June 18, 2007
SAVING HISTORY FOR THE PUBLIC
James Delgado
In a June 8 New York Times Op-Ed piece, Robert Kurson, author of the popular book Shadow Divers, attacks archaeologists as pirates, calling us a “new breed of raiders.” By contrast, he praises treasure hunters: “Without them…many of these wrecks would stay lost forever. Without the lure of a big and romantic payoff, no one would even look.” Moreover, Kurson paints archaeologists as ivory-tower academics and the treasure hunters as larger-than-life men-of-action: “it’s a good bet that a grizzled, lifelong salvage diver has better real-life, tight-squeeze shipwreck experience than an archaeologist who writes up guidelines for this work from his office near the student union.” This is a response from a grizzled lifelong archaeologist who has plenty of real-life, tight-squeeze experiences, as do many of my colleagues.
The recent controversy over the discovery of the “Black Swan” treasure off the coast of England by the company Odyssey Marine has ignited more than just a debate between scholars and treasure hunters. The key question of who owns the treasure has involved diplomats and lawyers, led to legal action, and a stand off at Gibraltar that has stoked longstanding tensions between Spain and Great Britain. Lost in the rhetoric of these battles is the question of the relevance of the archaeologists’ arguments. Whether Odyssey Marine is doing careful work that meets archaeological standards remains unknown. Secrecy shrouds the site and their work. Under that cone of silence, a treasure was raised and brought to the United States.
The reaction from the government of Spain may prove far more serious for Odyssey than the concerns of archaeologists, but while diplomats caucus and op-ed writers throw mud, it is worth looking at those concerns. They are based on decades of experience with other treasure hunters, and hundreds of sites that have been torn apart, with the finds scattered. In nearly all of those cases, the stake has not been half a million coins or heaps of gold – such finds are very rare – but rather wrecks bearing fragile traces of the past.
Next year, a major new exhibition will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At the heart of the exhibition are treasures from the world’s oldest shipwreck, a vessel found off the coast of Uluburun, Turkey. That exhibition, on international trade and cultural exchange in the Bronze Age, will transport visitors back to a period that witnessed the Trojan War and the reign of Egypt’s fabled King Tut. These were times of strife, as kingdoms rose and fell and legends and history were made.
Dating from the 14th century B.C., the Uluburun wreck carried a royal cargo of tribute from one ancient ruler to another. Its treasures, spilled into the sea 3,300 years ago, included raw glass, ebony and ivory, gold, copper ingots, ceramics, amber, and resin. After 11,000 hours of diving and careful recovery, archaeologists from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology were able to map where everything lay and put the wreck back together. That mapping sorted out the difference between cargo and the crew’s personal effects. It also revealed the delicate remains of the last day in the life of that ship and the people on board. Had treasure hunters found the Uluburun wreck that history would have been completely lost.
Thanks to the archaeologists, scientists, curators, and historians, the world not only gained a first-hand look at the lost and forgotten treasure, but also a new appreciation of how ancient people had interacted and traded, even in times of conflict and suspicion. Trade goods from a dozen different cultures lay scattered on the seabed. The remains represented cargo from the Middle East, Cyprus, and the Baltic, among other places, that had been gathered and was on its way to a palace in what is today Turkey when the sea swallowed them. Some have suggested that the cargo was a gift from Egypt’s famed beauty, Queen Nefertiti, to buy support after her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten had died and she was seeking a foreign prince as a husband to become the new pharaoh and to keep her on the throne. Instead, she disappeared from history, and the boy king, Tutankhamen, took the throne, only to die under suspicious circumstances at a young age.
This fantastic story was almost lost to history. When first discovered, the copper ingots scattered on the seabed were clues to what lay below. The Turkish sponge diver who found the wreck could have turned the site over to salvagers who would have stripped it of the ingots, melted them down for a few dollars, and history would have been the poorer. Instead, archaeologists from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology recovered the treasure, and for decades it has been the centerpiece of Turkey’s most popular archaeological museum in Bodrum, visited by millions. Now those treasures are coming to America, and to New York where they will be seen and appreciated by everyone who visits the temporary exhibition at the Met.
Another wreck will not be the subject of an exhibition. The U.S. Navy’s brig of war Somers was the scene of the Navy’s only mutiny at sea, an 1842 event that spurred the hanging of three men, one of them the 19-year-old son of the Secretary of War. The “Somers affair” ultimately inspired Herman Melville to write Billy Budd. The wreck, when discovered in 1990 off the coast of Mexico, lay where it had sunk in 1847. The action of the sea had eaten much of the wood when we dived on it, but everything else lay exactly where it had come to rest a century and a half earlier. Our careful mapping started to reconstruct the ship, but on a return dive, we found that treasure hunters had stripped it to sell the artifacts of a famous ship on the black market. While not as ancient as the Uluburun wreck, the wreck of the Somers was a link to the past that a handful will now enjoy, rather than millions.
The discovery of the Uluburun shipwreck is not unique. There are hundreds of other examples from all over the world. Incredible discoveries are made constantly by grizzled and young archaeologists who scour the seven seas with magnetometers, stand long watches at sea, and dive down to carefully do their work and recover history. Archaeologists have been at sea searching for wrecks for nearly 50 years, using the same techniques and tools – in fact, most of the technologies and techniques for finding and excavating wrecks were developed for archaeological projects, including deep-water work. Last week, in relative media silence while Odyssey dominated the news, a team from Texas A&M University and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology conducted a deep-water examination and test excavation in the Gulf of Mexico on a 200-year-old wreck. Contrary to Robert Kurson’s New York Times piece, treasure hunters are not the only ones with the tools or the interest to work in the deep.
Rather than write policy documents by the student union, as Kurson claims, like my colleagues I have “swam the swim” to work on and under the water. I have taken off my air tanks to squeeze into a toppled tank off the beaches of Normandy, and wriggled into rusting wrecks in danger of collapse to come back with photographs of forgotten history. I have worked on the sea with “wreck detectives,” anglers, tipsters, amateur historians, and serious wreck divers who share the passion, including one of the divers who found the lost U-Boat evocatively written about by Kurson. Our fellow divers are not the problem. The issue is one where the flash of gold and silver obscure or overwhelm the type of careful work that yields treasures of a different sort, like that of the Uluburun shipwreck or the Somers.
We base our opposition to treasure hunting on the track record of those years of lost opportunities and lost history, and the challenge we issue to Odyssey is to show how they are different. We curators and archaeologists work long hours on the sea and beneath it as much as in the lab, and many of us do what we do without tax dollars, but with the support of public-minded philanthropists. Their support comes without the expectations of investors, many of whom we have found seek a “cost-effective” dismantling of a site and quick return, not the recovery and treatment and preservation of everything, which is what we do. We share what we find in a variety of ways, but in the end, for us the lure and romance – the “payoff” is the “oh and ah” when they read the magazine article or popular book, watch our work on television, or walk into an exhibition like that coming to the Met and see it all, its stories being told, instead of a single piece on an investor’s mantelpiece.
James Delgado is the executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. A contributing editor to Archaeology magazine, he is also host of National Geographic Television’s “The Sea Hunters” and the author of 30 books on shipwrecks, history and archaeology, including three books for children.
Posted by victoria at 09:32 AM
June 05, 2007
A PIRATE WITH A PH.D.
We don't know what's more delightful, that a shipwrecked 19th century Maine clipper is making one of its periodic reappearances from the sand in which it's been interred along the San Francisco coast for more than a century, or that the incident has allowed a maritime archaeologist who's studying the wreck to engage in the most wonderful flights of 19th century-sounding language.
"She could have sunk deep or she could have been burned," said James Delgado, executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, sounding either like a good scholar, or folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. "But because ... she buried herself, we have an exciting and tangible reminder of ships long past and the days of wooden sail."
Do people really talk this way? If they spend their days romancing the 19th century, we guess.
Continues Delgado: "We have a well-preserved example of naval architecture at a time when Maine led the nation in shipbuilding and ships like this waved the American flag all over the seven seas."
Well, avast, me hearties!
We'll wave that flag all over the seven seas, too, if we get a job as a nautical archaeologist!
We could get paid -- in doubloons and rum, we're sure -- to spend our time on www.talklikeapirate.com, where we'd meet up with fellow wenches, scallywags, rogues and rascals and also, should we be a wee bit interested, learn to talk like a pirate in Swedish!
When you get a Ph.D. in nautical archaeology, life sounds like it's full of weighing anchor and shots of grog and sending the bilge rats down to the bunghole to get some hardtack. Arrrrr!
And in the meantime, while we're engaging in our own flights of piratical fancy, the timbers of the sad and sorry ship, the King Philip, continue to emerge from their sandy grave. Once high-born when launched out of Alna, but fallen on hard times and carrying bird manure when it foundered off San Francisco's Ocean Beach, the ship is now a waterlogged ghost. She reminds us of a more colorful time when pines were felled in Maine to serve as masts on ships that sailed across the oceans, when holds carried fortunes, sailors mutinied and vessels were scuttled. And if the King Philip's timbers, now exposed to the cold Pacific wind, are shivering -- well then, so are ours.
Kennebec Journal www.mainetoday.com
Posted by victoria at 10:28 AM
May 30, 2006
Explorer Update - 03
Listen to Jim as he wraps up his feelings on Explorer.
Posted by victoria at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
Explorer Update - 01
Jim Delgado took some time out of his busy schedule to call Shipwreck Central HQ and give us an audio update on the work done this past February on Explorer.
Posted by victoria at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2006
B.C. Book Prize honours Jim Delgado
Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime Story of Greater Vancouver by James P. Delgado. A magnificently illustrated, authoritative and lively tour of the dynamic ebb and flow between the water, the surrounding land and the people who strove and dreamed along the waterfront.
An audience of more than 300 people honoured West coast authors Saturday at the 22nd annual event, held in Vancouver. James P. Delgado was among the winners for the above work winning the B.C. Booksellers' Choice Award.
Congratulations Jim! From everyone at Shipwreck Central!
Posted by victoria at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2006
Delgado Resigns From Maritime Museum
Congratulations to Jim from everyone at Shipwreck Central on the accomplishment of a lifetime and a dream come true!
JAMES DELGADO TO LEAVE MARITIME MUSEUM AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS:
LONGEST SERVING DIRECTOR IN MUSEUM’S HISTORY TO HEAD INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATION FOR UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY
VANCOUVER, BC – March 21, 2006: On March 15, James Delgado resigned as Executive Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum Society and as Executive Director of the Museum. His last day at the Museum will be June 30. He will then join the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). He describes his new position as “a life long dream come true, and an opportunity I could not turn down.” Founded in 1973, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to understanding humanity’s history of interaction with the sea, which it accomplishes through the science of nautical archaeology. A not-for-profit, it is headquartered at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas and at Bodrum, Turkey. INA is dedicated to meticulous fieldwork in the survey, excavation and analysis of shipwrecks in the tradition of its founder, Dr. George F. Bass.
INA’s projects, conducted by its professional staff and students, span the globe and thousands of years of history. INA provides support for the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M, publications, and other avenues of scholarly and public outreach throughout the world, including support of the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which is operated by the Government of Turkey in Bodrum. As it approaches its thirty-fifth anniversary, INA is developing a new strategic direction and initiatives in response to evolving technologies, public needs, challenges and opportunities. As its executive director, Delgado will remain in British Columbia, but will travel extensively as he works to raise awareness, find new projects, and raise funds for INA.
Delgado comments that while the new position is an exciting opportunity to work globally and return to his professional roots as an archaeologist, the past fifteen years at the Vancouver Maritime Museum “have been a time in which I have experienced a number of wonderful opportunities, made a number of friends, and had a chance to make contributions to the Museum for which I shall always be grateful and remember with fondness.” During Delgado’s tenure, the Vancouver Maritime Museum was transformed from a quiet, local museum into an internationally renowned institution and a Greater Vancouver landmark with a reputation for a family-friendly approach and a commitment to the community. Delgado’s frequent media appearances, his regular columns in the Vancouver Sun, and his five years as host of National Geographic television’s “The Sea Hunters” gave the Museum a high profile and benefited its programs and fundraising.
The last three years have been challenging and also rewarding as the Museum worked through the various phases and studies to find a more sustainable model and reinvent the institution, which suffers from lack of public access, over-crowding and inability to showcase its many treasures and the stories surrounding those treasures. Those studies have resulted in the January-announced National Maritime Centre in North Vancouver.
Delgado announced his departure to staff and volunteers late last week, noting that it was his association with them that he would miss most. “At the end of the day, it is the people who make the difference, not just the building or the things we preserve and interpret,” he told them. For Delgado, the reasons he loved working at the Museum were “the smiling faces of children who visit and who stand enthralled in the tugboat in the Alcan Children’s Maritime Discovery Centre, the grandparents who bring their children and grandchildren, the scholars who slowly exhale in wonder as a rare document or photo is placed before them in the Chung Library, the tourists who gain a better sense of how and why this community is linked to the sea.”
The Vancouver Maritime Museum’s Board will be working to fill his position and to continue working toward the goal of a stronger Museum that has increased opportunities to better serve the community and preserve the maritime past. Delgado believes there is a bright future for the Vancouver Maritime Museum, and he noted that he is committed, within the limits of his new position, to assist the Vancouver Maritime Museum in achieving that goal.
The Vancouver Maritime Museum tells the stories of Canada's ties to the Pacific with an emphasis on Canada's gateway port communities in the greater Vancouver region. As a centre for life-long learning, the Museum interprets our ongoing interaction with the sea through exhibitions and programs for people of all ages.
Posted by victoria at 07:21 AM
March 16, 2006
History of the Waterways
Our very own Jim Delgado was recently featured in an article in The Record, New Westminster, British Columbia's, Hometown Newspaper.
Posted by victoria at 07:00 AM
January 04, 2005
National Geographic Interviews James P. Delgado
Right now on the National Geographic Channel's Canadian web site you can read an exclusive interview with The Sea Hunter's underwater archeologist, James P. Delgado. Read Article Now!
Posted by victoria at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)
October 08, 2004
Adventures of a Sea Hunter: Now Available!
BOOK DESCRIPTION
North America's most accomplished underwater archaeologist explores some of the world's famous shipwrecks, and shares his newest and most astounding discoveries.
Archaeologist, historian, museum director, educator, curator, explorer, occasional journalist, television host and consummate storyteller James Delgado has spent much of his life in pursuit of the past...and a good tale. His passion for the past is more than academic. He lives to touch the past, to go where few have gone before.
As a Sea Hunter and host, along with novelist Clive Cussler of the National Geographic International television series, Delgado searches for, discovers and explores some of the greatest shipwrecks of all time. Melding history with archaeology to bring life to his discoveries, Delgado has created a highly entertaining, personal account of the exploration of the sea and the past that rests beneath the waves.
SPECS
Title: Adventures of a Sea Hunter
Subtitle: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks
Author: James Delgado
Foreword by: Clive Cussler
isbn: 1-55365-071-9
price: 32.00 CDN, 25.00 U.S.
format: hardcover
30 black and white images
Purchase Adventures of a Sea Hunter Now!
Posted by victoria at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
