The Ribadeo I Shipwreck, Galleon “San Giacomo di Galizia”—From Excavation to Interpretation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The wreck of Ribadeo is a very important Spanish warship and an interdisciplinary team has dedicated several seasons to the archaeological excavation of the remains of the hull. The use of new technologies is well blended with a traditional field research and and is an excellent case study. So, this paper presents an exhaustive story of the the excavation, of the maetodology used and a solid interpretation of the data collected.

If it is possible, I only suggest to increase the references.

Author Response

We feel that at this point, in such a preliminary stage of our archaeological research, we do not have any references to add, firstly because there are not many coeval recipes for the construction of a ship in this period and region, and second because until we have a better understanding of the form and structure of the ship's lower hull, it is not possible to advance hypothesis because there are almost no archaeological parallels published. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is quite innovative and pertinent because it presents the study of a ship built in the Mediterranean in the 16th century, a reality that is still little documented and studied. According to the authors, Santiago’s archaeological remains stand as a unique example of a Mediterranean-built warship from this period.

The paper presents a very well accomplished internal structure. The methodology applied is coherent and effective. And the conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented.

We consider that the article meets the requirements to be published, presenting a high merit. However, it may benefit from some improvements.

Line 15: identified sentence formatting or punctuation problem.

Literature review, references, sources, and bibliography: This is the aspect that we consider needs to be improved.

In chapters 2. Santiago de Galicia, 3.The beaching of Santiago de Galicia and 4. The people, the bibliographical references and the indication of documentary sources are unclear and insufficient. For example: I suppose that all the information described between lines 110 and 114 has Casabán 2017 as a reference, but it is not clear to the reader; it is also not perceptible what is the source of the information described between line 131 and 146.

Line 159: the authors refer to documents preserved in Ribadeos's City Council Archives (1595-1611), but there is no reference to the type of documents, and they are not referred to in the bibliography or sources at the end of the article. There is no bibliographic or source reference between line 159 and 206. 

Point 4 has the same problems, it is not always clear what the source of the information is.

We think it was important to make this part of the article clearer and more consistent.

There is another lack of bibliographic reference to mention: lines 569 -572.

The conclusions also seem to lack bibliographic references, but if in the previous chapters the references have been duly completed, it would be more acceptable to leave them out here.

For example, it is important to refer to the source indicated Cayetano Hormaechea – line 616. 

We consider the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate, but we draw attention to the following: Figure 1: the location of the archaeological site does not appear identified on the map; Figure 2: could have a higher quality for easier reading; Figure 5, 6 and 8: we believe that the image placed on top of the main picture is neither useful nor necessary, since its small size does not allow any reading and identification of the area in the general planimetry. It is better to give it up, in our opinion.

Author Response

Thank you for your review. We have fixed Line 15, we will put the refs. of the doc asap, lines 110-114 and 131-146 came from a draft by Miguel San Claudio, we will refer that Cayetano Hormaechea gave us his opinion in personal exchanges, and we will fix Image 1. The references of mortar in the shipwrecks (lines 569-572) come from ships salvaged from treasure hunters and were included in our databases from personal communications and references in magazines and popular articles. We will look for references in the incoming days.

Reviewer 3 Report

The research is well presented and deeply analysed from storical and archaeological point of views. 

I had only some advices presented in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you so much for your review. The wood is treated in a separate paper of this edited Heritage issue, so we did not include any of it. And we did not include a longer historical account because we were running out of space.

I have fixed line 15 and line 22, and Figure 1. We do not have enough data on the men salaries and weapons to justify including new columns in Table 3.

Lead sheathing was used into the 19th century and the range of its use is not relevant because it goes from around the 2nd century BCE to the 19th century CE. We are currently looking at patterns of lead sheathing and here also we do not have a large enough sample of published data to allow any conclusions or predictions (and as you imply, what is not published does not exist).

The timbers of this hull are certainly broken and probably disconnected but again, we do not have enough information to make predictions.

Corrected Stabia. Regarding the colors of the GIS site pan, that work is in progress and will be included in the next publications. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments to the Author

The submission is a complete manuscript entitled "The Ribadeo I shipwreck, Galleon “San Giacomo di Galizia” – 2 from Excavation to Interpretation".

This is a well-written, tidy and well-structured manuscript. The authors clearly explain the purpose of the study.

After carefully evaluating the manuscript, I've only some minor recommendations I hope the authors take into account before publication. I hope the authors take my comments as constructive advice.

Abstract.

I recommend that the authors extend the abstract to accurately and succinctly describe the work, making it clear what was known before, what was done and what was achieved.

Discussion

·         The authors should consider introducing a Discussion to critically evaluate key areas addressed and derive conclusions from the results obtained. A more elaborated integration of the results obtained with published literature would be necessary.

Figures.

-          Only Figure 2 is mentioned in the main document. Please, make sure to reference all the figures in the manuscript.

-          The small figures on top of Fig. 5, 6 and 8 are difficult to visualize. Please consider making them larger.

-          Consider adding a legend to Figure 3.

Author Response

Thank you so much for these comments. we will address them all.