the team with which you want to carry out this type of study.
• 40:15
  About your answer, the conservation issue, because it' s key. It
• 40:22
  is a matter that not only involves the particular interests of today, of the
• 40:27
  hour, but finally has to take into account that archaeological heritage of the nation
• 40:31
  is being manipulated or shared and that, of course, our obligation is to
• 40:40
  ensure its preservation for future generations. And I believe that in that line goes
• 40:46
  the Convention of a Sco of two thousand one that has been insisting on a
• 40:52
  principle that must govern the underwater archaeology, which is the one of conservation in
• 40:55
  sto, that is, that if the archaeological remains have been centuries, they
• 41:02
  have been under water millennia under stable conditions, already mentioned, like the Black
• 41:07
  Sea, and they do not have the technical resources, economic professionals to guarantee
• 41:13
  their preservation for the future. For the most responsible and prudent thing is to
• 41:16
  leave these contexts without intervening. This principle has been strongly attacked, especially by
• 41:22
  the treasure hunters for obvious reasons, but also accusing those who promote this kind
• 41:29
  of conservation as Taliban of archaeology, if they have let me know, I
• 41:32
  mean, that we are fundamentalists, basically, but you can study a shipwreck
• 41:37
  without intervening it, or the only option is excavation. It' s a
• 41:45
  very complicated subject. The truth is that the protection of underwater sites, the
• 41:50
  protection in yourself depends a lot on each site. The truth and it is
• 41:57
  very well said by UNESCO, if the site is at risk, it is
• 42:00
  necessary to intervene. Now few know even with all these works that have been
• 42:07
  done internationally in different seas of the world for different projects and different reasons,
• 42:15
  whether commercial or commercial. I' m talking about commercial archaeology, not house
• 42:21
  treasures and projects and scientific expeditions. Very little is known about deep archaeological contexts.
• 42:31
  One of the most important arguments would be the extraction of archaeological materials that
• 42:42
  help us understand the dynamics and processes of site formation. I am in favour
• 42:51
  of this type of research being carried out in the deep places, because we
• 42:54
  know very little about fauna, with regard to the type of currents, for
• 43:00
  example, that exist in the depths, we do not know much and,
• 43:07
  in fact, I believe that projects that include the biological study and the intervention
• 43:14
  of different biological organisms that not only that geology, and of actually multidisciplinary projects
• 43:21
  where geologists geographers are included, are sites that are worth studying now how we
• 43:31
  study the site? That' s actually the question, because how we study
• 43:39
  the site is the information we can retrieve. If we are talking about basic
• 43:45
  inspection, we are not going to recover more information than we can already,
• 43:52
  than we can know from other sites, because we can review videos, we
• 44:00
  can review Let' s say sensors where the different devices that measure the sea
• 44:07
  currents in different places in the world are. There are ways to make them
• 44:10
  without archaeological intervention. If a site is to be intervened to study it accurately
• 44:17
  and archaeologically, yes or yes, a precise inspection and recovery is required.
• 44:24
  Now this is where the problems begin. If you don' t have the
• 44:30
  methodology, the right strategy, this type of studies fall short and then an
• 44:36
  archaeological site that is protected goes on to make a site, an archaeological circus,
• 44:43
  that the context is modified and that the information you wanted to know to
• 44:46
  understand the site was not recovered or is not enough to say anything about the
• 44:52
  site. This is the part where methodology, processes, operations are very important,
• 44:58
  because it is through such strategies that one can understand whether the information is
• 45:04
  going to be sufficient or not. So, if you want to do a
• 45:14
  precise inspection and accurate recovery of the site to understand the process of site formation,
• 45:22
  it is more than valid to make an archaeological intervention of the site.
• 45:28
  However, it has to be an intervention where let' s say that'
• 45:37
  s the goal. Understand the site, do not dig the entire ship.
• 45:45
  That' s quite another one. It' s another approach, as they
• 45:52
  ' d say in England. It' s just different questions, different methodologies.
• 45:59
  Not here what I don' t see what the scientific community in Colombia
• 46:06
  and the world isn' t seeing. They are how these scientific questions and
• 46:13
  methodology fit, especially because the methodology cannot apply the same methodology for this type
• 46:19
  of sites. If we put the weight of the budget on all this,
• 46:24
  things get complicated by everything we' ve already been saying. So, if
• 46:31
  you study the site, you do understand the site, you do have an
• 46:35
  inspection and to understand the site, by means of the type of operation that
• 46:44
  is required. But let it be clear what these questions are and what I
• 46:50
  mean clearly is paragraphs where it is described step by step, what is going
• 46:53
  to be done, not only to if we are going to use this equipment
• 46:57
  so we are going to put, but it is what we are going to
• 47:00
  do on day one, day two, day three, what is going to
• 47:04
  happen the day the airrobis burns the cable that starts to lose pressure, hydrability,
• 47:13
  all these kinds of things that happen every day, what is going to
• 47:15
  happen when those things happen. That' s me I think the kind of
• 47:23
  questions we have to start asking ourselves then. To sum up a little,
• 47:29
  I think it' s worth the inspection, but I think we' re
• 47:32
  a little bit on the edge of technical capacity and experience. Not because there
• 47:39
  are many people experienced in this project. There are many people with many hours,
• 47:45
  many years of experience, more than many of us. But this has
• 47:51
  to be very specific to research questions and so far they have not been made
• 47:54
  known as basics. Indeed, the timing and details of that schedule are absolutely
• 48:06
  unknown. We have had access to a series of presentations that show the equipment,
• 48:15
  the hypothetical use of the equipment, but I think that there is a
• 48:21
  lot of detail to know exactly what is going to happen what is already going
• 48:27
  to happen to close Rodrigo there is a topic that is very important and that
• 48:31
  has to do with transparency and diffusion in science. Both closely linked. In
• 48:35
  the Colombian case, of course, the resources to be executed come from the
• 48:39
  tax collection. They' re public resources. President Petro has insisted on the
• 48:45
  creation of a museum in Cartagena de Indias, with all the things that are
• 48:49
  taken from the Fund of the Sea to you that you work in museum.
• 48:54
  What do you think of that idea, or there are other possibilities besides museums,
• 49:00
  to bring the public closer to the Fondo del Mar, Considering, as
• 49:06
  I told you before your experience in diffusion and in science communication, well,
• 49:14
  the subject is very complicated. The truth is that the development of museography,
• 49:19
  the creation of museums depends very much on the funds, interests and support of
• 49:27
  all institutions. There seems to be a lot of support from the institutions.
• 49:32
  There seems to be a lot of interest in this happening, but we'
• 49:37
  re going back to the same thing. Where is it explained what type of
• 49:40
  museum it is going to be, what kind of protection will be given to
• 49:45
  it materials. Once and this isn' t science, let' s say
• 49:49
  it' s not new science that I' m going to know most of
• 49:57
  these artifacts exist all over the world. They' ve recovered from the bottom
• 49:59
  of the sea. We know what' s happening to them. We know
• 50:02
  there are decrees, there are conservation publications in any country, in any university
• 50:12
  in the world and in any commercial unit that archaeological works are done. There
• 50:17
  are these kinds of procedures, of what we do with materials, once they
• 50:22
  are rescued scientifically, create a museum around objects, because it is a bit
• 50:30
  to build a house upside down, you do not build the bed first and
• 50:38
  then in the house around the bed, because it stays in the small house.
• 50:44
  So, if the intention is to do a precise inspection and recover the
• 50:51
  materials, even if they are few. Well, if you are going to
• 50:54
  make a museum to say in case you exaggerate that it recovers in two hundred,
• 51:04
  two hundred, three hundred different archaeological materials, because a museum that is
• 51:12
  dedicated only to these archaeological materials does not have that. Let' s say
• 51:20
  that test for the future, which is going to happen in twenty years,
• 51:23
  when people get tired of just going to see three bits of ceramic or a
• 51:29
  cannon or two cannons, that is, we have to think about whether a
• 51:32
  museum is going to be generated, first to generate the idea of the museum
• 51:38
  as an attraction to the public and then start to generate that need to understand
• 51:45
  the past and try, through inspection and scientific study, to feed that museum.
• 51:54
  Not the other way around, so I don' t know a lot
• 52:00
  of details. Again. It is something that has not been talked about much
• 52:05
  and that is part of the fact that the greatest anguish that is felt in
• 52:12
  global terms in this project more would be very good to hear, through the
• 52:22
  Government or different institutions, what the plan is. But if we put ourselves,
• 52:28
  for example, in comparison to the may roase as we talked about earlier
• 52:32
  in Portsmouth, which is a boat much smaller than the San Jose, it
• 52:37
  is half, because only the steam starboard part of the May Rose is recovered,
• 52:45
  a museum is created to house the boat inside the building. That museum
• 53:00
  cost 35 million pounds. Then the budget of four five million dollars, because
• 53:06
  we are no longer left. We no longer know if it' s part
• 53:09
  of what' s going to be done with the artifacts or not. So
• 53:13
  clarity and transparency is the most important thing, and I think we still have
• 53:19
  a long way to go to that point where the international scientific community says this
• 53:24
  project. It' s a wonder, it' s an example. It
• 53:27
  ' s new. No one in the world has ever done this kind of
• 53:30
  thing. The museum plan is I don' t think we' re there
• 53:38
  and in that sense, I' m in the kind of information we have.
• 53:45
  I' m really looking forward to hearing what the project has to say
• 53:51
  and hopefully it will be done. We are far from being this unique project
• 53:59
  in the wonderful world that no one has ever seen. Unfortunately, I think
• 54:02
  there is more work and I know that much more work is being done,
• 54:07
  but we need to be more transparent and, as you said, especially when
• 54:12
  this is funded by the people, which is completely different from how other institutions
• 54:21
  work in the world where most museums are financed by private institutions. Unfortunately,
• 54:30
  and the state, although it provides a lot of budget, is not to
• 54:38
  say that a big one is not the majority of the budget, but that,
• 54:45
  for example, the Royal Navy Museum, depends on tickets, on tickets
• 54:51
  to the Museum, depends on private funding, depends on many other bodies that
• 54:59
  are not necessarily the government. In fact, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence
• 55:04
  provides only 16 percent of the budget for the entire Museum. Then the museum
• 55:10
  model also needs to be a little more explicit and much clearer. Yeah,
• 55:16
  you' re absolutely right. And one of the great problems this project has
• 55:22
  is that it is more political than scientific. And in that sense, it
• 55:27
  moves by political interests and in political times. And the political times are short
• 55:34
  and have to be relatively quick processes so that results can be presented. And
• 55:40
  scientific times take time, reflection, discussion, criticism, consensus- building,
• 55:49
  experimentation, planning and finally, then, implementation. I believe that this is
• 55:57
  the great difficulty involved in the project of Galeón San José, being a bulletproof
• 56:06
  project. As for methodological terms, it is much more difficult in six years
• 56:16
  to close it, for example, in six years to decide or not to
• 56:22
  continue with the budget, because if there are no clear and strong results,
• 56:28
  then the interest is lost, that is, how well there is the political
• 56:32
  interest. The truth is there is a great Let' s say what is
• 56:43
  called a great result for archaeology, because it is very difficult to get this
• 56:46
  kind of support. But if it' s not bulletproof, the project,
• 56:51
  as you say in six years, if you don' t see the results,
• 56:55
  it' s all shut down and it' s all over and that
• 56:59
  bridge is already here. Monkey. Yeah, it' s exactly thinking about
• 57:05
  state projects, not government projects. And in that not only reference to this
• 57:10
  particular one, but in general to projects that have an impact on a nation
• 57:16
  and on a complete citizenship. So thank you so much for your time and
• 57:22
  for sharing your knowledge and valuable experience in this subject. I stress that you
• 57:30
  are perhaps the only Latin American who has experience in depth archaeology, so for
• 57:36
  me it is also a taste, a privilege to talk and, above all,
• 57:40
  to learn from your experience. We will continue to produce scientific content on
• 57:45
  this podcast. The future was there? It was