Gravestones and Monuments in the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Research Potential and Preliminary Interpretations

Thousands of memorials around the world commemorate maritime disasters and death. In addition to commemoration, memorials provide insight into the conceptual landscape of maritime peoples. Types of maritime memorials, locations where they can be found, and the limitations of memorials as archaeological artefacts are discussed. Data from 18th- and 19th-century English and American maritime memorials are used to make preliminary interpretations regarding Anglo-American maritime beliefs. Based on this I argue that memorials are a valuable source of data for maritime cultural landscape studies, particularly for what they reveal about maritime belief systems.
© 2006 The Author     

水下被掩埋沉船的地球物理调查

本文在简要介绍可用于水域考古的物探方法及各自的特点外,结合在长江某河道使用磁法勘察技术发现河床中被掩埋的7条金属沉船的实例,讨论寻找水下磁性物体的方法技术,以及在考古工作中使用高精度磁测能发现的最小磁性体场源及相应的最大有效探测埋深。     

Lead Use on Roman Ships and its Environmental Effects

Underwater surveys along the Israeli coast have yielded numerous lead artefacts recovered from Roman shipwrecks, found due to sand shortage caused by nature and man. Unique site-formation processes resulted in intact and preserved assemblages of lead artefacts unaffected by prior salvage. These included hull sheathing, anchors, fishing gear, cooking equipment and containers. Most lead was in objects intended only for nautical use. The finds indicate that people on board ships were exposed to more lead than the general Roman population. Thus the Roman ship was a mobile source of lead pollution contaminating people and the marine environment.
© 2007 The Authors     

Ships on Hero Stones from the West Coast of India

Hero stones have been erected since early times to remember those who died in battle, and have been reported from various provinces of India. Most show land-battles, but those in the Archaeological Museum, Goa and Eksar in Mumbai show naval warfare. The Old Goa stones belong to the Kadambas who ruled Goa from 950–1300 AD. The Eksar stones to the reign of king Bhoja of Malwa in 1020 AD. Similar hero stones with boat motifs of the 18th to 19th centuries AD have been reported from Aramda in Gujarat. This paper examines these stones and assesses their significance for the maritime history of India.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Ships and parts of ships on ancient coins. I

Ships and parts of ships on ancient coins. I, ARIE L. BEN-ELI (ed.)
Sir Francis Drake, GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON
The social structure of crews of British dry cargo merchant ships PETER H. FRICKE
Clay pipes for the archaeologist ADRIAN OSWALD
Field archaeology in Britain, JOHN M. COLES
Estuaries: a physical introduction, K. R. DYER     

Gamming Chairs and Gimballed Beds: Seafaring Women on Board Nineteenth-Century Ships

During the nineteenth century, many captains’ wives from New England took up residence on the ships their husbands commanded. This article focuses on how those women at sea attempted to use material culture to domesticate their voyaging space. While writing in their journals, they referred to not only the small personal things such as books and knitting needles that they brought in their trunks, but also large items, built for and used by women, such as gamming chairs, deckhouses, parlor organs, sewing machines, and gimballed beds. Mary Brewster attempted to retreat from the ship’s officers in her small deckhouse, Annie Brassey slept in the gimballed bed, and Lucy Lord Howes disembarked in a gamming chair when captured by Confederates during the Civil War. Evidence of these artifacts found during shipwreck archaeology could be used to further what is known of the culture aboard ships on which women lived. Analysis of the material culture reveals how a captain’s wife domesticated space, altered her environment, and made a home on the ship for her family.     

Slave Ships and Maritime Archaeology: An Overview

This contribution collates information about wrecked slaving vessels discovered or sought by maritime archaeologists since 1972. To date, only a handful of firmly identified, active slave ships have been subject to excavation, but additional work has been carried out on wrecks of former slaver ships and possible slavers. The impending 200th anniversaries of the abolition of the British and US slave trades (2007 and 2008, respectively) appear to have stimulated a new wave of interest in slaver wrecks, and these new initiatives are also discussed.