There is great excitement in Cape Town after the discovery of a ship found buried in a pit on the construction site at the No. 1 Silo at the V&A Waterfront. The eight metre hull lies buried in beach sand close to where the tidal zone was in the 1800s.

Archaeologist, Liesbet Schietecatte says their first priority at this stage is to dig it up.

Some of it is loose because the digging machine loosened it first and it was only then that it was discovered, which is the Catch 22 of archaeology: You break it before you find it. When all the loose parts have been removed, we will investigate see what is still left in situ, because we think that there is still some wood left the way the ship or boat got stuck on the sand. It is difficult to pin down an exact date until the team has had more time to study it. A guess now would be 19th century, but we will have to look at that again. It’s like a jigsaw: We will put out all the pieces, clean them up, record them. See how they fit together and by the way the ship was constructed, we will probably be able to tell more.

The archeologists are working around the clock as The No. 1 Silo is being transformed into an 18 000m² office space scheduled for completion in 2013, and the archaeological team has to conduct their investigation around the active building site.

Here is video footage of the proceedings:

[Source: News24]