Thomas Dhoop

View of the Brede valley, taken from the Winchelsea-hill. © Thomas Dhoop On the 26th of April 2015, the Winchelsea Archaeological Society (WAS) and members of the archaeology department of the University of Southampton are holding a one-day conference titled ‘Medieval Ports, Ships and Sailors‘. The central theme of the day will be the changing relationships between medieval cargo ships, waterfront infrastructure and the built-up town environment. Continue reading →

  Guernsey © Stephan Vanfleteren Maritime archaeology; the study of the material culture that can inform us about the ways in which peoples in the past engaged with and were impacted by the seas and other waterbodies (Author’s definition). Is the Atlantic Wall maritime archaeology? In his introduction to his magnificent new photobook ‘Atlantic Wall‘, Stephan Vanlfeteren certainly seems to think so. Continue reading →

Last week, I travelled to the lovely little town of Baltimore, Ireland for the 8th annual FRAUG conference. This year’s gathering was organised by Pat Tanner, a traditional boat builder, 3D scanning expert and PhD candidate at the University of Southampton who called in a lot of favours to offer us a week of boat building at Haggerty’s traditional boatyard. Continue reading →

Last Sunday was Heritage Day in Flanders, a yearly event during which heritage sites open their doors to visitors and make an extra effort to organise guided walks, hold lectures, set up exhibitions etc. As a maritime archaeologist, I was naturally drawn to Flanders’ maritime heritage and decided to visit two ship wharfs. One located inland along the river Scheldt in Baasrode; the Scheepsvaartmuseum Baasrode and the other at the coast of Blankenberge; De Scute. Continue reading →

Last week was the final stretch of my 5 week research trip to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. What I did on my last day, sums up quite nicely how I spent the past few weeks at this institution. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde Athena Trakadas, associate professor at the Southern University of Denmark (Syddansk Universitet, SDU), invited me to give a presentation for the master students of the maritime archaeology program at SDU in Esbjerg. The idea was to introduce the current masters to what it entails to write a MA-dissertation. Continue reading →

For the next five weeks, I am located at the the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark as a visiting PhD researcher. Despite what its name suggests, this museum is not only the world-leading authority on Viking Age shipbuilding, but also Denmark’s premier research centre for ships and seafaring in Prehistoric and Medieval times. It is here that I took the next step in my PhD journey. As of today, Dr. Continue reading →

At first sight this post might not seem particularly relevant to my research as a maritime archaeologist. Yet, I would like to  ask you to bare with me as I explore ‘maritime London’ for the first time. Even though I have been living in the UK for almost a year and a half with the specific purpose of immersing myself in maritime archaeology and history, I had never explored ‘maritime London’. Continue reading →