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]]>The Nissia Shipwreck is from the Ottoman period. It is located on the southeast coast of Cyprus. The shipwreck has been known about by the local diving community ever since the 1980s.
The MARELab of the University of Cyprus, in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, undertook a research project on the site, for a number of reasons:
- the wreck has a high percentage of wooden hull preservation
- the wreck is exposed to natural deterioration processes
- the wreck is subject to looting and destruction.
The fieldwork season took place in September 2014. It consisted of an excavation of two trenches and the recovery of a cannon and many other finds. Students were trained in in situ preservation methods of organic material, and there was also the opportunity for public archaeology engagement with the local community. In all, this project brought together the different aspects of maritime archaeology in practice, including 3D digital recording methods.
Further reading about the Nissia shipwreck
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In this short video, Crystal discusses the importance of preserving maritime traditions.
Do you agree with Crystal?
Further information on the preservation of maritime traditions
If you are interested in maritime traditions, you might want to visit Traditional Maritime Skills. This is the website of the Traditional Maritime Skills project. The aim of this EU project is to record wooden boatbuilding skills. These skills are in danger of disappearing as masters of the trade retire.
The £1m international scheme is part of a partnership between Cornwall, the Netherlands and Belgium. Skills will be recorded in boatyards across these regions. These skills will then form part of readily-available online training packages. This archive will help ensure a steady workforce of multi-skilled boatbuilders. It will also support regions whose economies have traditionally been entwined with their maritime heritage.
In Week 4 of our course, Dr Jesse Ransley explains why maritime archaeologists have become increasingly interested in working with boat builders and studying traditional maritime skills.
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With water covering seventy-one percent of our planet, we might wonder how much of the oceans and seas we really know, and how much archaeology there is. Seafloor surveying and exploration is in a state of continuous development, building on new technologies in recording, mapping, and analysing data. Although marine surveying techniques are well standardised nowadays and exceed expectations, we still surrender to the immensity and depth of the oceans. An example of our humanly defeat is flight MH371 which disappeared in the southern Indian Ocean. The search for this flight was one of the largest and most expensive, yet the flight’s debris was not found. Such unfortunate incidents give an impetus to push the boundaries of our current technology and enhance it. Investigating our oceans and seas is not only of an archaeological interest, but combines many fields and disciplines, such as military applications, geology, ecology, offshore installations, seafloor mapping, etc. These podcasts for example, offer an insight on some of the current research undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The increasing awareness of how little we know of our oceans, seas, and coasts, and how significant that knowledge is for all the facets of human life, particularly understanding our past, led to the establishment of numerous institutes, observatories, departments, companies, laboratories, and research units, that aim to generate, collect, analyse, consolidate, and disseminate data on our oceans and coasts. These establishments are very important and we rely much upon their work in maritime archaeology such as Channel Coastal Observatory (CCO), NOAA, SeaSearch, Ordnance Survey, European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet), Ifremer, to name but a few. Although these institutions are widespread across the globe, many regions are still under studied and that can hinder archaeological research given the lack of available data. Nonetheless, many organisations assist in filling in the gaps through the funding of projects such as the Honor Frost Foundation for the eastern Mediterranean, The European Union, the Centre for National Scientific Research, as well as governmental bodies.
With A.J. Parker (1992) identifying 1,189 shipwrecks and abandoned hulls in the Mediterranean, we can only but imagine the archaeological potential of our oceans and continental margins. Not only in terms of shipwrecks but as well as submerged sites. It has become imperative to build databases to store information and make it available to the public and to research endeavours, especially in the digital world we live in. The EMODnet portal is one of those databases, as well as Benthos (Digital Atlas of Ancient Waters), and Historic England. After all it is through the exchange of ideas and information that we can pull efforts together for the better understanding of our oceans, seas, and our past.
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]]>The post St. Mary’s River Archaeological Project – Findings from the 2013 field season, by Scott Tucker appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.
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Scott Tucker, postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton, will give a talk on his maritime research and fieldwork. This Centre for Maritime Archaeology Research Group seminar will take place on Thursday, January 30, at 14:00 in the Centre for Maritime Archaeology lecture room (Building 65b). A live broadcast is available on this link http://coursecast.soton.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Viewer/Default.aspx?id=f1807609-d14a-4347-9f54-3849fd64701d
Abstract: The St. Mary’s River Archaeological Project has been investigating a concentration of lithic ballast material, located just offshore of the 17th-century town centre of St. Mary’s City, Maryland. The size and shape of the distribution have been used as an indicator that the ballast represents the remains of a hulked sailing vessel rather than discarded ballast, and some artefact finds had suggested an early colonial-period date for the site. This lecture will outline the findings from testing performed on the site in summer 2013. The interpretation of this site is yet open, so audience participation is encouraged to perhaps clarify some of the less clear aspects of this research and help shape future efforts on this site.
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The Centre for Maritime Archaeology Research Group presentations will resume on January 28th at 4 pm, in the CMA lecture room.
Rodrigo Pacheco Ruiz (PhD student) will present his work on Iron Age boat Building. The presentation will also be broadcasted on this link Things have to change: Iron Age boat building traditions in Northern Europe,by Rodrigo Pachecho Ruiz appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.
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]]>The post CMA Summer Fieldwork Presentations appeared first on Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds.
]]>Presentations are taking place in the Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Building 65b, on the following dates:
Tuesday October 22, 11:15am
Peter Campbell (PhD Student)- Roman Warships and Aqueducts: Fieldwork in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania
David Selmo (MSc graduate)- Reflectance Transformation Imaging
Nick Dugdale (PhD Student)- The Marzamemi Maritime Heritage Project, 2013 Season
Tuesday October 29, 11:15am
Rodrigo Pacheco Ruiz (PhD Student) – Leaving Land Behind: An Insight into Coastal Lives in Late Prehistoric Scilly, UK
Alex Tourtas (MA Student) – Fieldwork in Greece 2012-13: Snapshots
Rachel Bynoe (PhD Student) – The Submerged Palaeolithic of the Southern North Sea
Tuesday November 5, 12:15pm
Amelia Astley (PhD Student) – The Taphonomy of Historic Shipwreck Sites: Implications for Heritage Management
Loren Clark (MA Student) – Submerged Stories in the Nation’s Oldest Port
The Session will be live-streamed on this link
We will update this schedule as it develops further.
Twitter #cmarg
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