The Odyssey Case: press,public opinion and future policy

The Odyssey Case refers to the dispute between Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OME) and the Kingdom of Spain in the US courts to determine the ownership of more than 500,000 coins, as well as other artefacts, that OME recovered from a wreck‐site it had code‐named Black Swan. However, the process was much more than a dispute over the coins. It reflected many of the components involved in the protection of underwater archaeological heritage, especially when economic and political interests are at stake. Written from the perspective of an archaeologist working for the regional authority responsible for developing archaeological policy, this paper tries to assess the case's impact on future policy development.     

The Dwarf,the Goetzen and C. S. Forester’s African Queen: A Reassessment of Naval Operations in First World War Africa

Public awareness of the African theatre in the Great War stems largely from C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and its subsequent 1951 film adaptation. Long thought to have been inspired by British activities on Lake Tanganyika, Forester’s novel more closely resembles events in Cameroon where German missionary Alphons Hermann attempted to sink HMS Dwarf using homemade torpedoes.     

Archaeological research on HMS Swift: a British Sloop-of-War lost off Patagonia, Southern Argentina, in 1770

HMS Swift was a British sloop-of-war which sank off the coast of Patagonia, Southern Argentina, in 1770. Since 1997 the Underwater Archaeology Programme of the National Institute of Anthropology has taken charge of the archaeological research conducted at the wreck-site. This article presents an overview of the continuing Swift project and the different research lines comprised in it. The latter cover aspects related to ship-construction, material culture and natural site-formation processes.
© 2006 The Authors