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Fragments of a plate
Credit : Max Guérout |
Everybody had been waiting for the intensity of the trade wind to decrease for 15 days.
At daybreak, it was quite weak and we had great hopes of being able to dive but then it started to exceed 15 knots and the diving sessions promised to be acrobatic.
The divers got prepared while another team was filling in again the holes we made when we probed the area on the previous days.
In late afternoon the day before, as they were coming back from another inspection of the supposed well area, Thomas Romon and Sudel Fuma found some ceramic shards which had been uncovered by the tractor. Was it a plate?
The green printed pattern and the paste indicated that it was a 19th century object.
In the morning, we went to that place again with a rake. There we found about 60 other fragments of the same plate a few centimetres deep and we managed to put most of it together again. Four of these shards allowed us to find the potter’s name, J. PRATINO, as well as the name of the service, “Italian Flowers”.
As we had no access to the Internet, we made Robert Veccella, in Tahiti, in charge of searching for information about that plate. He had done a good job when he had to look for information about the GARTCRAIG printed bricks. We had to know if this plate was related to the wreck of the Atiet Rohoman in 1867 or the second wrecking which may have occurred after 1876.
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Fragment of a clay pipe
Credit : Max Guérout |
While filling in the holes again, the team discovered a tiny ceramic shard with a blue pattern on a pile of debris. It was the only object of that kind they found on the probing zone, i.e. 3000 square meters. But it was definitely a good day. Indeed, as far as the divers are concerned, they found three other guns when they extended the search area. We were getting closer to the number of 28 guns carried by the Utile.
In the afternoon, one of the teams went back to the tip of the island and went on with the probing they started a week before. This area had been disrupted by different types of work, but we also knew that this was the place where the Malagasies had built their house with coral blocks.
We had difficulty in finding reference points in that area. We dug to read the undisturbed levels and find the base of the walls built by the Malagasies.
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Fragment of a sword guard
Credit : Max Guérout |
We were not in good spirits but we had a good surprise after we had been digging for half an hour. In the narrow trench we were digging, we found first a clay pipe and then a fragment of a bronze sword guard.
Unfortunately, we don’t think that these objects were in the right place, i.e. in the archaeological level of the 18th century, they were probably brought there during the numerous times the land was turned over. However, they allowed us to understand why there was no object on the camps area. It appeared that all these objects had been brought to the definitive habitat, which gave us the hope to find others.
