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Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore-side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged landscapes. A specialty within maritime archaeology is nautical archaeology, which studies ship construction and use.
Robert Duane Ballard is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is best known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.
The Kyrenia Ship is the wreck of a 4th-century BC ancient Greek merchant ship. It was discovered by Greek-Cypriot diving instructor Andreas Cariolou in November 1965 during a storm. Having lost the exact position, Cariolou carried out more than 200 dives until he re-discovered the wreck in 1967 close to Kyrenia (Keryneia) in Cyprus. Michael Katzev, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, directed a scientific excavation from 1967 to 1969. Katzev later became a co-founder of the American Institute of Nautical Archaeology. The find was extensively covered in a documentary by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation titled "With Captain, Sailors Three: The Ancient Ship of Kyrenia". The ship itself was very well preserved with more than half its hull timbers in good condition. After it was raised from the seabed, it found a new home at the Ancient Shipwreck Museum in Kyrenia Castle, where it remains on exhibit.
La Belle was one of Robert de La Salle's four ships when he explored the Gulf of Mexico with the ill-fated mission of starting a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1685. La Belle was wrecked in present-day Matagorda Bay the following year, dooming La Salle's Texas colony to failure. The wreckage of La Belle lay forgotten until it was discovered by a team of state archaeologists in 1995. The discovery of La Salle's flagship was regarded as one of the most important archaeological finds of the century in Texas, and a major excavation was launched by the state of Texas that, over a period of about a year, recovered the entire shipwreck and over a million artifacts.
The Antikythera wreck is a Roman-era shipwreck dating from the second quarter of the first century BC.
The archaeology of shipwrecks is the field of archaeology specialized most commonly in the study and exploration of shipwrecks. Its techniques combine those of archaeology with those of diving to become Underwater archaeology. However, shipwrecks are discovered on what have become terrestrial sites.
The Nanhai One is a Chinese merchant ship, which sank into the South China Sea during the Southern Song dynasty between 1127 and 1279.
The Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation (CMAC) was created in May 2005 by the regents of Texas A&M University.
The Dalarö wreck is a shipwreck of a 17th-century ship lying in the waters off Edesön near Dalarö, southeast of Stockholm, Sweden. It is the remains of a three-masted armed vessel. It was discovered in 2003 but it was not made public until March 2007.
Ancient Black Sea shipwrecks found in the Black Sea date to Antiquity. In 1976, Willard Bascom suggested that the deep, anoxic waters of the Black Sea might have preserved ships from antiquity because typical wood-devouring organisms could not survive there. At a depth of 150m, the Black Sea contains insufficient oxygen to support most familiar biological life forms.
The Jewel of Muscat is a ship based on the design of the Belitung shipwreck, an Arabian dhow that was found off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia, in 1998 and subsequently salvaged. It was built in a joint effort by the governments of Oman and Singapore and Mike Flecker, one of the people employed by the salvage company Seabed Explorations at the time of the original recovery.
The Belitung shipwreck is the wreck of an Arabian dhow which sank around 830 AD. The ship completed the outward journey from Arabia to China, but sank on the return journey from China, approximately 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia. It is unclear why the ship was south of the typical route when it sank. Belitung is to the south-east of the Singapore Strait by 610 kilometres (380 mi), and this secondary route is more normal for ships travelling between China and the Java Sea, which is south of Belitung Island.
Huaguangjiao One is a Chinese merchant ship, built during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), that sank off the coast of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The ship's name translates as "Magnificent China Reef Wreck #1". It was discovered in 1996 and is currently the oldest hull that China has discovered in the open seas.
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.
The wreck of the Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet, about 370 nautical miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland. It lies in two main pieces about 2,000 feet (600 m) apart. The bow is still recognisable with many preserved interiors, despite deterioration and damage sustained hitting the sea floor. In contrast, the stern is heavily damaged. A debris field around the wreck contains hundreds of thousands of items spilled from the ship as she sank. The bodies of the passengers and crew would also be distributed across the seabed, but have since been consumed by other organisms.
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.
Gribshunden or Griffen, also known by several variant names including Gribshund, Gripshunden, Gripshund, Griff, and Griffone, was a Danish warship, the flagship of Hans (John), King of Denmark. Gribshunden sank in 1495 after an explosion while in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Ronneby in southeastern Sweden; the ship is one of the best-preserved wrecks yet discovered from the late medieval period.
The Cirebon shipwreck is a late 9th to 10th-century shipwreck discovered in 2003, in the Java Sea offshore of Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia. The shipwreck contains a large amount of Chinese Yue ware, and is notable as important marine archaeology evidence of the Maritime Silk Road trading activity in Maritime Southeast Asia.
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 during a sonar survey off the coast of Malta's Gozo island. Since 2014 it has been the object of a multidisciplinary project led by University of Malta along with many other national and international entities. The Gozo shipwreck archaeological excavation is the first maritime archaeological survey to explore shipwrecks with divers beyond a depth of 100 meters (330 ft).
Ancient Rome had a variety of ships that played crucial roles in its military, trade, and transportation activities. Rome was preceded in the use of the sea by other ancient, seafaring civilizations of the Mediterranean. The galley was a long, narrow, highly maneuverable ship powered by oarsmen, sometimes stacked in multiple levels such as biremes or triremes, and many of which also had sails. Initial efforts of the Romans to construct a war fleet were based on copies of Carthaginian warships. In the Punic wars in the mid-third century BCE, the Romans were at first outclassed by Carthage at sea, but by 256 BCE had drawn even and fought the wars to a stalemate. In 55 BCE Julius Caesar used warships and transport ships to invade Britain. Numerous types of transport ships were used to carry foodstuffs or other trade goods around the Mediterranean, many of which did double duty and were pressed into service as warships or troop transports in time of war.
References
- ↑ Croff, Katherine; Martinez, Catalina. "Aegean and Black Sea Expedition 2007". Ocean Explorer. NOAA.
- ↑ Hiebert, F. (2001). "Black Sea coastal cultures: trade and interaction". Expedition. 43: 11–20.
- ↑ "Deepwater investigations of two Byzantine shipwrecks, 2007" (PDF). archaeological.org.