Grytviken is a hamlet on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay,considered the best harbour on the island. The location's name,meaning "pot bay",was coined in 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition and documented by the surveyor Johan Gunnar Andersson,after the expedition found old English try pots used to render seal oil at the site. Settlement was re-established on 16 November 1904 by Norwegian Antarctic explorer Carl Anton Larsen on the long-used site of former whaling settlements.
The year 1981 in archaeology involved some significant events.
The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia,undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. Many historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton,the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911,this crossing remained,in Shackleton's words,the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship,originally named Polaris,was built at Framnæs shipyard and launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway. When one of her commissioners,the Belgian Gerlache,went bankrupt,the remaining one sold the ship for less than the shipyard had charged - but as Lars Christensen was the owner of Framnæs,there was no hardship involved. The ship was bought by Shackleton in January 1914 for the expedition,which would be her first voyage. A year later,she became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. All of the crew survived her sinking and were eventually rescued in 1916 after using the ship's boats to travel to Elephant Island and Shackleton,the ship's captain Frank Worsley,and four others made a voyage to seek help.
James Preston Delgado is a maritime archaeologist,historian,maritime preservation expert,author,television host,and explorer.
Frank Pope is the chief executive officer for Save the Elephants (STE). After studying zoology at the University of Edinburgh he began his career in marine science before joining The Times newspaper as the world's only Ocean Correspondent to cover the fast-changing science,environment and geopolitics of the sea and help increase visibility of the crisis facing marine ecosystems. During this time he published two books,Dragon Sea and 72 Hours and hosted the BBC Series Britain's Secret Seas.
The Vũng Tàu shipwreck is a shipwreck that was found in the South China Sea off the islands of Côn Đảo about 100 nautical miles from Vũng Tàu,Vietnam. The wreck was of a lorcha boat—a vessel with Cantonese/Chinese and Portuguese/European influences that has been dated to about 1690. It was found by a fisherman who had picked up numerous pieces of porcelain from the wreck while fishing. Sverker Hallstrom identified the wreck and its cargo in 1990. Australian diver Michael Flecker took charge of the archaeological aspect of the excavation. An analysis of its cargo deduced that the ship was bound from China to Jakarta,Indonesia,where the porcelain would have been purchased by the Dutch East India Company for trans-shipment to Holland.
The Hội An wreck lies in the South China Sea 22 nautical miles off the coast of central Vietnam at approximately 16.04°N 108.6°E approximately. It was discovered by fishermen in the early 1990s. The Vietnamese government made several attempts to organise an investigation of the site but its efforts initially were confounded by the water depth of 230 feet (70 m). Between 1996 and 1999,the team,which included the Vietnamese National Salvage Corporation and Oxford University’s Marine Archaeology Research Division,recovered nearly 300,000 artifacts.
Charles T. Meide Jr.,known as Chuck Meide,is an underwater and maritime archaeologist and currently the Director of LAMP,the research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse &Maritime Museum located in St. Augustine,Florida. Meide,of Syrian descent on his father's side,was born in Jacksonville,Florida,and raised in the nearby coastal town of Atlantic Beach. He earned BA and MA degrees in Anthropology with a focus in underwater archaeology in 1993 and 2001 from Florida State University,where he studied under George R. Fischer,and undertook Ph.D. studies in Historical Archaeology at the College of William and Mary starting the following year. Meide has participated in a wide array of shipwreck and maritime archaeological projects across the U.S.,especially in Florida,and throughout the Caribbean and Bermuda and in Australia and Ireland. From 1995 to 1997 he participated in the search for,discovery,and total excavation of La Salle's shipwreck, La Belle,lost in 1686. From December 1997 to January 1998 he served as Co-Director of the Kingstown Harbour Shipwreck Project,an investigation sponsored by the Institute of Maritime History and Florida State University into the wreck of the French frigate Junon (1778) lost in 1780 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In 1999 he directed the Dog Island Shipwreck Survey,a comprehensive maritime survey of the waters around a barrier island off the coast of Franklin County,Florida,and between 2004 and 2006 he directed the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project off the coast of County Mayo,Ireland. Since taking over as Director of LAMP in 2006,he has directed the First Coast Maritime Archaeology Project,a state-funded research and educational program focusing on shipwrecks and other maritime archaeological resources in the offshore and inland waters of Northeast Florida. In 2009,during this project,Meide discovered the "Storm Wreck," a ship from the final fleet to evacuate British troops and Loyalist refugees from Charleston at the end of the Revolutionary War,which wrecked trying to enter St. Augustine in late December 1782. He led the archaeological excavation of this shipwreck site each summer from 2010 through 2015,overseeing the recovery of thousands of well-preserved artifacts.
Yassi Ada is an island off the coast of Bodrum,Turkey. This area of the Mediterranean Sea is prone to strong winds,making a safe journey around the island difficult. The island could be called a ships' graveyard,on account of the number of wrecked ships off its southeastern tip. Three wreck sites have been excavated under the direction of George Bass of Texas A&M University. The first to be studied using archaeological techniques was a 4th-century Byzantine wreck,the second a 7th-century Byzantine wreck,and the third a 16th-century Ottoman wreck. Bass received funding for a summer excavation at the site from the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the National Geographic Society.
Discovered by divers from the French Navy Diving School in 1967,the archaeological investigations of the Roman wreck at Madrague de Giens constituted the first large scale,"truly scientific underwater excavation[s] carried out in France". The wreck lies at around 18 to 20 metres depth off the coast of the small fishing port of La Madrague de Giens on the Giens Peninsula,east of Toulon,on the southern Mediterranean coast of France. Sunk around 75–60 BCE,the vessel has been found to be "a large merchantman of considerable tonnage—400 tons deadweight with a displacement of around 550 tons",making it one of the largest Roman wrecks excavated,with only the wreck at Albenga,Italy exceeding it at the time of its discovery. The vessel wrecked at Madrague de Giens measured around 40 metres in length;has a "wine glass" section which would have given better ability to sail to windward;displayed extended raking of the stem and stern;and had two masts. The hull was characterised by a reverse stempost in the shape of a ram with a big cutwater which "must have given... [the] craft high-performance sailing qualities". The ship sank while transporting a large cargo of wine and black glazed pottery from Italy. It is not known why it sank.
The Society for Underwater Historical Research (SUHR) was an amateur maritime archaeology organisation operating in South Australia (SA). It was formed in 1974 by recreational scuba divers and other persons to pursue an interest in maritime archaeology and maritime history. The SUHR was renamed as the South Australian Archaeology Society in March 2012 as part of a plan to expand its activities beyond maritime archaeology to include other archaeological disciplines.
Donald Alexander Lamont is a retired British diplomat who was Governor of the Falkland Islands and Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands from 1999 to 2002.
Ocean Infinity is a marine robotics company based in Austin,Texas,United States and Southampton,United Kingdom and was founded in 2017. The company uses robots to obtain information from the ocean and seabed.
The Gozo Phoenician shipwreck is a seventh-century-BC shipwreck of a Phoenician trade ship lying at a depth of 110 meters (360 ft). The wreck was discovered in 2007 by a team of French scientists during a sonar survey off the coast of Malta's Gozo island. The Gozo shipwreck archaeological excavation is the first maritime archaeological survey to explore shipwrecks beyond a depth of 100 meters (330 ft).
Elpida Hadjidaki is a Greek marine archaeologist specializing in ancient shipwrecks and harbor towns. She grew up in coastal Chania and was interested in maritime history from an early age. Hadjidaki learned to dive shortly after finishing high school. She has investigated multiple archaeological sites,including the Alonnisos shipwreck,a Minoan shipwreck near Pseira,and the ancient harbor town of Phalasarna.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT) is a charitable organization in England and Wales,based in London. Led by a group of trustees,the FMHT's goal is to educate Falkland Islanders about maritime history.
