Gribshunden (or Griffen), sunk in 1495, is possibly the best preserved 15th century warship in the world. Probably built in the Netherlands with timber from France, used by the Danish king on travels to England, Norway and Sweden, it is truly an international shipwreck. Since it is carvel built, it can also give important clues to the ship building techniques used by the great explorers, Columbus and Vasco da Gama.

A Gribshunden seminar took place in Ronneby, Sweden in November 2015. The aim of the seminar was to present current stage of investigation of the shipwreck. Blekinge museum and the county administrative board of Blekinge invited researchers, conservators and archaeologists from different parts of Europe to share their research and their view on Gribshunden.

3D documentation - Ingemar Lundgren from Ocean Discovery

Ocean Discovery is a company that works with 3D modeling and photogrammetry as a support for marine archaeology in documentation, visualization and reconstruction. At the same time they develop the means to get these tools to work in a marine setting. For museums this method is useful as it’s a quite inexpensive tool that will contribute both to the museum’s exhibition and their archaeology.
Photogrammetry is making a 3D scanning of the site or the artifact, using a multitude of overlapping photos taken from different angles. The photos are merged together in the software to create a 3D model, which in turn can be used for multiple purposes. There are different types of photogrammetry depending on the objective. Ocean Discovery is at this point trying to adopt the Close range photogrammetry to marine archaeology. When exploring a ship wreck the visibility is very poor. However, photogrammetry enables us to construct an overview of the site in our software. For research purposes, these are not artistically made impressions of the sites but real images. One can also manipulate the devise by different light setting so as to create the right light for indistinct features to appear more clearly, such as inscriptions for example. Results that can be gained at a ship wreck site are traces of environmental decay or traces of looting for example. One can also calculate weight and exact measurements details. The 3D models can be used in display on websites or in mobile aps, or even 3D printed to be shown at museum exhibitions. It can also be used for pedagogical practice as an interactive tool for detailed study of the site, or artifact, where you’re able to rotate the model in order to study it from different angles.
The approach is said to be a non-intrusive marine archaeology. The meaning of this is that the archaeologists are able to perform a full survey of the site without actually salvaging the wreck. This procedure is also more cost effective. Instead of paying for quite expensive marine excavations of a site, 3D scanning might be a good option.