AN ambitious, 13-year project to survey and preserve artefacts from the battlefields of Gallipoli is finally complete, with almost 2000 items ranging from rum jars to barbed wire, bullet casing and an old lunch-box uncovered.

Its completion comes as 1200 people last night made the pilgrimage to the shores of Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey to honour the thousands of young Australian and New Zealand lives lost there from April 25, 1915.

Exactly 103 years after that fateful landing on the beaches of Anzac Cove, a moving dawn service honoured the ultimate sacrifice of 11,000 Anzacs, and paid tribute to their mateship and courage.

At the same time, a project started back in 2005 was finally completed, with a publicly-accessible database detailing the incredible findings from the Gallipoli battlefields, where so much blood was spilled.

Started by former Australian prime minister John Howard and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the world’s most extensive battlefield archaeological study uncovered items which gave a glimpse of life on the frontline for Turkish and Anzac troops, uncovered the trenches where men fought, lived and died, and unearthed everyday items such as bottles of beer and belt buckles.

The database is the final stage of the project and will allow the public to browse through the artefacts and learn more about the terrible carnage in 1915 which killed 8700 Australians, 2700 New Zealanders, 21,200 British troops, 10,000 French, 1350 Indians, and 49 troops from Newfoundland.

More than 87,000 Turkish soldiers also died in their successful defence of the peninsula.

The study by Australian, New Zealand and Turkey was launched after road works were conducted on the peninsula without a study on what artefacts the construction works have disturbed.

Home affairs Minister Peter Dutton, speaking from Gallipoli, said the database was the result of five seasons of archaeological surveys on the battlefields, and would help bring the story of the Anzac to new generations of Australians.

“This remarkable database will add new layers on insight into our understanding of the Gallipoli battlefields,’’ he said.

The service on the shores of Anzac Cove saw the Australian, New Zealand and Turkish flags raised slowly over the beach where so many young men had died.

A lone piper played as wreaths were laid in honour of the fallen, against a simple sandstone wall bearing the word Anzac.

The service was conducted partly in English and partly in Maori language, and New Zealand’s Chief of Army Major-General Peter Kelly and several other senior New Zealand military figure wore korowais, traditional Maori cloaks woven from feathers, and presented as a sign of respect.

Maj-Gen Kelly said the vast majority of those young Anzacs who landed on the beach behind him 103 years ago had never been under fire before.

“For many it would be their last day on earth. The physical and psychological shock of battle was almost overwhelming.’’

The Royal Australian Navy band, the Choir of St James from Sydney and the New Zealand Defence Force Band played throughout the service, including the moving hymn to the lost soldier, O Valiant Hearts.

Crowd numbers were up on last year, when a terror threat cut the crowd size to 700, and heavy security was in place along the Gallipoli peninsula.

Many of those in the crowd wore red poppies, and some draped themselves in the Australian flag.

A Turkish Army official read the reconciliation words of Turkey’s famous World War I commander and later president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, written in 1934.

“Those heroes that shed their blood, and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

“There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side.’’

A second service was also held at the Lone Pine cemetery, several hours after the dawn service.