Application of the State-Of-The Art Engineering Methods in Nautical Archaeology

Modern interdisciplinary projects are connecting researchers from seemingly unrelated fields, like naval engineering and archaeology. However, archaeological remnants of the present days, such as ancient ships and ceramic transport containers, were created by engineers and artisans of the past. It is therefore meaningful to consider their function and construction from an engineering point of view, complementing the archaeological research. One track of the interdisciplinary project Archaeology of Adriatic Shipbuilding and Seafaring (AdriaS), founded by the Croatian Science Foundation, aims at better understanding of structural behaviour of the ancient seaborne structures, made of wood and ceramics. In addition, a reverse engineering method is considered in the analysis of underwater archaeological sites, by the simulation of capsizing of ancient ship. This paper presents the possibilities and limitation of the application of the state-of-the-art engineering methods in nautical archaeology. It focuses on the analysis of wooden and ceramics structures, particularly through the identification of open questions, and exploitation of proper material models. Moreover, it presents the complex fluid-structure interaction analysis of a ship capsizing event as a possible engineering tool for testing hypothesis.