Alaska's Yukon River Steamboat Graveyards (USA)
Kate Worthington (Texas A&M University)
The survey of Alaska’s abandoned Gold Rush-era Yukon River steamboats remaining in and around the coastal village of St. Michael, and on the Yukon at St. Mary/Andreafsky, investigates late 19th-century wooden-hulled sternwheel riverboat construction and the historical impact of steamboat transportation on the lower Yukon. The project also creates opportunities for partnership with the stewarding Alaskan communities in education and preservation of knowledge about the Gold Rush artifacts through historical research and archaeological survey using laser scan, Total Station, digital image recording and traditional measurement tools.
Bạch Đằng River Survey Project (The Lost Mongolian Fleet in Vietnam)
Randall Sasaki (Texas A&M University)
Jun Kimura (Flinders University)
This survey and assessment continues for a third season at the battle site outside Hanoi where Kublai Khan's Mongol invaders met with defeat in 1288. In 2011 the team plans to reconstruct the ancient landscape from a geoarchaeological survey, conduct a gradiometer/ magnetometer survey to pinpoint possible buried hulls, and map the data using GIS. Project Details
Bajo de la Campana Phoenician
Shipwreck (Spain)
Mark Polzer (University of Western Australia)
Juan Piñedo Reyes
The 2011 field season at Bajo de la Campana continues INA’s excavation of this ancient shipwreck site, begun in 2008. Project Details
Brazilian Stranded Shipwrecks
Rodrigo de Oliveira Torres
(Texas A&M University)
The Rio Grande do Sul coast comprises a 640-km shoreline of a nearly uninterrupted, poorly populated, sand beach, dotted with stranded shipwrecks from various periods of southwestern Atlantic seafaring. This project aims at the study of formation processes in highly dynamic shipwreck sites in southern Brazil.
City Point Shipwreck Survey, Virginia (USA) *
Joshua Daniel (Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc.)
This survey aims to locate all exposed shipwrecks in the tidal flats east of City Point on the James River where 35 wrecks have been identified. According to Kevin Foster, here, “vessels have been disposed of since the Civil War era”, though older wrecks may also be present.
Denbigh Phase IV, Texas (USA)
J. Barto Arnold (INA)
The 2010-11 activities will concentrate on research, analysis, and reporting on the excavation and documentation of Denbigh, a Civil War blockade-runner lost at Galveston, Texas in 1865. Following five summers of fieldwork, we now proceed with and concentrate on publication. Project Details
Frigate Ertuğrul (Japan)
Tufan Turanlı and Berta LLedo (INA)
In 2011 the research and conservation of the artifacts from this 1890 Ottoman shipwreck will continue in “The Ertugrul Center.” The archaeological team will also participate in the preparation of a new museum that will house these remains. Project Details
The Immortal Fausto: the Life, Works, and Ships of the Venetian Humanist Vettor Fausto (1490-1546)(Italy)
Lilia Campana (Texas A&M University)
An ongoing assessment and study of rare Venetian manuscripts dating from 1500 to 1620 will continue to add to our knowledge of Renaissance shipbuilding in this center of Mediterranean trade and culture. This season continues with detailed study on Vettor Fausto’s technical innovations in Venetian naval architecture. Project Details
Kızılburun Roman Period Shipwreck Excavation
Deborah Carlson and Donny Hamilton
The final season of excavation of this 1st-century BCE Roman Period wreck focuses on the buried remnants of the hull formerly covered by the ship’s cargo of massive marble column drums. Project Details
Nevis Shipwrecks: Project Solebay *
Chris Cartellone (Texas A&M University)
Using remote sensing technologies, the west coast of Nevis will be surveyed to discover underwater archaeological sites and to document HMS Solebay, a 28-gun British frigate lost in battle against the French in 1782.
The Novy Svet Wreck: An Analysis
of the Presence of Hull Timbers in the Bay of Novy Svet (Ukraine) *
John Albertson (Texas A&M University)
Since 1999, the Centre for Underwater Archaeology (CUA) of the Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev has been working on the wreck of a 13th-century Italian vessel in the Bay of Novy Svet. For the 2011 season, the eastern end of the Bay will be assessed to determine the viability of doing a sub-bottom profile, and to verify the necessity of using a magnetometer to determine the presence of other vessels and possibly hull timbers. The assessment will use coring and sediment and visual analysis. This will be a collaborative effort between INA, CUA and Texas A&M University.
Tell Timai (Thmuis), Egypt Harbor Project
Veronica Morriss (Texas A&M University)
Between 2009 and 2010, a collaborative project between INA and the University of Hawaii located a major man-made canal along the western side of the Tell, a defunct channel of the Mendesian branch of the Nile, and evidence for a potential harbor basin. During the 2011 season, past findings will be used to reconstruct the preliminary maritime cultural landscape of ancient Thmuis. Read about the 2010 field season in the Summer 2010 issue of The INA Quarterly (p. 9).
Vasa
Recovering the Design of a 17th-century Swedish Warship
Kelby Rose (Texas A&M University)
This project focuses on how original shipwrights designed and built the vessel in the early-seventeenth century Dutch tradition of shipbuilding without the use of paper plans. Read More
Warwick
Piotr Bojakowski and Katie Custer-Bojakowski
The excavation of this race-built galleon will continue in 2011. Warwick is not only a prime example of late 16th-century warships, but also of the early 17th-century magazine ships that played a fundamental role in supplying English settlements in North America. Warwick wrecked while at anchorage in Castle Harbour, Bermuda during a hurricane in 1619. Read More.
War of 1812 Shipwrecks Project, Lake Ontario (USA)
Ben Ford (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
The identification and location of the wrecks of three American warships: Mohawk, an unnamed 75-ft gunboat and Lady of the Lake will significantly increase the database of American War of 1812 vessels on the Great Lakes in time for the bicentennial of the war. Read more about this project in the Summer 2010 issue of The INA Quarterly (p. 14).
Western Ledge Reef Wreck
Original excavation materials and archival records of this 16th-century Iberian-Atlantic shipwreck will continue to be investigated; the resulting analysis and interpretation will be shared with a variety of audiences. Read More.
Yassıada: A Restudy of the Amphoras from the seventh-century Yassıada shipwreck (Turkey)
Frederick van Doorninck, Jr. (INA)
Peter van Alfen (American Numismatic Society)
Some 700 amphoras from this shipwreck excavated in the early 1960s will be re-examined. Questions regarding the production and consumption, in particular the standardization of the jars and their contents, will be addressed and the nature of the ship’s final voyage refined within the context of the finds and recent work on early Byzantine economies and culture. Details of the original project
Yenikapı: Documenting the Seventh-
and Ninth-Century Shipwrecks Excavated from the Theodosian Harbor at Yenikapı (Turkey)
Rebecca Ingram and Michael Jones
(Texas A&M University)
The excavation of ancient Constantinople’s Theodosian Harbor in the Yenikapı neighborhood of Istanbul has yielded more than 35 Byzantine-era shipwrecks. Through careful documentation of two of the site’s ships, dating to the 7th and 9th centuries AD, the investigators hope to understand how the vessels were designed, built, and used by Byzantine shipwrights and seafarers during a period which saw major changes in maritime trade and technology. Read more about the documentation of these shipwrecks in the Summer 2010 Issue of the INA Quarterly (p. 21).
Yukon River Steamboat Survey (Canada)
John Pollack, Project Director (INA)
Robyn Woodward, Project Archaeologist (INA)
Since 2007, this project has documented the hulls and construction methods of four circa-1900 sternwheel steamboats of the Yukon Gold Rush as well as located and collected information from another 12 large vessels. In 2011, three phases of field work are planned on wrecks near Dawson City, Rink Rapids and Carmacks. Project Details