Dive & Dig

In the last of a series on coastal archaeological sites and climate change, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Alex Kent, Coastal Connections Lead, a global partnership between English Heritage and World Monuments Fund.  Learn how Hurst Castle, a coastal fort built on England’s southern coast is falling into the sea due to undercutting of the shingle due to storm surges and, like hundred of other sites globally, is suffering from the impacts of climate change.  By bringing together communities around the world that face similar issues, hear how Coastal Connections network aims to share common challenges and a rang...

In the third of our four-part series on climate change and the threat to maritime cultural heritage, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Georgia Holly, Project Manager of the Cultural Heritage Framework Programme (CHFP), that sits under the umbrella of Ocean Decade Heritage Network (ODHN).  Remarkably, it is the only programme that integrates the marine cultural heritage into the Ocean Decade and is recognised by mainstream ocean sciences. Discover how the CHFP engages with maritime cultural projects from around the globe and once a project is endorsed, it gets access to a whole host of benefits including training and networking, a...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Athena Trakadas, Co-founder and Co-Chair of the Ocean Decade Heritage Network (ODHN) about the role of cultural heritage within the United Nation's Ocean Decade, as part of our mini-series on climate change and its impact on marine and coastal heritage. Hear how the Ocean Decade endeavours to bring marine cultural heritage experts together with the other ocean scientists.  Sitting within the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-30), is an initiative of housed in the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and aims was set up to meet the goals of sustainable development, p...

 Professor Lucy Blue asks Dr Colin Breen, Associate Head of School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Ulster University to outline the issues of climate change and its impact on marine and coastal heritage, in the first of this new Dive and Dig Series that explores this pressing theme.  Although the climate has been changing over many millennia, we are now seeing the pace of change occurring at a much greater rate together with increased intensity of storms, all driving loss to heritage in the coastal zone. Colin explains the impact of this destruction through a range of climate, as well as...

Professor Lucy Blue is in Egypt with a team of specialists co-directing a project with the Universities of Southampton and Ulster as part of the MarEA (Endangered Maritime Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa) project.  Together with experts from the Universities of Alexandria and Mersa Matruh, Egypt they are utilizing satellite imagery and other technologies to explore the western section of the north African coastline of Egypt.  This approach has revealed an extraordinary number of ancient sites, many dating back over 2,000 years. The findings shed new light on the rich maritime history of the region, including trade, settlement, an...

 Professor Lucy Blue is in Naples speaking with Pierre Poveda (Center Camille Jullian, CNRS), a maritime archaeologist who is co-leading, with his colleague Franca Cibecchini (DRASSM, french ministry of Culture), the excavation of a shipwreck lying in French waters between Cannes and the Île Sainte-Marguerite, home to Fort Royal. The wreck dating to around 180 BC is well preserved, with its entire port side buried beneath masses of dead roots of Posidonia seagrass. A few small wooden artefacts, including writing tablets have been recovered, as well as Italian amphorae that were transporting wine. Despite its hidden location the site has proven vu...

 Travel with Professor Lucy Blue to the village of Imbotero, Guyana to meet Dr Robert (Bob) Holtzman an expert in traditional boatbuilding to learn about the Warrau dugout canoe. Twice daily tides in the tropical mangrove swamp mean canoes are essential for survival of the indigenous Warrau people.  Not only are they used for transportation, but also for foraging in the forest for land crabs, fishing and visiting neighbours. Over two field seasons Bob paddled around the villages in a canoe observing how the Warrau connect to their environment and fashion their canoes. Learn how these canoes - that can be...

Professor Lucy Blue delves into the wreck of The London, a 17th century warship, with diver and licensee Steve Ellis.  The ship exploded and sank in the Thames Estuary in 1665 and was rediscovered in 2005 when a ports authority survey was being conducted.  Since 2010, Steve has been directing the survey of the vessel and recovering artefacts with permission from Historic England.  A Second Rate vessel in the English Navy, The London was carrying 76 guns and a mix of over 300 crew and family readying to join a fleet preparing to fight in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, when tragedy struck. This significant archaeological sit...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks with associate Professor in Egyptology, Dr Claire Somaglino from the Sorbonne, about two decades of excavation at the site of Ayn Soukhna at the northern end of the Red Sea in the Gulf of Suez. During Pharaonic times, this important site was occupied over an extensive period, as not only was it close to the important centre of Memphis, but there was a spring, an oasis with trees and a sheltered anchorage, making it a perfect harbour.  Rock inscriptions led to its discovery and seasons of excavation have revealed it was a hive of activity with w...

Recorded live on the island of Cyprus, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Constantinos Nicolaou a leading expert in Cypriot traditional boat building. Costantinos recently headed up a training workshop hosted by the Honor Frost Foundation’s Cyprus Regional Development Project, that brought together experts from the eastern Mediterranean region working on traditional boat recording.  Costantinos directs a project that documents the remaining working boats in Cyprus and maps out different topologies and the influences that have shaped Cypriot vernacular boat building over time.  Hear how by looking at this development you learn about the history of the island, including the isla...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Professor Giulia Boetto from the French National Centre for Scientific Research about what is possibly the oldest fully hand-sewn boat to be discovered in the Mediterranean. First spotted by fisherman in Zambratija Bay off a beach in northern Croatia, closer examination by archaeologists revealed small holes in the planks. Could this be a boat sewn together rather than built by the more common mortise and tendon method?  Hear how French and Croatian researchers set about to date the boat, initially using carbon-14 dating, revealing it is likely to date from around the end of the B...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks with archaeologist Dr Harald Lübke from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology about a recent discovery in the Baltic Sea off Germany that may be Europe’s oldest human-made underwater megastructure. Christened the ‘Blinkerwall’, it’s a continuous low wall made of hundreds of granite stones that stretches for around a kilometre. Could it have been constructed by hunter-gathers more than 10,000 years ago and if so, what was its purpose? Hear how by bringing together archaeologists, geophysicists and experts in landscape reconstruction the team is piecing together a now submerged landscape that was very different than the one t...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Mohamed Mustapha Abd El-Maguid, from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt.  An expert in ancient ship construction, he has installed a reconstruction of a late Roman-early Byzantine ship in the recently re-opened Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, Egypt.  The pearl of the Mediterranean, Alexandria was the centre of trade and commerce. To illustrate the city’s importance in trade during ancient times, Mohamed was asked to use amphora from the museum store dating from the Roman period and place them in a reconstructed section of the cargo hold of a ship. Hear how toge...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Crystal el Safadi who has recently recovered from a series of unfortunate events sailing the Kyrenia- Liberty.  It is the third replica reconstruction of the 4th-century BC Greek merchant ship discovered in 1965 off the coast of northern Cyprus.  Built in 2002, it has been on several voyages, however this one in September last year proved to be challenging.  As part of the Eastern Mediterranean Experimental Sailing project, Crystal and her team set sail from Limassol only to encounter unexpected weather conditions.  Find out what happened and what they have learned from the experience.  

To le...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Chris Dobbs who has been working at the Mary Rose Trust for over 40 years, initially as an Archaeological Supervisor excavating King Henry VIII’s flagship off Portsmouth and in the last few decades as Head of Interpretation at the Mary Rose Museum. Believing that you need to tell the stories behind the objects and the people who used them, he uses smells and sounds to help bring the Tudor artefacts alive and bring maritime archaeology to the larger public. He was instrumental in developing the new immersive 4D cinema experience that is enabling visitors to jo...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Professor Dave Parham from Bournemouth University who has been diving on the remains of 1944 Valentine Tank assemblage in Poole Bay. Made buoyant by the addition of a canvas skirt they proved essential in getting armoured support onto the beach during the historic D-Day landings.  Scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act means they are protected by law. On a recent inspection the turret on one tank was found to have been pulled off.  There were no obvious clues as to the culprit, so the police were called in to help solve this crime.  Who did it? How...

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Lisa Briggs and Dr Peter Campbell from the University of Cranfield who have been searching the deep waters of the Straits of Sicily using micro-AUVs - autonomous underwater vehicles.  Deployment of these small, agile vehicles has enabled the team to map large areas of this busy maritime highway of the Mediterranean. 

The team aim to locate historic remains and ancient shipwrecks, and have consulted local fisherman for potential targets as they trawl the seabed and often snag remains in their nets, even including statues. 

These mini autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) can...

Join Professor Lucy Blue as she discovers why the loch waters in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland are peppered with hundreds of artificial islets, known as crannogs. Here she speaks to a director of The Islands of Stones project team, Professor Fraser Sturt from the University of Southampton who has been investigating these small islands built of stones and layers of timbers.  Originally thought to be settlements dating to the Late Bronze-Age and medieval periods, their work reveals they are a succession of accumulated settlements dating back 6000 years to Neolithic Britain. Were they constructed as defences, burial grounds or for ceremonial p...

Professor Lucy Blue is captivated by the Nabataeans – the ancient Arab traders best known for their rock-cut capital of Petra. Here she speaks to Michele Stefanile from the University of Naples Federico II about two recently located submerged Nebataean temples in the Bay of Naples. Prodigious traders, the Nebataeans traded in luxury goods from the Arabian Peninsula such as frankincense and shipped grain and bitumen from Egypt via Alexandria to Rome through the ancient harbour of Puteoli (now known as Pozzuoli).  Hear how these discoveries reveal the role of the Nabataeans at this Republican period port and why these wealthy mer...

Dr Lucy Blue speaks with a number of team members working under the direction of Professor of Simon James at the site of Dreamer’s Bay on the southern tip of Akrotiri Peninsula in Cyprus.  At this ancient port complex discoveries range from an ancient mole – or massive stone breakwater, a wreck with a cargo of tiles, and stone anchors among other remains possibly dating to the Roman or Byzantine periods.  The site poses many questions, including why the breakwater is where it is and what was the relative sea level would have been.  By comparing it to other ancient harbour...

Professor Lucy Blue chats with maritime archaeologist, Dr Daniel Pascoe about discovering the 17th century 70-gun warship, the HMS Edgar.  Dan explains how a combination of boundless determination, in-depth archival research and geophysical investigations helped identify mounds that appeared to be the remains of the ship blown apart by sloppy storage of gun powder.  By probing these mounds and digging test pits Dan and his team uncover artefacts and human remains that identified them as remains from the Edgar and the crew who went down with it. 

Maritime archaeologist, Lauren Tidbury speaks with Garry Momber, Director of the Maritime Archaeology Trust about what they have been discovering in the intertidal zone along the coast of Britain.  This area between high and low water is revealing amazing ancient structures. Learn how during recent work off the New Forest has revealed posts dating back 3000 years to the Bronze Age and others even older – 5,200 years dating to the Neolithic.  Learn how these are being interpreted by mapping their distribution to find out if these might be fish traps, causeways or other structures.  Not only do these sites provide evidence of past...

Join Lucy Blue as she discusses the ancient Red Sea Port of Berenike in Egypt with Steve Sidebotham, site co-coordinator.  Excavations at this trading hub have been conducted since the mid-90s, discovering evidence that it was connected to extensive areas of the world and was operating for around 800 years since the 3rd century BCE.  According to Steve, greed drove the extensive trade here, but success required help from the gods, and recent work has unearthed Buddhas at the Temples of Isis and Serapis. Listen to learn why headless falcons have also been found and why more remains to be di...

Welcome to Dive & Dig news, presented by Dr Lucy Blue, the podcast that takes you on an underwater journey deeper than you might have imagined ! In this episode, Lucy speaks to Mark Beattie-Edwards, CEO of the Nautical Archaeology Society, about the recent discovery of the Klein Hollandia off the coast of Sussex. How have Mark and his team been able to identify this shipwreck so accurately to solve a centuries old mystery? 

In this episode we are in Malta at the Under the Mediterranean conference, Lucy catches up with Julie Satchell and Anna Demetriou to talk about maritime archaeological archives and oral histories. They have such huge potential to tell us about the history of our discipline and to uncover previously untold stories about our maritime past. 

To celebrate International Women's Day we are excited to share this interview on Deep Water Archaeology with Barbara Davidde and Franca Cibecchini, using advanced technology they are exploring ever greater depths and discovering ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. #IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity

In this episode we hear about three fascinating research projects on wrecks discovered under the Mediterranean. Presented as part of the Under the Med conference in Malta these projects include a Roman cargo ship, the remains of an ancient sea battle off the Egadi Islands, and a 16th century merchant ship off Croatia. The team delve in to the archaeology and the archives to tell the stories of our ancient past. 

In this episode we head to the Mediterranean and discover more about Inclusive Maritime Heritage in Southeast Sicily. We explore the ancient fishing traditions of the Marzamemi, discuss shipwrecks, connectivity, and the innovative, reflexive ways the team are working with local communities to tell the story of their maritime past.  #maritimeheritage #sicily #mediterranean #inclusive #histories #marzamemi #tunafishing #ethnography #archaeology

In this episode, we look back to Honor Frost's first dive in a well in Wimbledon 70 years ago this week, a pivotal moment for the field of maritime archaeology. We also speak with Claire Calcagno about her discovery of an unknown and unfinished book in Honor's archive, the Second Life of a Phoenix, all about her work on the 3rd Century BC Punic Shipwreck off Sicily. 

We head back 8,000 years this week! Agios Petros is the earliest submerged site in the Aegean. This Neolithic site is 8000 years old and reveals astonishing insights into how the farmers, fishermen and seafarers that lived there, were part of an expansive Neolithic network connected by sailing ships – far more sophisticated than ever imagined. The team even found remains of tuna bones and specialized fishing equipment, indicating that they were capable of deep sea fishing. Domesticated animal remains also suggest that these Neolithic farmers were transporting cows and other livestock by boat! Bettany talks to the site director about the discoveries an...

In this episode, Bettany heads to Turkey. The site of Yenikapi, in Istanbul, is home to one of the largest archaeological digs in the world, covering over 58,000 square metres, discovered during development work. Most of the remains relate to the artificial Theodosian Harbour from the Byzantine period including over 37 remarkably well-preserved shipwrecks, the largest group of Byzantine shipwrecks ever found. The site is a treasure trove of finds, from preserved camel skeletons to a container of cherries. Bettany heads to the conservation lab to see some of these remarkable finds first-hand, and Lucy speaks to one of the archaeologists working...

Welcome to Episode 3 of our Ancient World series, in this episode Bettany heads to the Bay of Naples, where in the middle of a volcanic landscape a Roman city now lies underwater. The Roman city at Baia is now submerged due to volcanic movement, the site has become a vast archaeological marine park, with statues, villas and mosaics visible underwater. Often referred to as the Las Vegas of the Roman world, it was the playground of the Roman elite. Bettany heads to Baia to see the site and Lucy finds out more about how it has become an archaeological park...

Welcome to Episode 2 of the Dive & Dig Ancient World Series. In this episode, finds from two key 4th century BC shipwreck sites in Cyprus at Mazotos and Kyrenia tell us about trade and connectivity in Classical Greece.  Olive stones, amphorae and small vessels bring the crews of one ancient ship back to life and the art of ancient seafaring and navigation is revealed through a series of ship replicas. Bettany visits the conservation lab in Cyprus to see some of the remarkable finds from the Mazotos shipwreck, including evidence of a sailor’s packed lunch! And Lucy speaks to Glavkos, who...

Welcome to the first episode of our new series! Presented by historian, Professor Bettany Hughes, and maritime archaeologist, Dr Lucy Blue who journey across the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In this episode we explore Wadi El Jarf, the site of the oldest known artificial sea harbour in the world. Located on the Red Sea of Egypt, it was built about 4500 years ago.  It reveals around 30 caves housing finds including amazingly preserved dismantled wooden boats, rigging material, and a papyrus archive, consisting of the oldest known papyrus in the world, that tells the story of the site. The site was b...

Lucy Blue talks to the team behind a new smartphone app, allowing users to explore the ancient harbour of Amathus off the coast of Cyprus. This EU-funded project allows visitors to explore the site with both walking and swimming tours, and for those unable to visit you can use the app to explore the site through immersive photos, videos, 3D models and an interactive map. 

In this episode, we speak to Tom Cousins and Dave Parham from Bournemouth University about a recently discovered 13th Century shipwreck off the Dorset Coast. The team were surprised to discover ship timbers surviving after 700 years, and the site, which contains a rather unusual cargo, is now the oldest protected wreck in the UK.

#maritime #archaeology #shipwreck #dorset #newdiscovery 

In the third and final part of our special IKUWA conference series, we hear about initiatives to protect and promote our underwater heritage at risk from looting, climate change and a multitude of other threats.
#underwater #archaeology #shipwrecks #treasurehunters #looting #protection #heritage 

In part II of our special IKUWA conference series, we reveal that maritime archaeology is not just about shipwrecks, exploring Neolithic lake settlements, ancient fishing and boats in bogs, as well as the first project of its kind in Pakistan. 
#underwater #archaeology #neolithic #prehisoric #pakistan #norway #logboats #bogs #fishing #cyprus 

Part I of the special IKUWA conference edition of our podcast looks at Shipwrecks - Timecapsules from the Deep! We hear from five speakers all of whom are working on a range of shipwreck sites, including warships, royal ships, merchant ships and even U-Boats.
#archaeology #underwater #shipwrecks #warships #wwI #wwII 

We recently attended the International Congress for Underwater Archaeology (IKUWA) in Helsinki and spoke to some fascinating researchers, from Shipwrecks to prehistoric lake settlements, and from battles against treasure hunters to the opening of dive parks, we gained insights into some of the fascinating research being undertaken around the globe to better understand our maritime past.