Spring 1990 2 ENDOWMENT SUPPORT for INA
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Exploring New Realms In Nautical Archaeology The War of 1812 Brig Eagle I NANEWSLETTER All articles and illustrations in INA Newsletter, with the exception of those indicated as excerpts, condensations or reprints taken from copyrighted sources, may be reprinted in full or in part without further permission simply by crediting INA Newsletter and the author, photographer or artist as the source. Also, copies of the publication should be sent to the Institute ofNautical Archaeology. Table of Contents Member Contributions Nautical Archaeology in the Americas: Welcome! A View from 1990 by Kevin J. Crisman .. .... 4 We want to include you in future A Reconnaissance Along the Coast of Oman issues of the INA Newsletter. Do you have an experience you by Robert K. Vincent, Jr. would like to share with IN A mem with Jeremy Green . 8 bers? A trip? A photograph? A Nautical Archaeology in Northern Europe museum or site you've been to? A by Fred Hocker . .. 12 news item? A book you've read? A conference you've attended? A sug Fine Tuning: An Analysis of Bronze Age Potmarks gestion? as Clues to Maritime Trade We're interested in what you have by Nicolle Hirschfeld ... 18 to say and contribute. Send submis sions and queries to: The Potential for Nautical Archaeology in Egypt by Cheryl and Douglas Haldane . 22 Editor Scanning Electron Microscopy Analysis INA Newsletter P.O. Drawer HG of the Ulu Burun Diptych College Station, TX 77841-5137 by Michael Pendleton and Peter Warnock . 26 Hellenic Maritime Museum, Piraeus, Greece Written submissions should be by Patrick N. Hunt 28 limited to 1,000 words and are subject to approval and editing. Please clear NEWS AND NOTES 30 ly mark everything with your name and address so we can return it to This issue of the INA Newsletter features articles highlighting the potentinl of you. We cannot be responsible for nautical archaeology in several different areas of the world. Two articles focus on items lost by the postal system, so the depth of information available from intensive study and analysis of seemingly please do not send original illustra inconsequentinl details such as a scratch on a pot or a wood fragment smaller than tions or photographs. Detailed format two millimeters on a side. information available upon request. Such research efforts are possible only through preservation of underwater sites and controlled excavation. Kevin Crisman's article discusses these issues and describes efforts in Vermont to make underwater sites available to recreational divers while preserving archaeological data. The IN A Newsletter is published quarterly. Kevin Crisman's drawing of the War of 1812 warship Eagle is based on Editor: Cheryl Haldane meticulous measurements taken in near-zero visibility of its alxzndoned hull. Publisher: Diana Thornton. Recorded from 1981 to 1983, the Eagle confirms written records of its construction in only 19 days and provides further information about the War of 1812 Lake Champlain fleet. INA Newsletter, Spring 1990 2 ENDOWMENT SUPPORT FOR INA In 1973, INA was only a dream backed by pledges from founding directors amounting to $50,000 annually for our first three years. INA has in the succeeding 17 years grown into a prominent institute with a solid record of research and publication. Annual expenses have grown to more than $800,000; these do not include funds from Texas A&M University which now pay faculty salaries to most of INA's original academic staff. During these years of growth, one thing has not changed. INA staff salaries remain dependent on annual giving. With a proven record of success, it is time that IN A be able to offer job security to employees who have devoted up to sixteen years of service to the institute. We have, therefore, begun to raise an endowment, starting with the modest goal of $900,000. We are especially pleased that in December we were awarded a Challenge Grant of $225,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Every three dollars we raise will be matched by one dollar from the NEH. In their own words: The NEH grant is both a challenge and an honor: it challenges the recipient institution to make a strong case to its donors and, at the same time, helps in the fund-raising effort by recognizing the institution in the nationwide competition for these awards. INA is to be counted among the few. Of 166 applicants for NEH Challenge Grants, only 41 were successful. And INA received the only award in the state of Texas. The plan for the funds as they are raised and matched is to use them in three major ways. Some will be used to help pay for the Turkish Headquarters we are building. Most of the funds, however, will be put into the Institute of Nautical Archaeology Foundation, created to hold endowment money for INA; the interest from these funds will be used to pay staff salaries and to maintain the headquarters. We have received gifts or pledges totalling $131,000 to date, moving us steadily towards our July 1990 goal of$175,000. The INA Newsletter is our means of keeping INA members informed of the research their donations help make possible, and has never been used to request additional funds from them. In this case, however, we want members to know of this endowment campaign, with the exceptional opportunities matching NEH funds allow. Gifts to the endowment in any amount may be made to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and sent to it at P.O. Drawer HG, College Station, TX 77841-5137. 3 INA Newsletter, Spring 1990 Nautical Archaeology in the Americas: A View from 1990 by Kevin J. Crisman Kevin Crisman will join the graduate program in Nautical doned Shipwreck Act (S. 858) by Congress in April of Archaeology at TeXlls A&M as an assistant professor in the 1988 was one of them. By removing wrecks from the fall. He specializes in New World shipwrecks and seafaring as jurisdiction of the Federal Admiralty Court and turning well as historical archaeology. Kevin graduated from TeXlls them over to the management of the individual states A&M with an M.A. from the nautical archaeology program, (and hence removing them from the reach of Admiralty and recently received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the salvage laws), Congress vastly improved the climate for University of Pennsylvania. protecting historic wrecks in the United States. The Shipwreck Act is not a panacea, by any means: while The transition between decades has traditionally been some states have taken a very active role in the care and a time for planting temporal milestones, an opportunity study of shipwrecks (Maryland, South Carolina, Texas, for people and societies to pause and examine the ac and Vermont, for example), others have ignored their complishments and failures of the ten years that recently responsibilities or have even sanctioned the work of passed into history. It is also a time to set new goals and treasure hunters. However, there are signs that the 1990s to make new resolutions for the future. As we leave the will see an increasing number of state preservation of 1980s and hail in the 1990s, it is appropriate to take stock fices taking action on behalf of the shipwrecks in their of nautical archaeology in the western hemisphere. By waters. briefly examining three areas of concern, namely the Perhaps the most gratifying developments of the management and protection of archaeological sites, the 1980s have been the grassroots efforts by people from role of technology in archaeology, and research and outside of the archaeological profession, particularly scholarship, the peaks and pitfalls of the 1980s can be members of the diving community, to record and protect examined, and some goals for the 1990s can be estab shipwrecks in their regions. The prevailing attitude of lished. the previous three decades, "I saw this artifact on the The question of how to manage and protect bottom, therefore, it belongs to me," is being slowly shipwrecks and other maritime-related sites has been replaced by the recognition that a historic wreck stripped one of the central problems of New World nautical ar of every artifact has lost much of its informational value chaeology during the past decade. There is a very good to archaeologists and its aesthetic value to divers. reason for this: the limited resource base is being swiftly Avocational maritime preservation groups have been obliterated by development, souvenir hunting, and instrumental in bringing about this change by educating professional treasure hunting. Of the three, treasure the public and involving sport divers in shipwreck map hunting is by far the most damaging. The disturbance of ping projects. sites by shore-side developers and sport divers can in I have had personal experience with two particularly most instances be attributed to ignorance and averted by effective maritime history education programs. The first a little education; treasure hunters, on the other hand, of these was initiated by the Maritime Archaeological have made careers out of the exploitation of historic and Historical Society (MAHS), a Washington, D.C. wrecks. The list of significant wrecks damaged or based, non-profit organization founded by Dr. William demolished has unfortunately grown during the 1980s, Eddy and several associates. In 1984 MAHS began offer and includes episodes that received a great deal of ing a ten-week "Introduction to Underwater Archaeol publicity but resulted in minimal gains in archaeological ogy" course to sport divers and interested laymen. The knowledge of our maritime past. 60 to 70 students who attend the courses each year hear The news on the management and protection front professional archaeologists and historians lecture on the has not been all bad; there have, in fact, been a great many history of underwater archaeology, archival research, encouraging developments.