Manipulating the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Vernacular Boats and Economic Relations on Nineteenth-Century Achill Island,Ireland

Resistance to British control of Ireland’s maritime landscape under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922) was highly localized, enacted in part through Irish choices in boat construction and patterns of movement at sea. British naval authorities overseeing Achill Island in County Mayo used both coercive and conciliatory means to replace Irish subsistence fishing from regional vernacular boats with commercial fishing from larger non-local vessels reliant upon piers and dredged harbors. These changes encouraged islanders’ dependency upon imported food and wage-based employment performed under Protestant surveillance. Indigenous boats including curraghs and yawls played central roles in Irish resistance to these changes, through the assertion of traditional lifeways and practices.     

The Depositional Contexts of the Ships from Thonis‐Heracleion,Egypt

Over 70 ancient vessels have been discovered by the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous‐Marine in the port‐city of Thonis‐Heracleion, Egypt. These were deposited both individually and in groups from the 8th to the 2nd century BC. This paper investigates the contexts of these vessels to suggest that a variety of explanations—shipwrecking, ritual deposition, abandonment, and structural reuse—account for their deposition. It also seeks to place these events within the changing landscape of Thonis‐Heracleion to understand the agency behind many of the decisions about what to do with old ships and boats at the end of their use‐life.     

Measurements,figures and formulas for the interpretation of Western Norwegian boats and viking ships

Along the coast of Norway we find a family of closely‐related boats. The Nordlands boat is one of them, and in many respects it is the most modern. The plan for the shape of these boats is typically coded into figures. Thus the “secret” of the boat's structure is a sort of “number code”. The question addressed here is: to what extent can the shape of the hull in Viking ships be expressed as a number code similar to that of the 19th‐century west‐coast boats of Norway. The principles behind the methods used to explore this question will be illustrated by three basic concepts, which will be treated separately below.     

A Cognitive Approach to Extant Boat Structure in Goa,India

This article presents information derived from unfunded fieldwork undertaken between 2008 and 2014 in Goa, India. Traditional boat structure is understood in the context of the use of local materials in response to climatic, geophysical, and cultural factors. Expanded and unexpanded logboats are shown to affect differently the pirogues based on them. The outrigger is not used as a sailing aid. Small sailed boats with sewn strakes on a keel‐plank are compared with 19th‐century records. Simple techniques are used on larger sewn and metal‐fastened vessels still being built. Today some factors combine to compromise traditional construction, while others are bringing about the demise of the vessels themselves.     

A Box Containing Carpenter's Accessories from The Akko 1 Shipwreck,Israel: Archaeometallurgical Analysis of Surviving Ironwork

The Akko 1 shipwreck was an Egyptian armed vessel, built at the beginning of the 19th century. A wooden saw handle and a box containing iron nails and two split pins were discovered towards the stern. Given their function, location and context, these were part of the ship's carpenter's tools and accessories. A methodology was developed for conducting systematic metallurgical analysis in order to understand the manufacturing process of the surviving ironwork items, as well as to enlarge our knowledge regarding ironworking technologies during the early 19th century. Such methodology may assist in the future understanding of the technological evolution of similar wrought‐iron objects. The results demonstrated that the artefacts have a wrought‐iron heterogeneous microstructure and were manufactured by hot‐working prior to surface hardening by pack carburization.     

Picking up the Pieces: Goa's endangered traditional craft

Three sewn boats surveyed in 1838 are used to evaluate traditional Goan sewn craft. Types additional to those recorded in the 19th century were located during fieldwork. The West Coast provided an abundance of raw materials exported to countries which lacked them; unknown is the extent of the export of local expertise. A consistency of sewing methods, materials, waterproofing, and antifouling are evidence for an indigenous boatbuilding tradition. In Goan pirogues the weight of the crew and nets is carried at the level of the sheer‐strake seam. In prehistory large pirogues of Goan type could have made long‐distance voyages using an outrigger to confer stability. To date archaeological evidence is lacking.     

Rubh’ an Dùnain: a multi‐period maritime landscape on the Isle of Skye,Inner Hebrides,Scotland

A non‐intrusive survey of this headland on Scotland's western seaboard reveals evidence of maritime activity from prehistory until the recent past. The siting of an Iron Age dun appears to have exploited a natural creek to bring boats to a secure landing‐place. Access was enhanced by a cleared channel, and two docks with adjacent nousts constructed. A stone‐revetted canal was later driven to the loch beyond, and quays built on either side of the entry. A 12th‐century boat‐timber was found in the loch. Later the canal was widened, and finally blocked. The sequence of development, and associated dating, merits further research.     

Tahiti: the ripples of a myth on the shores of the imagination

Influenced by Henri Lefebvre's ideas about the production of space as a continually evolving dialogic process, I trace the long post‐contact history of “Tahiti” as an entangled place where the production and product are continually intertwined. I examine more than two hundred years of historical twists and turns that result in a dialogic process of place making. Tahiti is generated when the imaginary place collides with the material existence, each reflecting and recasting the other. This intertwined history includes 18th‐century French imperialist philosophies and voyages of exploration; 19th‐century colonial intervention, romantic novels and Gauguin's colourful canvases; and 20th‐century French chocolates, Hollywood movies, French nuclear testing, postcards and more.     

The Deserted Village, Slievemore, Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland

The Deserted Village in Slievemore, currently the subject of research by archaeologists and students at the annual Achill Archaeological Summer Field School, consists of 74 buildings of an original 137. A survey of the architecture of the houses, excavation of a selected house, No. 36, and a field survey of the palimpsest of field systems surrounding the village suggest an origin for the village in the Early Medieval Period (A.D. 500–1200). Successive settlements modified, rebuilt, and destroyed much of the fabric of the original settlement, but sufficient diagnostic elements remain to plot tentatively the evolution of settlement up to and including final abandonment in the Post-Famine Period, ca. 1850–1890.     

Enacting a Local Reform in the Age of Reform: A Salary for the Chairman of Middlesex Sessions

This article examines the unsuccessful attempts made from 1833 to 1842 by Middlesex's justices of the peace to obtain a local statute allowing them to pay a salary to their chairman. Instead of securing such an act, they had to settle for a statute enacted by the government, a statute authorising the government to appoint their chairman for judicial proceedings. The article uses the story of Middlesex's attempt to obtain a salary for the chairman to examine: justices' attempts to reform the office of chairman of county Sessions; the limited powers of justices in their county Sessions; and the centralising aspirations of central government. The statute that the government produced in 1844 originated as a public bill. In contrast, the statute that Middlesex had attempted to obtain originated as private bills. The statute enacted by the government contained defects that probably would not have marred a statute enacted under the rules governing private bills. So, this article uses the legislative misadventures of the government's bill to compare the procedures for enactment of public and private bills. The article therefore provides a case study of mid‐19th‐century legislative procedures governing enactment of local legislation, while arguing that, as of the mid 19th century, parliament had not developed procedures appropriate to both representative government and a centralising central government using public bills for local matters.     

Christianity and Cultural Reconfigurations in South West Pentecost.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the cultural impact of the introduction and evolution of Christianity in south west Pentecost, Vanuatu from the late 19th century to the 21st century. In particular it offers an explanation for the success and sustainability of Christianity due to the willingness of local individuals and communities to seize the new world view; and their welcome of Christianity's capacity to provide principles for appropriate social behaviour, opportunities for individual spiritual salvation, and the potential for temporal achievement. It acknowledges novel conduits to power and prestige emerging from socio‐cultural reconfigurations consequential to the tensions between Christianity and kastom in the 20th century, and scrutinizes the manner in which Christians in the 21st century have capitalised on kastom in their response to the pressures and demands of globalisation.     

The Mortella II & III Wrecks: premiminary observations on two 16th‐century archaeological sites discovered in Saint‐Florent Bay,Corsica, France

In 2005 and 2006 the remains of great armed vessels dated from the 16th century were discovered within an archaeological survey framework led by the Société d'Etudes en Archéologie Subaquatique (SEAS) in Saint‐Florent Bay (north Corsica, France). The preliminary study of the two archaeological sites located, named Mortella II and Mortella III, sheds light on these highly interesting shipwrecks and the contribution their excavation—programmed for 2010—will be able to provide to the maritime archaeology of this period, about which relatively little is known. © 2010 The Author     

Changing Notions of Authenticity: Presenting a Castle Over Four Centuries

Bolsover Castle is a 17th‐century mock‐medieval castle built for the Cavendish family. First impressions suggest that its Pillar Parlour has survived with little alteration for nearly four centuries. In reality, there have been minor but telling changes to its fabric. The 18‐century Cavendishes venerated the castle as a shrine to their ancestors. Bolsover’s 19th‐century tenants recreated a romantic Olden Time appearance. The public bodies responsible for the castle in the 20th century used archaeology to reconstruct its 17th‐century form. In each case, these custodians aimed to present the site ‘authentically’, but their work reveals their own contemporary readings of the castle’s history. This evidence, gathered for a Conservation Plan, allowed English Heritage’s re‐display of the castle (1996–2001) to take a more reflective and positive approach to creating new meanings. This use of history to create local important meanings should give good cheer to those managing similar small but significant sites across the world.     

Humbler Craft: Rafts of the Egyptian Nile, 17th to 20th Centuries AD

Accounts and images created by foreign travellers on the Egyptian Nile over the past four centuries indicate the widespread use of rafts and floats for both local and long‐distance travel. Many of the materials employed survive poorly in archaeological deposits, or are otherwise easily overlooked as components of river‐craft: moreover, several of these raft‐types were built for a single journey or season, then dismantled. These travellers' accounts and images alert us to much humbler vessels than the well‐preserved wooden boats of the Pharaonic elite which have so far commanded the attention of maritime archaeologists. © 2010 The Author     

Parliament as Viewed Through a Woman's Eyes: Gender and Space in the 19th‐Century Commons

The 19th‐century house of commons is traditionally viewed as a masculine space overlooking the presence of female tourists, waitresses, housekeepers, servants, spectators, and residents. This essay demonstrates that, even when formally excluded from the Commons, women were determined to colonize spaces to witness debates. In the pre‐1834 Commons they created their own observation gallery in an attic high above the chamber, peeping through a light fitting to listen to parliamentary sessions. After 1834, they were accommodated in their own galleries in the temporary and new house of commons, growing increasingly assertive and protective of their rights to attend debates and participate in parliamentary political culture. Far from being exclusively male, parliament was increasingly viewed through women's eyes.     

Admiral: a 19th‐century Tyne‐built paddle tug

This paper reports on the discovery in the Thames Estuary and the partial recovery and recording of the remains of a 19th‐century Tyne‐built paddle tug. The wreck is believed to be that of Admiral built in Newcastle in 1870 and sunk following a collision in the estuary in 1872. This unexpected discovery provided a rare opportunity to examine the archaeological assemblage of one these once‐familiar working vessels and revealed the continuities and innovations of a specific type of engine used on paddle tugs.     

Bishops and Professionalization in Sweden,c. 1780–1880

This article investigates the concept of professionalization in terms of the bishops' role in the 19th-century Church of Sweden. Previous research has generally claimed that from the late 18th century until the mid-19th century, before the abolition of the Diet of Estates, the Swedish bishops amounted to secularized, conservative state officials who lacked the ability to effect religious reform. In this article, however, it will be argued that in the early 19th century, several decades earlier than previously assumed, the Swedish episcopate had begun to undergo a slow transformation that is best described as professionalization. It is posited that the bishops, inspired by Evangelical revival and Romanticism, became increasingly specialized in religion and theology in their education, thinking and practice. The episcopal profile also changed as the middle classes gained more influence from the early 19th century onwards, and this, in turn, prompted a higher standard of role performance.     

Model Boats in the Context of Maritime History and Archaeology

Funereal, votive or shipbuilders' model boats and ships have been quite well documented in the past, but little research has been undertaken into other wooden models from north-west Europe. There have been over 160 found during archaeological excavations, dating from the 9th to the 19th centuries. A study of these 'toys' is not just a study of objects among the minor arts, but reflects a far more important aspect—a source for interpreting remains of full-size vessels, the hypothetical reconstruction of hull-forms and exploration of new ways of defining unknown vessel-types.
© 2007 The Author     

Between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic: nautical iconography in the south‐west Iberian Peninsula

This study presents two new representations of ships, recently found in Casas del Turuñuelo, Spain, and dated to the end of the 5th century BC. They depict river barges, which supports the importance of river navigation in structuring the central Guadiana region in the Tartessian era. The systematization of all known ship iconography found in the area from the Early Iron Age makes it possible to highlight their homogeneity, and their Mediterranean hallmark. This serves to emphasize the interconnectivity that existed in Iberia's south‐west, fostering a process of cultural hybridization of which the vessels were both result and vehicle.