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THE INA

QUARTERLY


Summer 1996


Volume 23 No. 2








The INA Quarterly


Volume 23 No. 2 Summer 1996





3 The Alexandria Conservation Laboratory
for Submerged Antiquities MEMBERSHIP
Douglas Haldane Institute of Nautical Archaeology
P.O. Drawer HG
7 The Logs from the Mombasa Wreck College Station, TX 77841-5137
Christine A. Powell
Learn firsthand of the latest discov-
16 Annabella: the Excavation of a series in nautical archaeology. Mem-
bers receive the INA Quarterly, sci-
Nineteenth-Century Coasting Schooner entific reports, and book discounts.
in Cape Neddick, Maine
Stefan Claesson Regular ........... $30

22 Profile: Gregory M. Cook Contributor ........ $60

23 Review: The Sea of Galilee Boat Supporter ........ $100
by Shelley Wachsmann Benefactor ....... $1000
Patricia Sibella
Student/ Retired ... $20
24 Publication Announcement:
Shipwrecks in the Bodrum Museum Checks in U.S. currency should be made
payable to INA. The portion of any do-
of Underwater Archaeology nation in excess of $10.00 is a tax-de-
ductible, charitable contribution.
25 New Publications Series
from Texas A&M University Press:
Studies in Nautical Archaeology

26 In the Field

On the cover: What was once the greenhouse of an Egyptian prince's villa now provides a light-filled space for cleaning and
treating marine artifacts at the Alexandria Conservation Laboratory for Submerged Artifacts. Photo by D. Haldane.

May 1996 by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. All rights reserved.
INA welcomes requests to reprint INA Quarterly articles and illustrations. Please address all requests and submissions to the Editor,
INA Quarterly, P.O. Drawer HG, College Station, TX 77841-5137; tel (409) 845-6694, fax (409) 847-9260.
The Home Page for INA and the Texas A&M University Nautical Archaeology Program on the WorldWideWeb is
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The Institute of Nautical Archaeology is a non-profit scientific and educational organization, incorporated in 1972. Since 1976, INA
has been affiliated with Texas A&M University, where INA faculty teach in the Nautical Archaeology Program of the Department of
Anthropology.


The INA Quarterly was formerly the INA Newsletter (vols. 1-18).


Editor: Christine A. Powell










The Alexandria Conservation Laboratory
for Submerged Antiquities

by Douglas Haldane

When Alexandria was the cultural and political capital of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, it was a world-famous center of
learning. Scholars came from the entire known world to study in its schools or consult its famous Library. In addition, Alexandria
has served as the main port of Egypt for thousands of years, drawing merchant ships from Russia, Italy, the Levant, and many other
places because of the rich and varied cargoes that could be obtained there. Spices, wine, grain,fabrics, dyes and other chemicals, and
fine pottery are only afew of the goods that ship owners and captains sought.
INA-Egypt's headquarters are in Alexandria, in part because of this rich history, but also to work more closely with Egypt's
National Maritime Museum. We can accomplish enormously more in ;1, i i ;-,, with Egyptian nautical archaeologists, historians,
conservators, archivists, and curators than we could possibly do alone. The Maritime Museum occupies almost half a city block of
Alexandrian seafront property. Two large buildings serve as offices and exhibit halls, but the outbuildings attracted our interest
from the first visit we made to the site. They have now become the Alexandria Conservation Laboratory for Submerged Antiquities.


INA-Egypt was in a quandary during the 1994 Red
Sea Survey (INA Quarterly 21.3). Our permit allowed us to
find shipwrecks and raise and record artifacts, but made
no provision for the transport and storage of objects. Egypt
is so rich in artifacts that the Supreme Council for Anti-
quities (SCA) faces persistent conservation problems due
to sheer volume. The SCA properly avoids temporary so-
lutions. It is better to leave objects in place rather than to
remove them without reasonable prospects for proper con-
servation and curation. The Alexandria Conservation Lab-
oratory was born from the need to provide a permanent
answer to the conservation and preservation of artifacts
from under water and from waterlogged land sites.
The first step in making the laboratory a reality was
to obtain permission to create it from the SCA's governing
body, the Permanent Committee. In October 1994, INA-
Egypt submitted a plan to convert five outbuildings in the
National Maritime Museum into a complex for conserv-
ing antiquities from INA-Egypt projects and for training
Egyptian conservators (fig. 1).


The Egyptian National Maritime Museum was orig-
inally a villa complex built in 1912 for Prince Youssef Ka-
mal, King Farouk's uncle. After the 1952 revolution, the
villa became the property of the Egyptian government. In
1986, the estate was commissioned as a maritime muse-
um. The spacious grounds include a greenhouse, three-
car garage, laundry, and other structures at the rear of the
property. Since conservation of waterlogged artifacts re-
quires large areas that will survive constant wetting, these
buildings seemed perfect for a laboratory dedicated to the
conservation of such materials. We also appreciated the
large open space between the buildings as a possible site
for storage tanks.
The SCA Permanent Committee decided to appoint
a subcommittee to study INA-Egypt's proposal. Dr.
Shawky Nakhla, General Director of Conservation and
Restoration for the SCA, served as chairman. The subcom-
mittee agreed that the buildings would make a first-rate
laboratory. Indeed, Dr. Nakhla eventually named the fa-
cility. We settled on an ambitious, but manageable, scheme
for renovating five buildings. These will
become laboratories for small and large
artifact cleaning and preservation,
equipment storage centers, a workshop


Photo: D. Haldane


Fig. 1. Five buildings below terraces at Al-
exandria's Maritime Museum will serve as
a comprehensive laboratory and documen-
tation center for the conservation of water-
logged artifacts. The Supreme Council of
Antiquities for Egypt owns the buildings,
but INA-Egypt is responsible for their con-
tents. Besides treating objects, sharing in-
formation with local conservators is an
important part of our long-range program
in Egypt.


INA Quarterly 23.2

































that can be converted for the preservation of large arti-
facts such as ship's timbers, and a documentation center
for both written and visual recording (fig. 2). On April 15,
1995, the Permanent Committee granted INA-Egypt per-
mission to begin the renovation.
When the SCA approved INA-Egypt's Sadana Is-
land Shipwreck Excavation proposal (INA Quarterly 22.3),
one of the conditions was that a fully renovated and
equipped laboratory exist in the Maritime Museum before
the excavation began. I was able to work out a compro-
mise for a staged process, since a complete laboratory
would take two to three years to create. Two stages are
now complete, and planning for the third is well under-
way.

Stage 1
The first stage involved providing access to the lab-
oratory area and installing wet-artifact storage tanks there.
I met with Thomas Thomason, Regional Manager for Bech-
tel, who put Bechtel's considerable expertise behind the
laboratory project by lending us an architect to pilot us
through the estimate/tender/bidding process. From my
experience in the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archae-
ology, I could roughly define the uses of the buildings,
but I was not qualified to define the mechanics of a full-
scale renovation. With Bechtel's assistance, we created a
renovation plan and identified the contractor for the job.
However, we were still not "in the door"... there
was no door. The gate leading to the outbuilding area fell
down years ago and the SCA replaced it with a wall to
maintain security. On March 28, we installed a beautiful,
wave-patterned iron gate generously provided by Kamal


Fig. 2. The SCA architectural plan for the Alexandria
Conservation Laboratory. Buildings include: A. the
main laboratory, the former greenhouse; B. mechanical
support, the former toolshed; and C. large artifact con-
servation, the former 3-car garage. D. illustration and
storage; and E. photodocumentation were converted
from the former laundry and staff living quarters. F. is
the proposed library, a former potting shed.


Sayyid Ahmed in the name of the Alexandria Busi-
ness Association. We were in... just. We still need-
ed to clear away accumulated rubbish, including
rubble from the gate installation. The Arab Con-
tractors Alexandria Division remedied this situa-
tion with the loan of two very large dump trucks
that we filled to capacity while clearing the lab
grounds.
Now the renovation could begin, but there
was still one hitch. We had no money. At this
point, Billings K. Ruddock stepped in and provid-
ed funds for two large water tanks with rolling,
locking lids and drains so we could guarantee compliance
with our excavation permit conditions. These required that
we preserve the excavated objects from damage caused
by dissolved salts (chiefly sodium chloride) that form crys-
tals as absorbed seawater evaporates.
The common thread that runs through conservation
of all artifacts from marine environments is removing salts
from the objects. A salt crystal forming at the surface of an
artifact has an explosive power of 40,000 pounds per square
inch. A single tiny salt crystal will probably not do much
damage, but a multitude of crystals will turn an artifact to
dust. Unfortunately, the Red Sea has one of the highest
salinity rates in the world. Desalinization is the reason we
built the tanks first. Prolonged immersion in fresh water
baths is the basic step in removing soluble salts without
allowing them to crystallize.
A suggestion from prospective INA-Egypt conser-
vator Howard Wellman prompted us to install electrical
outlets and water taps on the tanks. As artifacts in fresh
water give off their salts, a cloud of highly saline water
forms around the artifact, and the desalinization process
slows. A small sump pump in the tank will circulate the
water and dispel the cloud, allowing desalinization to con-
tinue. Moreover, it is possible to put electrodes into the
tank and pull the negative and positive salt ions out of the
artifacts (i.e., "turbo-charged desalinization").

Stage 2
While excavating at Sadana Island last summer, we
learned that the Egyptian Antiquities Project (EAP) had
awarded us a grant to renovate four of the five buildings.
The EAP, funded by the United States Agency for Interna-


INA Quarterly 23.2










tional Development (USAID), is headed by former INA
President Chip Vincent and administered by the Ameri-
can Research Center in Egypt. We filled the storage tanks
with the Sadana porcelain and other objects at the end of
August 1995 and started the renovation of the buildings
at the end of October.
The contractor tackled the three-car garage first, fin-
ishing in early December. This building will be used for
the conservation of large objects (such as ship timbers),
for storage, and as a workshop to maintain the laboratory.
By early January, we had transformed the former green-
house into the main laboratory (fig. 3) and the toolshed
into the compressor and X-ray facility. The main lab has
some interesting features.
First, as all the buildings do, it has rainwater cutoff
valves on the drainpipes. These valves symbolize one rea-
son why Alexandria is the best place in Egypt for this kind
of laboratory-rainfall. During the laboratory-planning
stage, I learned that the chlorine level of Alexandrian tap-
water is too high for conservation work and only increas-
es during the summer with the influx of tourists.
This was a significant problem as conservators are
trying to dispel chloride salts, not introduce them.
Where were we to get large amounts of chloride-
free water for conservation? Jane Pannell, INA
Conservator at the Bodrum Museum, solved this
problem for us when she told me that Tufan
Turanli had renovated a derelict section of the
Bodrum castle's rainwater catchment system to
provide both the laboratory and the museum with
an abundant water supply.
By Egyptian standards, it rains a lot in Al-
exandria during the winter. We have measured
about 15 cm (6 inches) in the water tanks so far,
with only passive collection. All we need to do is
catch the water that falls on the five roofs by di-
verting water to storage barrels via the cutoff
valves. From the barrels, we will pump the water
up to storage tanks behind the x-ray facility. From
there, a pipe runs through a de-ionization filter to
one of two large sinks in the main laboratory build-
ing. Most of the final desalinization will be accom-
plished in the former greenhouse plant bed area,
now workspace. The runoff will be carried away
by the renovated drainage system.
Mr. Vahan Alexanian, Chairman of Egyp-
tian Textiles Industries, donated the funds for the
storage-tank platform that provides head pressure


Fig. 3. Before and after views of the greenhouse, now
converted into the main laboratory building, showing
the dramatic transformation achieved by the dedicated
workers.


for the water running to the main laboratory. He has also
offered us, free of charge, the distilled water produced as
a byproduct of his dyeworks, if we ever run short of rain-
water.
The main laboratory also features compressed air
on tap. We placed the compressor room in the adjacent
building, as I have learned through experience that noth-
ing drives a normally placid conservator insane faster than
the loud thump of an air compressor coupled with the high
whine of a pneumatic chisel. A gift from Richard and Bari
Bienia provided an essential but missing piece of equip-
ment-the electrical meter that is the foundation for the
lab's independent electrical network. This will provide
both 110 and 220 volt electricity to all buildings.
The renovation process continued as our illustra-
tions studio and artifacts storeroom building received new
interior and exterior finishings. We ensured that sufficient
natural light would reach the studio. Discussions with en-
gineers helped solve a problem with keeping moisture out
of stored objects on the ground floor of this building. A


INA Quarterly 23.2


Photos: D. Haldane































dehumidifier running twenty-four hours a day is not the
best way to keep Alexandria's high summer humidity
away from conserved artifacts. Bill Remsen of the EAP
suggested it is more cost-effective to provide a vapor bar-
rier of thick plastic sheeting with a 60 cm overlap. Finish-
ing the barrier with gypsum board was not as easy, but we
found a supplier, then completed the process by sealing
the floor with vinyl. If someone does not know the vapor
barrier is there, they will not learn it by looking at the ceil-
ing or walls.
The photo documentation center was completed
with assistance from the Amoco Foundation. On the roof,
we have renewed the privacy screen. This will furnish il-
lustrators, conservators, and volunteers a place to work
outside in the gentle sea breezes off the Mediterranean.

Plans for the Alexandria Conservation Laboratory
With the first two stages complete, the five build-
ings have now been renovated through INA-Egypt's la-
bor and fundraising. In the third stage, we are seeking
contributions and grants to equip these buildings and pro-
vide the laboratory's external workings: electrical wiring,
water supply, and drainage. We are also in discussions with
the SCA to add a sixth building to the laboratory complex
to serve as a conservation reference library (fig. 4).
The renovated buildings will be used in coopera-
tion with the SCA for the conservation and preservation
of waterlogged antiquities from both land and underwa-
ter archaeological sites. The Alexandria Conservation Lab-
oratory for Submerged Antiquities will also be a center for
sharing information with Egyptian conservators about the
special needs of wet objects. For example, our laboratory
will work closely with the metals conservation lab pro-
vided by the French Navy team working at Abu Kir, the


Fig. 4. When funds become available,
this potting shed will be converted
into a reference library for the labo-
ratory, and the walled area in the
foreground will be incorporated into
the existing garden terraces.


site of a Napoleonic battle with
Horatio Nelson's fleet in 1798, and
a land battle the next year.
Although INA-Egypt often
receives compliments on the beau-
ty of the buildings, we know we
were only a catalyst to bring con-
servators, archaeologists, archi-
tects, and engineers together for a
common goal. The Alexandria
Photo: D. Haldane Conservation Laboratory is anoth-
er important step in the develop-
ment of the Arab world's first (and, we hope, foremost)
national maritime museum. Alexandria has once again be-
come a world-class center of learning.

Acknowledgments. As always, funding projects like this re-
quires the cooperation of many organizations and individu-
als. None of this work would have been possible without
these contributors. Their names will be recorded at the en-
trance so all visitors will know who really created the Alex-
andria Conservation Laboratory for Submerged Antiquities.
The Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities and
its dedicated staff spent long hours pouring over propos-
als and refining plans. We are particularly grateful to Bech-
tel Corporation, and especially Regional Manager Thomas
Thomason, for assistance with architectural estimates for
work at the Museum and consultations about the require-
ments of renovation. Thanks also go to Kamal Sayyid
Ahmed of the Alexandria Businessmen's Association,
which donated the new gate to allow passage for trucks
carrying ancient cargo into a modern laboratory. The Arab
Contractors Alexandria Division provided invaluable as-
sistance by loaning trucks for hauling away construction
debris from the buildings.
Major funding for the renovation has been provid-
ed by the Egyptian Antiquities Project, The Amoco Foun-
dation, the Alexanian Foundation, Billings K. Ruddock, and
Richard and Bari Bienia. In addition, the American Re-
search Center in Egypt continues to provide us with sup-
port through sharing facilities, and through discussions
with its Cairo Director, Mark Easton.

The new issue ofEl Bahri, INA-Egypt's local newsletter, is
available upon request from INA-Egypt, P.O. Box 432, El
Ibrahimiyya, Alexandria, Egypt or from INA.


INA Quarterly 23.2







The Logs from the Mombasa Wreck
by Christine A. Powell


The excavation of an archaeological site is only the beginning of the work that needs to be done. Months of excavation
are followed by years of conservation, study, analysis, and publication. A case in point is a wreck that INA excavated
at Mombasa, Kenya, in the late 1970s (INA Quarterly 18.2). This was almost certainly of Santo Ant6nio de
Tanni, a Portuguese fragata built in India during 1680 and sunk in 1697. The excavation team is now scattered
across five continents, but they and their newer associates continue to study the ship and its contents while moving
steadily towards a final report. The following is an example of the specialized studies that form the essential prelim-
inaries to an eventual synthesis.


One of the more unusual features of the Mombasa
site was the large number of hardwood logs or similar tim-
bers that were scattered around the wreck. A number of
these logs bore graffiti in the form of carved initials. The
author was asked to investigate the logs, but quickly found
it necessary to examine a wider context. Elements of this
context include the political situation of the Portuguese
presence in the Indian Ocean, trade patterns involving
Portuguese Africa and India, and the immediate history
surrounding the loss of this ship. It is particularly impor-
tant to determine where the ship had been immediately
prior to sinking, and why it had been there.
The Logs
To expose the ship's structure in the central area, it
was necessary to remove over fifty cubic meters of ballast.
Above the ballast was a layer of crushed barrels and hard-
wood logs up to two meters long. In some areas, the sur-
face levels consisted primarily of jumbled logs and
collapsed ship's structure. It has been estimated that there
were two hundred logs. Since these were of substantially


identical appearance, they were primarily treated in bulk,
rather than as individual artifacts. The log plan made by
the excavators shows about 80 logs out of the total found
(fig. 1). Robin C.M. Piercy, the Project Director, believes
that the log plan shows a "fairly balanced view of their
distribution."
The most interesting of the logs are those, at least
30, that had graffiti carved on them. These bore incised
marks FM, LM, DM, and DW. The "F" mark may be an
inverted "L" (fig. 2). The single "W" may likewise be an
inverted "M" (fig. 3). Aside from the marks, there do not
appear to have been differences between the carved logs
and the much more numerous uncarved ones.
Since the logs were at the very top of the deposit,
they were possibly disturbed by the salvage efforts of Por-
tugal's Arab enemies after the ship sank. The positions in
which they were recorded almost certainly do not corre-
spond to their positions in the ship before it sank, and thus
there is no longer any way to determine if the logs with
the same carved marks were originally located together in
the ship.


Fig. 1. Plan of the Mombasa shipwreck site, showing the location of approximately 80 logs (C.A. Powell, combining site plan and
log plan by R.C.M. Piercy).


INA Quarterly 23.2



























Photo: INA
The Type of Wood
The logs are composed of a very hard wood that
was originally believed to be ebony. However, placing the
logs in fresh water produced such a dark red stain that it
was then thought that the logs were of camwood (Baphita
nitida). This was a logical assumption, as dyewoods were
an important item of trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Recent testing, however, has changed this con-
clusion. The wood samples are of the genus Dalbergia, prob-
ably African blackwood, Dalbergia melanoxylon. This is the
species known to the ancient Egyptians as ebony (a name
that goes back five thousand years). The wood called ebo-
ny today is from a different family found primarily in Asia.
Dalbergia logs have been found in many ancient sites, in-
cluding the fourteenth century B.C. wreck excavated by
INA at Uluburun.
Dalbergia melanoxylon has an extensive range in East-
ern African savanna regions. The tree is relatively small
(generally under 7 meters), much branched and multi-
stemmed. It has a short bole, rarely over 30 cm in diame-
ter, that is often fluted. This is consistent with the Mombasa
wreck remains-the average diameter of the incised logs
was 16.5 centimeters, the largest being 22.5 cm in diame-
ter.
The heartwood of African blackwood is dark pur-
plish brown with black streaking. The texture is fine and
even and the grain straight; the wood has a low luster and
tends to be slightly oily. It is a difficult wood to work, even
with machine tools. Blackwood is so hard that it can quickly
blunt a saw. The wood is, however, excellent for turnery
and can be worked to a smooth, lustrous finish with met-
al-working tools. Blackwood is now used primarily for the
manufacture of woodwind instruments as well as other
forms of turnery work: brush backs, knife handles, walk-
ing sticks, inlay work, carvings, and the like. If you have
seen a clarinet, you have quite probably seen African black-


Drawing: Netia Piercy
Fig. 2 (left). Log MH 7031, showing the IM inscription.

Fig. 3 (above). DW inscription on Log MH 7050.


wood. It is interesting that among the Mombasa wreck
finds were pieces of lathe-turned hardwood furniture.
The basic specific gravity of African blackwood
(oven dry weight/green volume) is about 1.08. In other
words, this very dense wood is heavier than fresh water,
and will not float easily even in seawater, which helps ex-
plain why the logs stayed with the Mombasa ship when it
broke up. The high durability of the wood suggests how
two hundred logs could survive three hundred years of
exposure on or near the top of the wreck deposit.

Background: Trade in the Portuguese Empire
Early in the fifteenth century, Portugal began send-
ing expeditions down the west coast of Africa, seeking a
trade route to the Orient that would avoid dealing with
the multitude of middlemen that made goods from the
East so expensive. The real breakthrough came in 1497,
when Vasco da Gama left Portugal for India. On Satur-
day, 7th April 1498, de Gama reached Mombasa, which
was already a busy harbor. By 1509, the Portuguese had
won naval command of the Indian Ocean, occupying Ma-
lacca (at the gate to the Pacific) in 1511 and Hormuz (com-
manding the entrance to the Arabian Gulf) by 1515.
From the late 1400s until nearly 1600, the Indian
Ocean was effectively a Portuguese lake (fig. 4). Any ves-
sel sailing in the northwestern Indian Ocean needed a Por-
tuguese passport, or it was subject to seizure (and the crew
to enslavement). The monopoly affected not only the oth-
er European powers, but also the Arab traders who had
linked East Africa and India to the Gulf for centuries. Dhow
traffic in the area was much reduced, since the captains
had to obtain passports and call at Portuguese ports to
pay duties.
To guard her trade route to the East, Portugal gov-
erned, from Goa in India, twelve cities and twenty-three
fortress-towns stretching from Southeast Africa to the Far


INA Quarterly 23.2










East. Trade items from throughout this broad area were
brought to Goa for shipment back to Europe. Mozambique
and Mombasa were the major centers on the coast of Afri-
ca and there was a Portuguese presence for over 300 miles
up the Zambezi River. Europeans traded cloth and beads
for the major exports from the African territories: gold,
ivory, amber, rhinoceros horns, hippopotamus tusks, and
slaves. The Portuguese profited from both the production
of luxury goods in Africa and from the production of cloth
in India. In fact, it was Portuguese policy when they con-
quered an area to require the natives to buy clothing, since
this promoted commerce throughout the Portuguese do-
mains.
It was common for Portuguese officers and seamen
to carry goods on their own account alongside the "offi-
cial" cargo. As part of their compensation, they were as-
signed volumes in the hold known as liberdades. The
holders of the liberdades could then sell the space to mer-
chants or carry their own cargo. A 1692 letter in the Goa
archives from the then-captain of the Santo Antonio de Tanna
complained that the official cargo had been so large, and
the frigate's hold so small, that the liberdades of the captain
and his officers would not fit. Perhaps the Mombasa logs
were just such private goods, carried in the officers' liber-
dades.
Throughout the Portuguese empire, wood was a sig-
nificant trade item. One Viceroy in Goa claimed that the


Captain of Bassein (the Indian port where Santo Antonio
de Tanna was built) was making a thousand per cent profit
on sales of local teak, and by far the most valuable export
of Brazil was brazil wood. Wood was also a mainstay of
trade in the Far East, where the Portuguese (and later the
Dutch) sent large quantities of dye and incense woods from
Southeast Asia to China and Japan. For example, hundreds
of tons of wood were imported by the Dutch into Japan
each year in the 1670s, and the Portuguese at Macao trad-
ed sandalwood from Timor to China. Large volumes of
wood also came back to Europe for luxury uses.
In East Africa, mangrove poles were shipped from
the coast near Mombasa to Arabia. Trees on the coast south
of Mombasa were a source of pitch and timber particular-
ly good for ship-building, since the pitch in the wood pre-
served it. "Ebony" (probably African blackwood) was
apparently so common on the mainland adjacent to
Mozambique in the 1650s that "when any man wants it he
may have it for the charges of fetching." We should there-
fore not be surprised to find that the Portuguese ship from
Mombasa was carrying wood in its hold.

Background: Mombasa
Mombasa was probably founded in the twelth cen-
tury, and grew rapidly enough to be mentioned in the
works of the Arab-Sicilian geographer Al-Idrisi, who died
in 1166. It was located on a three-mile-long island flanked


Drawing: C.A. Powell
Fig. 4. The Indian Ocean trade sphere during the era of Portuguese domination, showing Mombasa,
the wreck site of Santo Ant6nio de TannA.


INA Quarterly 23.2





































Drawing: C. A. Powell
Fig. 5. A 1634 plan ofMombasa, after a map by Pierre Berthelot in P. Barreto de Rezende MS. in the British Museum.


by two excellent harbors (fig. 5). By the fifteenth century,
it had become one of the most important towns on the Swa-
hili coast. When the Portuguese arrived, Mombasa was
the leading African port for the importation of cotton cloth.
This was traded for ivory from the interior, particularly
the large pieces which had no competition from the small-
er Indian elephants (which did not have tusks massive
enough for large bracelets). The Portuguese simply
plugged themselves into the existing trade pattern, sub-
stituting their customs duties for those of the native ruler.
Mombasa was occupied by the Portuguese in 1593
to guard against Turkish expansion from the north. The
island was both fruitful and comparatively healthful, so
there were suggestions that it should become the major
port-of-call between Lisbon and Goa. However, it re-
mained chiefly a trading station and outer defense for
Mozambique and the Zambezi River settlements, as well
as the major customs station on the upper coast.
The fortress at Mombasa, Fort Jesus, was important
to the Portuguese in the late 1600s primarily for two rea-
sons: trade and security. First, it was a trading center be-
tween the Europeans and the people of interior East Africa.
By far the most important product was ivory. There was
also a lesser trade in ambergris, tortoiseshell, beeswax,
cows, sheep, and other items.


The Portuguese profited from both ends of the trade,
since the primary import traded for all these products was
cloth produced in Portuguese India. Because of the dan-
ger that an oversupply of cloth would drive prices down,
the Portuguese tightly controlled imports. The Afro-Arab
traders along the coast resented the unfair competition. In
1631, there was a major revolt in Mombasa, with 152 per-
sons massacred. Mombasa never completely recovered.
If Mombasa had only been valuable for its own
trade, the Portuguese would not have gone to such great
lengths to protect it. Its primary importance was strategic.
It inhibited Arab or Turkish forces from threatening the
much more valuable Portuguese holdings farther south,
along the Zambezi River and at Mozambique. It also
helped prevent either the Arabs or the other European
powers from threatening the vital sea routes linking Por-
tugal with India and the Far East. The Portuguese needed
all the bases they could hold. In 1693, the Viceroy in Goa
had only one galleon, five frigates, eleven galliots, and sev-
en smaller craft to guard an empire stretching from
Mozambique to Macao. The fortress at Mombasa became
particularly important after the Sultan of Oman expelled
the Portuguese from Muscat and built a fleet large enough
to compete for mastery of the Arabian Sea and northwest
Indian Ocean. The Portuguese domains rapidly deterio-


INA Quarterly 23.2










rated in the late 1600s. England and the Netherlands had
begun intruding around the end of the 1500s. The Arabs
posed an additional threat after the new dynasty in Mus-
cat and Oman obtained allied bases in Zanzibar, Pate, and
other of the coastal islands. This deprived both Mombasa
and Mozambique of much of their trade.
The Portuguese were particularly affected by these
changing circumstances, since they were spread so thinly
that they had to rely on native collaborators. The Portu-
guese were never able to adequately reinforce their over-
seas garrisons because their home country was so small,
with a total population not much greater than 1.25 mil-
lion. They lacked the manpower that was available to large
countries like Spain and France, and to densely populated
lands like England and Holland. The Portuguese residents
in Mombasa occupied only about 70 houses. Along the
2,100 miles of southeast African coast, Portugal probably
had a permanent presence of only about 400 fighting men,
reinforced from time to time by passing armadas.

The Siege of Mombasa and the First Relief Expedition
The Mombasa wreck was almost certainly that of
Santo Antonio de Tanna, a Portuguesefragata built in Portu-
guese India. Fragata (frigate) and nab (ship) are used inter-
changeably in the Portuguese sources to include any large
seagoing craft. Like the English and Dutch Indiamen, Por-
tuguese frigates were designed both to fight and carry car-
go. The ship was ordered from the Captain of Bassein in
February 1678, but was not completed until December
1680. Bassein and Tanna (a timber center that probably
contributed both materials and name to the ship) are now
northern suburbs of Bombay.
Santo Antonio de Tanna was lost in late 1697 during
a 33-month siege of Mombasa by Arab forces from the
Oman. The siege began with the appearance of seven Arab
vessels on 11th March 1696. The relief expedition sent from
Goa included two frigates, two galliots, and four hundred
soldiers. The flagship was Santo Antonio de Tanna, which
had eight additional guns and gunports added for the
mission, bringing its battery to fifty. The expedition was
commanded by General Luis de Mello de Sampaio.
De Mello came from a wealthy family with proper-
ty in India. He had been Governor of Macao in 1679-82.
Although his property had been impounded for debt in
1683, he was on the Council of State for Portuguese India
by 1690, apparently having received the favor of the Vice-
roy by participating in the unpopular government-spon-
sored trade monopoly. His last reward was appointment
as head of the Mombasa relief party, with a dual appoint-
ment as governor of the rich Zambezi River settlements.
The Viceroy presumably felt he could rely on de Mello not
to take unnecessary risks. In the event, the excessive cau-
tion of the Viceroy's appointees was to cost Portugal a frig-


ate (Santo Antonio de Tanna), four galliots, and over a thou-
sand men...without saving Mombasa.
The first relief expedition sailed from Goa on 25th
November 1696. In addition to its military force, it carried
supplies for the besieged garrison, including rice, meat,
wine, spices, cannon and musket balls, fuses, powder,
medicine, gun flints, wheel carriages, and crowbars. The
force arrived at Mombasa on 25th December. A galliot com-
manded by Christovdo de Mello (one of the General's
nephews) was beached under the fortress and began off-
loading supplies on the 28th.
The fleet remained in anchorages near Mombasa
until 14th January 1697, when it resumed cruising nearby.
Strong winds had tangled the anchor cables of the frig-
ates, breaking the cables and casting the ships adrift un-
der dangerous conditions. This was the first manifestation
of a problem with remaining properly anchored that re-
peatedly affected Santo Antonio de Tanna during its last
year.
General de Mello was under orders to remain in
Mombasa only long enough to lift the siege. Once the cri-
sis was resolved, he was to go to Mozambique to take up
his commission as governor of the Zambezi River territo-
ries. His orders, preserved in the Goa archives, clearly an-
ticipate that he was to take one of the galliots, leaving the
two frigates to guard Mombasa. Although most of his staff
urged General de Mello to follow these instructions, he
insisted on taking Santo Antonio de Tanna to Mozambique,
leaving on 25th January 1697. The small remaining force
spent the next few months anchored at Zanzibar before
leaving for Goa. Thus, the Arabs at Mombasa were able to
reinforce and supply their besieging units, while the de-
fenders exhausted their supplies and were decimated by
enemy action and fever. Conditions were so bad that the
last Portuguese died on 28th August, leaving the fortress
in the charge of Portugal's Afro-Arab allies.
In Mozambique, Luis de Mello initially prepared to
take up his governance of the gold-rich settlements along
the Zambezi River. Half-hearted attempts to send help to
Mombasa were delayed by a major storm that lasted for
fifteen days at the beginning of April. Half the houses and
trees of Mozambique were overturned by the wind, and
every ship in the harbor was driven aground. Santo Antbnio
de Tanna again lost her anchors and was driven stern-first,
so that her rudder was broken off and found beneath the
hull when the ship was refloated.

The Wreck of Santo Ant6nio de Tanna
Towards the end of the summer of 1697, it became
clear that the situation in Mombasa was critical. General
de Mello began to organize his relief force for a return
north. He put 300 soldiers, 60 seamen, and 24 recruits and
boys aboard Santo Antonio de Tanna, along with a surgeon


INA Quarterly 23.2










and medicines, meat, sweets, fish, wine, and other items.
He loaded a merchant galliot with further provisions, salt
fish, powder, and shot. The expedition left at the begin-
ning of September and stopped for a few days in Zanzi-
bar. Cloth brought from Mozambique was used to buy
additional supplies for Mombasa in Zanzibar.
The expedition left Zanzibar on the 14th of Septem-
ber and entered the small harbor below Fort Jesus the next
day. Santo Antonio de Tanna was anchored near the for-
tress with three cables and a warping line at the poop, be-
cause the harbor was too narrow to allow the ship to swing
with the tides. There was an ongoing problem with the
cables being severed by gunfire. Eventually, the ship used
all its anchors in the effort to hold itself in position.
The Arab forces immediately began a bombard-
ment, which set a number of fires on the flagship and
caused a small powder explosion. The enemy cannon were
so close that the fires were set by the blazing wadding from
the guns. The plan had been to beach the galliot to allow
unloading, but it was blown against the frigate on 18th
September. The galliot was badly damaged, both by the
collision and by gunfire. There is no mention of damage
to Santo Antonio de Tanna from the collision.
A note in a contemporary source may be significant
for what INA found nearly three centuries later. A cable
had been run from the frigate to the shore, so that boats of
supplies could be hauled ashore more easily. After sever-
al weeks, the Master of Santo Antonio de Tanna reported
that there was nothing else left aboard, and the resupply
operations ceased. However, when the ship was lost some
days later, forty pipes of wine (a pipe was approximately
477 liters), a quantity of rice, six barrels of meat and cod,
and a barrel of olive oil were found in the sea. Obviously,
the Master was holding back goods for some reason. This
may have been for the crew's use, for his own account, or
on behalf of others. The volume of wine may indicate that
at least some of the senior officers on the frigate were plan-
ning to carry trade items from Goa, Mozambique, or Zan-
zibar to some destination other than Mombasa.
Presumably, the ship would have returned to India when
the monsoon turned in April. The logs may also have been
such trade items.
The anchor cable from the poop of Santo Antonio de
Tanna was cut by gunfire or other cause during the course
of October 1697. On the 20th of that month, a shot from
the Arab artillery struck the two remaining cables and cut
the ship adrift. The wind was mild and the harbor calm,
so the anchorless ship just drifted out of control, rather
than being driven ashore. The ebb tide left her stranded
on the northeast part of the shoal. As had happened in the
April storm in Mozambique, the ship lost her rudder.
Stronger winds in the afternoon carried her on the next
tide to ground again, bow first, below the enemy stock-
ade. An expedition from the fortress attached two haw-


sers from the land at the foot of Fort Jesus to the Santo
Antonio de Tanna. She was refloated on the next flood tide
and hauled back to a position under the fortress. After the
frigate was remoored, additional meat, rice, biscuit, salt
fish, and wine were hauled ashore on ropes from the ship
to the land. Since few personal items were found in the
ship, much of the crew probably abandoned it at this time
to join the garrison ashore.
Before the ship's contents could be completely un-
loaded, a spring flood tide at the beginning of November
1697 carried the ship onto the reef near the foot of the for-
tress, with the after half of the ship aground and the for-
ward half hanging over deeper water. During the night,
the low spring ebb led the weight of the prow to heel the
ship over and capsize her below the reef. Only the top-
masts were left projecting out of the water. General Luis
de Mello was already ill; he "became worse from the vex-
ation and fatigue of the whole night spent in rescuing the
men of the frigate, and exhausted by fever died on 18th
November of the same year."
A Portuguese relief expedition sailed from Goa on
the 1st of December. It arrived on the 28th and landed fur-
ther supplies and reinforcements. Showing the same pat-
tern of excessive caution that had led de Mello to leave
Mombasa a year earlier, this fleet left on 19th January 1698.
When a third relief expedition arrived eleven months lat-
er, on the 19th of December, they found that Fort Jesus
had fallen six days earlier. The only first-hand report of
the defeat came from the Indian servant of the Master of
Santo Antonio de Tanna, who managed to return to Goa on
29th October 1701. He reported that some of the cannon
from the sunken ship had been salvaged by the Arab vic-
tors and used to help fortify Mombasa.
The 1698 defeat at Mombasa directly led the Portu-
guese to abandon most of the East African coast, and indi-
rectly contributed to their almost total exclusion from India
by the English and from Indonesia by the Dutch.

Possible Conclusions: The Logs
It does not seem likely that the logs (fig. 6) were
loaded unto the Santo Antonio de Tanna as part of the relief
supplies for Mombasa. African blackwood is very hard
and difficult to work with most tools. It was not useful as
a construction material. The only possibility would have
been to use the extremely dense and hard logs as a bul-
wark against enemy artillery. If that was the intent, it seems
strange that the wood was not unloaded when the ship
was obviously in trouble.
Another possibility is that the wood was being car-
ried to bargain with the besieging forces, or to buy the sup-
port of native rulers who were "sitting on the fence." The
war was disrupting normal trade between the northern
and southern segments of the coast, and normal supplies
of luxury materials had been cut off to combatants and


INA Quarterly 23.2






























neutrals alike. However, bribes could more easily have
been made up of material that was not accessible inland,
and not so bulky, heavy, and hard to handle. Thus, this
remains only a possibility.
It is far more likely that the wood was carried as
additional cargo. The sources do not tell us where the San-
to Antonio de Tanna would have gone next if it had not been
sunk at Mombasa. Originally, of course, it had been ex-
pected that both frigates with the relief expedition would
return to India via the Arabian Gulf. The diversion of the
frigate to Mozambique may have changed that expecta-
tion. When the expedition left Mozambique in September
to return to Mombasa, the General and his officers would
have known that the winds would be favorable for a re-
turn to Mozambique after the first of the year, or for sail-
ing to the Gulf or India with the April monsoon. Since the
General still had his valuable appointment to the Zambezi
River colonies, it seems likely that he-at least-expected
to head back south after dealing with the Mombasa situa-
tion. It would seem strange to load any African cargo on
the ship at Mozambique if the frigate was planning to re-
turn there before heading on to India. If, on the other hand,
the General was planning to use the galliot to return to the
River, any extra space in the frigate could have been load-
ed with cargo for India before it left Mozambique. As not-
ed above, "ebony" (actually blackwood) was almost free
for the taking in Mozambique, but precious at market.
However, there is another possibility. The Santo
Antonio de Tanna had made one additional stop. Between
the departure from Mozambique and the arrival at Mom-
basa, the relief expedition had spent several days at Zanzi-
bar. When they arrived there, an Arab vessel was just
clearing the harbor, so the Queen of Zanzibar was plainly
playing both sides off against one another. She was more
than willing to provide additional supplies to fill some of


Fig. 6. Over 200 logs were strewn across the sea floor on or
towards the top of the Mombasa shipwreck site. The heavy Afri-
can blackwood logs may have acted as extra ballast as well as
cargo.



the empty space on the Portuguese ships. She may also
have found it expedient to make a valuable present to Gen-
eral Luis de Mello, just in case he succeeded in defeating
Oman. If this supposition is correct, the logs were loaded
on the ship at Zanzibar, and would have made their way
to the market in Goa if they had not ended up on the bot-
tom of Mombasa Harbor.
Either way, it does not seem likely that the logs con-
stituted part of an "official" cargo. Surely any space avail-
able to the government would have been used to carry
supplies to Fort Jesus. It would have been hard to justify
to the Viceroy why space was taken up for profitable car-
go when the fortress was in such dire straits. However,
the "official" cargo space was not all the capacity aboard.
The hardwood logs from the Mombasa wreck were more
likely from the liberdades of the officers or crew, most like-
ly the highest-ranking officers who had the most space.
The right to ship private cargo constituted an important
part of their compensation, and would not have been de-
nied except under circumstances that even the crew con-
ceded to be an emergency. It was hard enough to maintain
loyalty without shorting men on their pay. The records
show that the captain and crew of the Santo Antonio de Tan-
n& were barely dissuaded from sailing back to Goa even as
it was.
It was not unusual to carry secondary cargo. Most
ships carried cargoes both for the long-distance and local
markets. This ensured that vessels sailed to capacity and
that the market was exploited to its fullest. So, no one would
have seen it as out of the ordinary that additional space on
a relief mission might be allocated to making a profit. In
particular, the cargoes transported were not just preferred
for their resale value. Some items were selected to be used
as ballast. Heavy, dense African blackwood would have
been ideal for this purpose. The location of the logs in the
wreck suggests that they were stored just above the stone
ballast.

Possible Conclusions: The Marks
The letters carved into thirty of the logs have a num-
ber of possible explanations. The Greek "Gamma" and the
Roman "W" are letters that would not normally occur in
Portuguese. However, if the person who was carving the
letters was illiterate (at least in the Roman alphabet), it is
possible that the "F" is actually a vertical mirror-image of
an "L," and likewise the "W" an inverted "M." This would
be possible for someone using a template. If so, there are


INA Quarterly 23.2






































only two sets of letters: "DM" and "LM" (fig. 7). The most
likely explanation is that these are the initials of an indi-
vidual or individuals, but we should consider other pos-
sibilities.
The initialled logs may originally have been bun-
dled with the others to identify them in some way. The
letters "LM" are, of course, the Roman numerals for 950.
"MD" would be 1500, although "DM" would be a very
long way of saying 500. Given the possible problem with
backwards letters, it is possible that the "DM" is actually
backwards for "MD," or "LM" a backwards "ML" (1050).
It does not seem that the letters represent a count of the
logs. Even if half the logs had been lost at the time of the
sinking or subsequent Arab salvage, there were nowhere
near 750, or even 250, logs found on the wreck.
Another possibility would be that the numbers (if
they are numbers) represent the weight of the logs. If the
25 logs in the original list of logs with initials fairly repre-
sent the total population of 200, the average length would
be 36.65 cm and the average diameter 16.5 cm. That gives
an average volume of 7832.7 cubic cm, which would weigh
8.45 kilograms (assuming that all the logs were of African
blackwood with a specific gravity of 1.08). Two hundred
logs of this size would weigh 1690 kg. This would have
been an extremely small load as compared to the wood
cargoes listed in contemporary records. There is, of course,
no way to know either how many of the logs have been


Fig. 7. Several of the Mombasa logs, showing the
most common inscriptions, DM and LM.



lost, or how much the size of the surviving
logs has been eroded from their original di-
mensions. Some of the initialled logs show ero-
sion. It is, therefore, impossible to even guess
the original weight of the log cargo. One can-
not eliminate the possibility that the letters on
the logs represent a weight.
The most likely explanation, however,
is that the marks represent someone's initials.
If so, whose? The name that heads the list of
officers on the Santo Antonio de Tanna is the
commander of the First Relief Expedition,
General Luis de Mello de Sampaio. Either
"LM" or "DM" would be possible initials for
General de Mello. There seems to be no other
likely "suspect" for the "LM" initials. There
is a broader field for "DM," although none
outside the de Mello family. Since nepotism
was not illegal in those days, there were a
number of other members of the General's
Photo: INA family along on the expedition. One of these
was Diego de Mello de Castro, nephew of the
General and a Captain of the infantry forces on Santo
Antonio de Tanna. "DM" could be either Diego de Mello,
another individual member of the de Mello family (includ-
ing the General), or even a group of de Mello family mem-
bers who had pooled their liberdades. No other likely
individuals seem to have had the right initials, although
we do not have all the names of the ordinary seamen and
soldiers, who would not have had much space anyway.

Final Conclusions
The Mombasa ship is most likely Santo Antonio de
Tanna, a 50-gun (recently enlarged from 42) Portuguese
frigate that sank near the beginning of November 1697.
The ship had originally come from Goa and had stopped
in first in Mombasa, and them visited Mozambique and
Zanzibar before returning to Mombasa. If it had not sunk,
the ship would have been headed back to Goa, possibly by
way of Mozambique or the Gulf ports. From Goa, its cargo
could have been headed anywhere within the Portuguese
empire in the Indian Ocean and Orient, or even back to
Europe.
The two hundred Mombasa logs would have taken
only a very small part of the capacity of the ship, and may
have constituted part of the private goods carried in the
officers' or crew's liberdades. The heavy wood may have
been selected because it would take up little space in rela-
tion to its value, and because its weight low in the ship


INA Quarterly 23.2










would provide additional ballasting. The logs may have
been loaded aboard in Mozambique or during the stop in
Zanzibar, where the Queen would have had a powerful
motive to assist the financial ambitions of the expedition's
officers.
The 175 or more logs without graffiti were presum-
ably associated with the initialed logs. The excavators did
not note any differences between the two sets of logs, apart
from the initials themselves. It is possible that some of the
other logs also bore inscriptions that did not survive the
three centuries between the sinking and excavation. Since
there is no way to know how many logs disappeared en-
tirely over that span of time, it is difficult to reach any firm
conclusions about the original character of this part of the
ship's contents.
Since the unmarked logs were apparently of identi-
cal appearance, it was a reasonable decision of the excava-
tors to handle them in bulk. Only the initialed logs and a
selected sample of the others were individually recorded


or recovered. However many details may be added by ad-
ditional research, it seems unlikely to disturb the general
conclusions reached above.

Acknowledgments. This research would not have been pos-
sible without the assistance of Robin C.M. Pierce, Project
Director of the Mombasa Ship Excavation, and an INA staff
member at Bodrum, Turkey, who provided access to the
Project files and answered faxes by return electron. Addi-
tional assistance was provided by Dr. Kevin Crisman of
INA and the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M
University. Much of the historical information presented
was derived from an unpublished manuscript edited by
James Kirkman and Jill Dias, and made available to Dr.
George Bass after Dr. Kirkman's death in 1989 by Mrs.
Kirkman. Other information was gathered by Jean-Yves
Blot and Maria-Luisa Pinheiro Blot during a 1984 fact-find-
ing trip to India as a part of the research for the final pub-
lication of the excavation.


Suggested Reading
Axelson, Eric.
1960 Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600-1700. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Boxer, C. R.
1961 Four Centuries of Portuguese Expansion, 1415-1815. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Chudnoff, Martin.
1984 Tropical Timbers of the World. Madison: United States Department of Agriculture.
Piercy, Robin C. M.
1977 "Mombasa wreck excavation. Preliminary report, 1977. Report No. 3." The International Journal of Nautical
A, ,. 1,. ,..i,"i and Underwater Exploration 6.4: 331-347.
Piercy, Robin C. M.
1978 "Mombasa wreck excavation: Second preliminary report, 1978," IJNA 7.4: 306-307.



Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes
Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
October 10-12, 1996
The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in cooperation with the Gales of November Conference
is sponsoring a conference entitled Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes between October 10 and 12, 1996, in Duluth, Minnesota.
The conference is aimed at a wide audience of archaeologists, historians, sport divers, and the interested public. Al-
though shipwreck investigations in the Great Lakes will be the focus of the conference, other aspects of underwater
archaeology and the history of water transportation in the midcontinent will also be featured. A principal goal of the
conference is to explore methods of shipwreck preservation and interpretation.
Four sequential symposia will feature papers on The Archaeology and History of Great Lakes Shipping, The
Archaeology and History of Inland Waterways, The Archaeology and History of Harbors and Ports, and The Manage-
ment of Underwater Cultural Resources in the Great Lakes Region. A Friday banquet will feature a presentation on a
major underwater archaeological project. Other discussions and activities will include a general session on Minnesota's
plan for underwater cultural resource management and a tour of Duluth-Superior Harbor.
Those interested in presenting papers should contact Scott Anfinson at the Minnesota SHPO (612-296-5434).
Michele Decker at the Minnesota SHPO (612-296-5434) can provide registration information.


INA Quarterly 23.2







Annabella: the Excavation of a Nineteenth-Century

Coasting Schooner in Cape Neddick, Maine


by Stefan Claesson

The term "nautical archaeology" conjures images of scientists using
complex equipment to explore sites far beneath the sea, but much valuable
research into the history of seafaring can be conducted in other ways. An ar-
chaeologist may as likely be found struggling through cold mud as diving in
tropical waters. An important site in the Cape Neddick River near York in
southern Maine is a case in point (fig. 1).
Four archaeologists gathered in late May 1995 to excavate the remains
of a nineteenth-century ship located at this site. They were Samuel Turner
from King's College, London; Chris Ellis from the University of Edinburgh,
Scotland; and two students from the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas
A&M University, Mason McDaniel and the author. The ship was situated in a
tidal flat, where the hull remains could be excavated during low tide by wad-
ing through knee-deep mud.
The vessel was listing on its port side and, as a result, the ship's star-
board frames, apron, and stern knee were exposed during low tide (fig. 2).
These surfaces had deteriorated considerably, due primarily to the constant
tidal changes in the river and the destructive forces of ice each winter. How-
ever, the port side of the vessel lay buried beneath a layer of sediment, pro-


Map: C. A. Powell


INA Quarterly 23.2


Map: S. Claesson
Fig. 1. Map of the Cape Neddick River Basin illustrating the excavation site (CN1). During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the
"wharf and mill site" was the center of maritime activity in the river. An electric railroad built across the river in the 20th century
effectively prevented vessels from reaching the primary wharves.










Fig. 2. The excavated remains of
the 19th century coasting schoo-
ner Annabella seen at low tide.
Approximately of the hull is
intact. Sediment excavated from
the hull was put in semi-permeable
sandbags and placed along the
starboard side of the vessel.




testing it from the harsh envi-
ronment and protecting the
wood from the damaging ef-
fects of decay.
Even prior to excavation,
the visible features of the hull
and its location in the shallow
tidal flat suggested much about
the ship. It was apparently a
derelict vessel, laid up against
the bank after it was no longer profitable to repair. Fasten-
ers in the hull were primarily treenails and iron bolts. The
arrangement and sturdy character of timbers indicated that
the vessel was likely a coasting schooner designed to car-
ry heavy cargo such as stone or timber. Because no other
vessel from this period had been excavated along the Maine
coast, an in-depth analysis of the hull would shed new
light on a type of vessel that was in widespread use in
New England and was characteristic of the ante-bellum
coasting trade.


The first step in documenting the hull was to estab-
lish a measuring system (fig. 3). Using the keel of the ship
as a baseline, local surveyors set up a grid composed of
two meter squares over the entire site. Once the grid was
laid, we could clear the sediment from the individual
squares and place it into semi-permeable sandbags. This
not only prevented the mud from sliding back into areas
that had already been excavated, but also prevented it from
settling elsewhere in the river, which might have resulted
in altering the water channels. The excavated sediment
could be used in the re-burial
of the wreck as well, providing
an environment similar to the
one that preserved the timbers
for over a century.
The overburden was
first removed from the bow,
exposing cant frames splayed
out radially and the large apron
timber seen in the site plan. The
wood was remarkably pre-
served beneath the mud. On
the port side of the vessel-in
stark contrast to the star-
board-the ceiling, hull plank-


Fig. 3. Texas A&M Nautical Ar-
chaeology Program alumnus Sam-
uel Turner and the author map the
hull using direct measuring tech-
niques.


INA Quarterly 23.2










ing and frames were in almost pristine condition. The re-
mains are 63 feet in length, a maximum breadth of 20 feet,
and a maximum depth of hold approximately 5 feet. Most
major timbers below the turn of the bilge are represented
except for a keelson or mast step(s). In addition, the entire
rudder is preserved (fig. 4).
Excavating immediately aft of the apron and be-
tween the frames revealed two distinctive deposits. The
first was a dark brown material consisting primarily of
wood chips. Similar deposits were also located in the stern,
extending almost half a foot deep. Interspersed within
these wood chips, just above the surface of the keel and
garboard, were brick chips and dust. The deposits are sig-
nificant because they are suggestive of brick and cordwood
cargoes.
Adhering to the surface of the keel and lower hull
planks was a hard, black, granular substance. Once re-
moved, the material was identified as tar. High concen-
trations of tar were located around the apron and adjacent
timbers and around the stern knee, particularly at the af-
ter end of the timber. Though the bow and stern exhibited
the highest concentrations, tar was found along the entire
length of the keel and garboards.


Direct measurements were taken from the grid with
a measuring tape and plumb bob. With only these simple
tools, we were able to map every timber, fastener and arti-
fact located during excavation. Hull sections were taken
at approximately three-meter intervals along the length of
the hull to record timber dimensions and determine the
shape of the lower portion of the hull. Longitudinal sec-
tions were taken at the bow and stern in order to illustrate
the construction and dimensions of important timbers such
as the keel, apron, deadwood, stern knee and garboards.
In addition, a series of black and white photographs were
taken along the entire hull; the individual pictures are cur-
rently being assembled by means of a computer to create
a seamless photomosaic of the remains.
The excavation revealed a variety of artifacts dat-
ing from the 1840s to the early twentieth century. Consid-
ering factors such as tidal changes and vandalism, not all
of the artifacts recovered can be associated with the ves-
sel. Therefore, the location of artifacts and their distribu-
tion is essential in determining which artifacts are
associated with the ship and in distinguishing between
cargoes and shipboard items. Forward and to port of the
stern knee, a number of items of pottery were recovered


Fig. 4. Site Plan of the wooden-hulled schooner excavated at Cape Neddick.


INA Quarterly 23.2










that date to the mid to late nineteenth century. As most of
these utilitarian ceramics were located in the stern, it sug-
gests that the galley was located there rather than in the
bow.

Historical Research
In determining the historical context of a vessel and
how it is adapted to its milieu, several basic questions must
be answered. These include: how old is the vessel; what
kind of vessel is she (sloop, schooner, brig, etc.); who
owned and captained her; what was her cargo; and where
were her destinations? These seemingly simple questions
often remain unanswered, particularly in the case of aban-
doned or derelict vessels. In order for these questions to
be answered definitively for the Cape Neddick ship, it was
essential to identify the ship by name.
When the tide was high, most of our time was spent
in libraries and combing through manuscripts. We asked
local residents what they knew about the deteriorated hull
in Cape Neddick. They recounted endless tales and leg-
ends about the ship that "was put together with wooden
nails." During the excavation season, we had the fortune
to meet Harry Hutchins, who had witnessed the history


of Cape Neddick for the past 93 years. When we inquired
about our derelict vessel, he answered "Yes, I remember
my grandfather telling me he was going down to work on
the Annabella... I'm pretty sure that's the one." He knew
the river and harbor well, and drew a map showing our
wreck's exact location. To our amazement, Mr. Hutchins
proceeded to draw a map, almost to scale, showing the
location of three other shipwrecks in the river. But how
could we be sure of his identification of our ship as Anna-
bella?
During the excavation we had uncovered a num-
ber of artifacts that dated the wreck to the second half of
the nineteenth century. Ceramics found within the hull
included lead glazed redware, Albany slipped stoneware
(1840-1920), Rockingham (1845-1900), and whiteware
sherds (1850-1930). Also found were pipe stems, buttons,
tool handles, and a high quantity of concretions, primari-
ly in the form of iron fasteners such as drift bolts and spikes.
Most of the artifacts were located on the port side of the
vessel as a result of the ship listing to that side.
Following up on Mr. Hutchins' lead, we examined
ship registries and insurance records, and we found Anna-
bella listed both in American Lloyds' F,. :i ii of American and


Drawing: Stefan Claesson


INA Quarterly 23.2













When built: 1834
Where & by whom built: St. Marys
Port Belonging to: Wells, ME
Owner or Consignees: S. Lindsey
Model: F (full model)
Remarks: Reps '53
Place & Date of Survey: Bos. Dec. '60


Fasteners: Iron

Table 2: Merchant Vessels of the United States


No.: 1789
Schooner: Annabella
Built: 1834
Where Built: Port Elizabeth, NJ


Tons: 65.28
Length: 67.9
Breadth: 23.9
Depth: 6.5


Foreign Siitiiing (Table 1) and in Merchant Vessels of the
United States (Table 2). The registries vary only slightly in
tonnage, due to differences between dimensions taken off
the hull and the formula used in calculating the tonnage
of a ship. It is uncertain, however, why Lloyds' had listed
St. Marys (perhaps St. Marys, Maryland) as a building site.
Enrollment records gathered from the National Archives
in Washington DC list the building site as Port Elizabeth,
New Jersey, as indicated by Merchant Vessels of the United
States. Unfortunately, the first enrollment record that
would identify the builder or master carpenter is missing.
The dimensions listed in the U. S. Merchant Sur-
veys agree with the dimensions taken in the field. The
length of the keel is preserved end to end, its total length
58.56 feet (17.85 m). When considering the rake of the stern-
post and protruding stem (fig. 5), the deck length would
closely match the dimensions listed in the U. S. Merchant
Survey of 67.9 feet (20.67 m). The beam, or breadth, and
depth of hold listed in the registries also corresponds to
the dimensions established in the field. In addition, other
statistics recorded in Lloyds' registry such as wood type
and fasteners agree with the white and red oak timbers
and iron fasteners found throughout the hull.
The identification of the ship as the schooner Anna-
bella, however, was still uncertain. There were a number
of vessels plying the Maine coast of similar dimensions
and name in the nineteenth century, not to mention the


Fig. 5. Detail of the stern showing knee, garboards, and keel.


Table 1: Lloyd's Register 1862


INA Quarterly 23.2


No.: 330
Schooner: Annabella
Captain: G. Goodwin
Tons: 69
Decks: 1
Draft: 7
Wood: Oak


other shipwrecks in Cape Neddick River that were re-dis-
covered through Mr. Hutchins. The question was finally
laid to rest with the serendipitous discovery of nineteenth-
century ledgers in the attic of a barn in Cape Neddick
owned by Diane and John Goodwin.
A. Goodwin & Co., which monopolized the cord-
wood industry in Cape Neddick in the nineteenth centu-
ry, carefully documented the maritime activity of the
region. The ledgers listed each vessel that came in and out
of Cape Neddick in the late nineteenth century. The Good-
win company had part ownership in the schooner Anna-
bella. For each trip, the company recorded origin and
destination, what she was shipping out of Cape Neddick
and bringing back in return, and the amount and value of
goods shipped. In addition, related bills such as wharf-
age, repairs, and outfitting were also recorded, as were
the owners and companies to whom goods were shipped
(fig. 6).
Annabella never strayed far from home. Her ports
of call included Portland and Bangor, Maine; Dover Point
and Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Boston, Massachu-
setts, to mention only a few. Typically, she brought variet-
ies of cordwood to Boston including hemlock, pine, poplar,
and other soft- and hardwoods. The schooner also shipped
brick, hay, coal and perishables (flour, vegetables, etc.).
This corresponded to the evidence of brick and wood chips
found during the excavation. These bulky cargoes were
important in America's economy. Raw materials from
Maine were essential for producing manufactured goods
in primary ports such as Boston and New York. The south-
ern states and Caribbean islands also relied on the seem-
ingly inexhaustible supplies of raw materials from Maine.
The schooner Annabella returned with hogsheads of
molasses and manufactured goods for sale in the store of
A. Goodwin & Co. To further reinforce the identification
of the vessel, the last enrollment record for the schooner
relates that she was finally "surrendered at York October












































Fig. 6. A page from the A. Goodwin & Co.
ledger listing cargoes and destinations ofAn-
nabella in 1878. The ledger documents the
vessel's activities from 1874-1881 including
costs of it fil in:, repairs, goods shipped, and
the occasional "sailing party."


17, 1885, vessel broken up or abandoned as unfit for service." Mr. Hutch-
ins' recollection was ultimately verified by the ledgers that repeatedly
mentioned a man hired to make repairs on Annabella, George H. Hutchins.
This was none other than the grandfather of Harry Hutchins. The ledgers
represent only a fraction of the vessel's life, from 1874 to 1881. Built in
1834, Annabella had endured over fifty years of service, surviving the ante-
bellum coasting trade, the Civil War, and beyond.

Conclusion
This type of craft, though ubiquitous on the eastern seaboard in the
nineteenth century, has not been documented before in a New England
archaeological setting. The study of Annabella thus has far-reaching impli-
cations. Before the advent of railroads, economical and efficient coasting
schooners were the primary means of transportation along the eastern
United States coast. Maine played a pivotal role in America's economy,
supplying the southern states and Caribbean Islands, via coasting schoo-
ners, with a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of raw materials such as
timber, stone, ice, lime, and agricultural goods.
Ships of the nineteenth century are partially documented in histori-
cal sources with plans, ship lines, and descriptions of general construction
techniques. Our knowledge of ship construction, however, is usually not
detailed or illustrative of the nuances of a particular shipwright's skills, or
of how the craft was adapted to a particular economic and physical envi-
ronment. This is particularly the case with coasting and fishing schooners,
which exhibit a high degree of variation in their design and construction.
The historical significance of this vessel must be perceived in rela-
tion to the economics of the region to understand exactly how this ship is
representative of maritime activity and technology of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Annabella has provided us with an excellent look at what was proba-
bly a typical coasting vessel of the mid-nineteenth century. When all
historical and archaeological data are assembled and analyzed, we will
have that detailed look at coasting trade which has been missing.
Glass and ceramic vessels from the Annabella will be exhibited in
1996 at the Old York Historical Society Library in York, Maine. When the
larger artifacts have undergone conservation. they will form the center-
piece of a larger exhibit on the schooner, the coasting trade, and maritime
archaeology. It is hoped that this will raise public awareness of Maine's
maritime history.


Acknowledgments. An earlier version of this article appeared in the IMH Annual (Spring 1996), published by the Institute
of Maritime History in Cape Neddick. The full report documenting the project will be presented in the author's M.A.
thesis.

Suggested Readings

Chapelle, Howard I.
1973 The American Fishing Schooner, 1825-1935. New York.
Leavitt, John F.
1970 Wake of the Coasters. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn.
Saltonstall, William G.
1941 Ports of Piscataqua. Cambridge.


INA Quarterly 23.2








Profile:

Gregory M. Cook

Gregory M. Cook is the new Chairman of the INA
Board of Directors. In a recent interview, he shared some of
his past with INA, as well as his vision for its future. Mr.
Cook's connection with nautical archaeology is rooted in his
family's admiration for "the love of learning and the dedi-
cation to excellence in the pursuit of knowledge which has
been the heart and soul of people like George Bass." He adds
that all these wonderful people have "made the INA experi-
ence such an exciting one for so many people of so many
different walks of life."
Gregory Cook is INA's first second-generation Chair-
man. His father, John Brown Cook (INA Quarterly 5.2/3, 4)
was an early director who provided INA with its first de-
compression chamber and substantially supported the Kyre-
nia excavation. Gregory Cook's first experience with INA
was diving on the Kyrenia wreck. The elder Mr. Cook was a
director for many years. Following his death, his widow
Marian Miner Cook (INA Quarterly 9.2 / 3,3) became an INA
director, eventually serving as Chairman. With this family
history, it is hardly surprising that Gregory Cook became a
director about this time and has been one ever since. He says
his "interest in archaeology has really bloomed as a result of
the INA experience, rather than being a predisposition."
Family is an important part of Mr. Cook's life. His mother now lives in Beverly Hills and his sister in Houston. He has
two daughters; one graduated last year from Dartmouth College and is now in New York working for Goodman Sachs,
while the other is a sophomore at Dartmouth. He has been with Nancy Korn, the "light of his life," for the last twelve years.
Gregory Cook, born in 1948, graduated from Cate School in Carpinteria, California, then Dartmouth and the Thayer
School of Engineering. The new Chairman has been a real estate developer since the early 1970s. He bought an eighteenth
century house and "got the bug." Mr. Cook started a company specializing in seventeenth and eighteenth century restora-
tion contracting. He got involved in dismantling and reconstructing homes of that period, and even did a development of
them. Mr. Cook then moved into historic-preservation-related commercial development, and from there into other devel-
opment projects. He is active as member and director of a large number of nonprofit organizations, in addition to INA. The
Chairman's interests and collections tend to be dynamic, and he hopes to bring this energy to his work with INA.
Gregory Cook has predominantly been living on the Big Island of Hawaii, which limited his INA activities, apart
from membership on the Board. He is now, however, in the process of moving back to Connecticut full time. With the
move, he will have "much greater flexibility in being able to get to College Station more easily," which has been a limiting
factor in the past. Mr. Cook was at Bodrum for the opening of the Turkish headquarters complex in the summer of 1995, and
was also able to dive on the Bozburun wreck.
The Chairman says that INA "is in the enviable position of having a track record of untarnished excellence in the
field of underwater archaeology." It has "a tremendously rich combination of assets including a lengthy international list of
first class excavations and publications, a dedicated and inquisitive group of archaeologists, a generous group of support-
ers including our thoughtful board of directors, the energy, integrity, and total devotion to excellence on the part of George
Bass, and our symbiotic affiliation with Texas A&M University. We have a Turkish headquarters that is second to none,
efforts underway for a similar facility in Egypt, and operations in other countries that could easily lead to more such
international facilities."
The major challenge for INA, Mr. Cook believes, is to broaden its base of support. "I have never found a person who
does not get captivated by what we do. We need to build an organization whose sole function is to reach out to our potential
constituencies and bring them into the INA family. The generosity and support which could flow from such an effort could
endow INA with the funds and energy necessary to achieve our many dreams."


INA Quarterly 23.2








Review


The Sea of Galilee Boat
by Shelley Wachsmann
420 pages, New York: Plenum Press, 1995.

Reviewed by Patricia Sibella


Shelley Wachsmann, Meadows Assistant Pro-
fessor of Biblical Archaeology in the Nautical Archae-
ology Program of Texas A&M University, shares with
us a once-in-a-lifetime adventure: the 1986 recovery
and excavation of a 2000-year old boat from the Sea of
Galilee in northern Israel. This book is the personal
account of the author from his first encounter with the
oldest boat yet discovered in this Biblical location to
the boat's removal and transportation to the area
where it is being conserved and will eventually be put
on display.
The book is divided into twelve chapters. Nine
describe the discovery of the boat, its excavation, con-
solidation, and preservation. The remaining three re-
count the history of this inland sea of many names.
This format, which may appear confusing at first, ac-
tually breaks the monotony of a traditional site report
and allows for an easier and more enjoyable reading
experience.
The story begins with an unfortunate driver
who got stuck in mud flats exposed by an unusual
lowering of the water level of the Sea of Galilee due to
a 1985-1986 drought. While the driver was attempt-
ing to free his car, the spinning tires tossed out coins The boat after completion of PEG treatment. Photo Courtesy Yigal
that were immediately recovered by two avid ama- Allon Museum.
teur archaeologists, the Lufans brothers of Kibbutz Gi-
nosar. The brothers saw an opportunity in the drought
to fulfill their dream of finding an ancient boat, and upon further investigations of the area, their hopes were soon
realized. Wachsmann, then the Inspector of Underwater Antiquities of the Israel Department of Antiquities and Muse-
ums, was sent to lead an excavation. What started as a valuable archaeological find, however, turned into a political
and religious free-for-all. The media dubbed the discovery "the Jesus boat," because both shared the same approximate
time frame. Consequently, in order to preserve the integrity of the boat, an emergency excavation was conducted. This
became all the more urgent as the lake began to rise rapidly to its original level.
The mostly-volunteer excavation team worked under police protection around the clock for eleven days to re-
trieve the 8.2-meter-long fishing boat. The vessel had come to rest on her port side, which caused the starboard stern
quarter to fold over into the hull. Constructed of seven different wood types, the boat showed evidence of typical
Mediterranean hull construction techniques and traditions. No cargo was found aboard the vessel, but two complete
artifacts-a cooking pot and an oil lamp-as well as some coins and various sherds were discovered. Nearby, an arrow-
head of pyramidal shape similar to those used in the First Jewish Revolt was recovered. Every detail of the excavation,
together with the technical difficulties associated with the site-such as the encasement of the hull in a protective
polyurethane cocoon and its berthing in a conservation pool-are clearly described in the text. Various mishaps were
encountered during the process, but the author found simple solutions for the seemingly insurmountable problems.
Perhaps he was assisted by the omnipresent rainbow that seemed to follow him throughout his endeavors.


INA Quarterly 23.2










Additionally, Wachsmann tries to place the Galilee
boat in its proper historical context and discusses various
possibilities for its origin. Could it be one of the boats used
by Jesus and his apostles and disciples as related in the
Gospels? Was it perhaps one of the boats that had washed
ashore after the massacre of the Jews by the Romans at the
Battle of Migdal? Was it simply a generic boat of the type
used on the Sea of Galilee during the Roman period as
depicted by the first-century AD mosaic from a house in
Migdal? All these possibilities are discussed in detail.
The author succeeds in turning this extremely diffi-
cult and trying experience into a popular tale without com-
promising his scientific approach. Each chapter on the
historical aspects of the excavation is enlivened with rele-
vant excerpts from the Bible, Flavius Josephus, and other
ancient writings; reproductions of old engravings; and
even early travelers' guides. The sections on the excava-
tion are illustrated with photographs of daily activities at
the site, as well as photographs and drawings of archaeo-


logical objects. The illustrations are well integrated with
the text. The overall organization is clear, easy to follow,
and entertaining to read. A thorough bibliography at the
end is divided according to each chapter, providing refer-
ences to ancient authors, as well as to the most recent pub-
lications on the relevant topics. It is followed by a useful
glossary of nautical terms, two technical illustrations de-
tailing features of boat construction, and a 14-page index.
Wachsmann's work has the merit of offering to the
reader a veritable bouquet of questions for further debate.
This discovery is not only of significance to students of
Jewish and Christian history, but to all audiences interest-
ed in historical and political aspects of first-century B.C.E.
Judea. The style is such that scholar and layman will be
equally captivated by the search for the boat's identity.
Wachsmann clearly captures the excitement of the moment
and brings to life one of the most vivid remains from the
period of the New Testament.






New Book by Dr. George Bass

The founder of the Institute of Nautical Archaeo-
logy, Dr. George F. Bass, has recently published Shipwrecks
in the Bodrum Museum of Underwater A1,. ,. ,.,, .,- a publi-
cation of the Museum intended to provide a companion
to its exhibits. An evocative foreword by Museum Direc-
tor Oguz Alp6zen and an introduction by Dr. Bass describe
the history of the Museum, while the text constitutes a his-
tory of nautical archaeology in Turkey. The book shows
how inextricably that discipline is tied to the work of Dr.
Bass, INA, and the Museum over the past 35 years. Dr.
Bass includes entries he wrote for the forthcoming Oxford
Encyclopedia of A,,. ,.,, ..1, ..l, in the Near East on nautical ar-
chaeology, Cape Gelidonya, Serge Limani, Seytan Deresi,
Uluburun, and Yassiada. Each chapter contains a useful
bibliography. The 96-page book is richly illustrated with
beautiful color pictures (mostly by INA Vice-President Don
Frey), maps, and diagrams.
Even someone who is familiar with these excava-
tions will find something new in this book, and it would
provide a gripping introduction to the field for someone
diving into nautical archaeology for the first time. At the
special member's price of $6.00 ($10.00 for nonmembers),
it would make an excellent gift to friends who might en-
joy discovering the world of archaeology beneath the sea.
Copies can be ordered directly from INA.


INA Quarterly 23.2







Studies in NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY


The Texas A&M University Press and the Nautical A,,. 1i,.., : Program at Texas A&M are pleased
to announce a new series, S t tl. ; in Nautical A, ,. 1,.,., .1, .ii." This monograph series, under the general
editorship of Dr. George F. Bass and directed by an Editorial Board of Nautical A,,. 1i,. I A l, Program
faculty, will trace many themes in the history of seafaring. The first three titles are:


Those Vulgar Tubes: 1-879735-00-8
External Sanitary Accommodations aboard European paper $9.95
Ships of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries 93 pp.
by Joe J. Simmons III. Now available.
The disposal of human waste is critical, especially where humans are in close quarters. As Joe J. Simmons III
shows in this volume, information about this vital function on ships of the great era of sail is amazingly scarce. In Those
Vulgar Tubes, Simmons has collected and interpreted the available archaeological and iconographical evidence, provid-
ing historians and anthropologists with a rich view of a historically censored subject.
In his introduction, Simmons discusses evidence of what methods early sailors used for relief. Subsequent chap-
ters focus on each century of pre-modern exploration and the developments of ship design at bow and stern where
sailors were accommodated. Officers had the luxury of enclosed, closetlike facilities; the book's title comes from a poem
in which the ship's chaplain begs to be allowed to use the officers' luxurious facilities rather than the "vulgar tubes"-
the downward projecting trunking through which effluvia was directed into the sea.
With clear illustrations and a timeline that graphs the development of sanitary facilities, Those Vulgar Tubes fills
a long-standing void in the history of maritime travel.

The Development of the Rudder: 0-89096-723-7
A Technological Tale paper $19.95. 224 pp.
by Lawrence V. Mott Due out in November.
Far exceeding anything ever before written on the subject, The Development of the Rudder endeavors to unravel the
mysteries of the evolution of a vital piece of seafaring equipment. In the process, author Lawrence V. Mott answers far-
reaching questions on why some technologies developed and endured, while others were soon replaced. In this first
considered historical overview of the rudder, Mott begins his examination in the Roman period and from there traces
rudder development through the middle centuries to the age of exploratory navigation.
Before the twelfth century in northern Europe, ships were steered by a quarter-rudder mounted on the stern side
of the vessel. The use of the quarter-rudder persisted up until the fourteenth century in the Mediterranean. There, two
quarter-mounted steering oars were used.
By the age of exploration, the quarter-rudder had been replaced by the pintle-and gudgeon rudder, hung from
the sternpost. Throughout, Mott offers a thorough analysis of the mechanics of these rudder systems while never losing
sight of the human interest that attends the radical changes brought on by innovation.

Ships' Bilge Pumps: 0-89096-722-9
A History of their Development, 1500-1900 paper $17.95. 128 pp.
by Thomas J. Oertling Due out in November.
All wooden ships leak, a stark fact that has terrified sailors since the earliest days of ocean travel. Maritime
historical literature is filled with horrific descriptions of being aboard a slowly sinking ship. Starting from this human
perspective, Thomas J. Oertling traces the five-hundred-year evolution of a seemingly mundane but obviously impor-
tant piece of seafaring equipment in this one-of-a-kind history.
Beginning with early-sixteenth-century documents that recorded bilge pump design and installation and ending
late in the nineteenth century, when bilge pumps were being mass-produced, Oertling covers a period of radical tech-
nological change. He describes the process of making long wooden pump tubes by hand, as well as the assembly of the
machine-crafted pumps that helped revolutionize ship construction and design. Also given in detail are the creation,
function, and development of all three types of pumps used from about 1500 to well into the nineteenth century: the
burr pump, the suction or common pump, and the chain pump. Of further interest is Oertling's overall examination of
the nature and management of leaks in ships' hulls. Line drawings and photographs illustrate the text.


INA Quarterly 23.2









In the Field

Ti.di it i,. illi the Summer Issue of
the INA Quarterly discusses a sampling
of the field and research projects in which
the Institute of .'.i ti,. A, i ,. l ,,.- , .l has a
part. While most other academic programs
are in their summer vacations, the work of
INA accelerates. Summer of 1996 will see
a very full schedule ofactivities, including:

Bozborun, Turkey
In the summer of 1996, a joint
American-Turkish team, assisted by a
multinational group of students and
scholars, will conduct the second exca-
vation campaign on the ninth century
shipwreck near Bozburun, Turkey.
Specific goals for this field season in-
clude the removal and documentation
of the majority of the cargo and equip-
ment in the amphora mound (fig. 1),
preliminary evaluation of the hull, and
the recovery of material scat-
tered in the rocks above the
mound.


The 1996 season will
be conducted under the
leadership of Field Director
Frederick Hocker, with
George F. Bass providing
overall supervision and INA
staff member Sheila Mat-
thews returning as Assistant
Director. Jane Pannell, of
INA's Bodrum staff, will be
the conservator, assisted by
Asaf Oron of the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art and
Ufuk KocabaS. Other INA
veterans participating this
season include Robin Piercy,
Murat Tilev, and Don Frey.
INA adjunct professor Faith
Hentschel will also return to
the team. The Texas A&M
Nautical Archaeology Pro-
gram will be well-represent-
ed by graduate students
William Charlton, Doreen
Danis, Greg Gidden, Glen
Grieco, Brian Jordan, Anne
Lessmann, Ben An Liu, Ton-
ka Ostoich, Christine Pow-
ell, Michael Scafuri, David


Stewart, and Steven Thornton. Students
from other universities include Otto Ul-
dum, Tugba Tanyeri, Erkut Arcak, Oza-
lp Ozer, Ela Serdaroglu, Jihan Atabey,
and Korhan Bircan. Dr. Jennifer Moody
of Baylor University will visit in the
middle of the season to assist with a sur-
vey of nearby medieval fortresses as
part of our research into the maritime
cultural landscape of which the Bozbu-
run vessel was a part.

The Netherlands
During the summer of 1996, a
team of archaeologists directed by Dr.
Bob Neyland from the Naval Histori-
cal Center and Maria Jacobsen of INA
will excavate and record the remains
of a 15th-century ship found in the IJs-
selmeerpolders in the Netherlands. The
work is sponsored by and conducted


Photo: D
Fig. 1. The focus of this season's excavation at Bozburu
be the raising of the amphoras for further analysis.


in cooperation with the Centrum voor
Scheepsarcheologie and the Rijksmuseum
voor Scheepsarcheologie in Ketelhaven.
Joining the project are graduate stu-
dents Janalyn Gober and Erika Wash-
burn of the Nautical Archaeology
Program at Texas A&M University,
Kimberly Watson of East Carolina Uni-
versity, Grant Day of Michigan Tech-
nological University, William Bryan
Yates of Florida State University, and
longtime INA-volunteer Birgit Schroe-
der of Germany.

Sadana Island, Egypt
At Sadana Island in the Red Sea,
an international team will continue exca-
vating a 50 meter long ship for INA-
Egypt. About 300 years ago, the ship sank
after slamming into a coral reef. It carried
a cargo of porcelain from China (fig. 2),
coffee from Yemen, coconuts
and pepper from India or far-
ther east, and more than a
thousand clay water jugs. It
was rediscovered by sport
divers, including some who
looted the site repeatedly.
Cheryl Haldane directs the sci-
entific excavation.
The excavation will
protect this site and learn more
about the mechanisms of trade
at a time that is poorly docu-
mented in regional sources. It
also provides the chance to
study an undocumented form
of hull construction that seems
to be non-European and non-
Mediterranean. The excava-
tion will run from 1 June
through August; it is funded
by private donors and corpo-
rate sponsors in Egypt, includ-
ing the Amoco Foundation
and CIB. All artifacts are stored
and conserved in the Alexan-
dria Laboratory for the Con-
servation of Submerged
Antiquities, another joint
on Frey project between INA-Egypt
In will and the Supreme Council of
Antiquities for Egypt.


INA Quarterly 23.2






















Drawing by N. Piercy.
Fig 2. A porcelain decorative design from the Sadana Island Excavation.


Turkish Coast Survey
Cemal Pulak will direct an ex-
tended coastal survey starting in June
and continuing until the end of Octo-
ber 1996. Mr. Pulak is Vice President
of INA, and Mr. and Mrs. Ray H. Sieg-
fried II Graduate Fellow in the Nauti-
cal Archaeology Program at Texas
A&M University. The recently refur-
bished Virazon, captained by Tufan
Turanli, will play host to the survey
team. Three distinct geographic loca-
tions on the Turkish coast will be tar-
geted: the west coast, the southwestern
coast, and the bay of Antalya.
It is hoped that the last location
will reveal a Late Bronze Age ship-
wreck that was partially salvaged by
sponge divers in 1907 and has since
been lost. The Antalya survey will not
only include the Virazon but also a so-
nar survey team, the purpose of which
is to map all anomalies and possible
targets in the area suspected as hav-
ing the shipwreck. The Virazon team
with its divers will investigate each
target as found.
Initially, the survey will start
along the southwestern coast, moving
to the other areas as weather permits.
Surveying on the southwestern and
west coasts will concentrate on follow-
ing up reports from sponge divers and
fishermen. The survey will also con-
duct usual diving exploration in areas
of hazardous sailing in antiquity, such
as promontories, islands, shoals, and
reefs.


Albanian Coast Survey
INA Research Associates Eliza-
beth Greene, Rezart Spahia, and Peter
van Alfen are planning the first survey
for ancient shipwrecks ever conducted
in Albanian waters. The survey will ini-
tially focus on the southern Albanian
coast near the ancient port cities of
Butrint and Saranda, which lie opposite
the Greek island of Corfu. The team will
spend six weeks investigating reports
of ancient wrecks dating from the 7th
century B.C. to the 14th century A.D.
Joining the crew will be Texas A&M
Nautical Archaeology students Alan
Flanigan and Roxani Margariti, as well
as INA Director Claude Duthuit.

Azores Survey
Between August 24 and Septem-
ber 10, 1996, INA and the Museu de
Angra do Heroismo will jointly spon-
sor an intensive electronic-instrument
and diver survey of the Bay of Angra
on the southern coast of the Azorian is-
land of Terceira. This bay was one of
the principal anchorages for Azorian
shipping from the fifteenth to the eigh-
teenth centuries, and historical records
indicate that scores of vessels were lost
here due to storms, warfare, and acci-
dents of navigation. The records also
show that many different types and
nationalities of vessels are represented
among the wrecks. The objectives of the
survey include locating a wide range of
wrecks from the fifteenth to the seven-
teenth centuries, assessment of these


wrecks for possible excavation, and the
gathering of sedimentary data for de-
termination of geological and oceano-
graphical processes around the
Azorian Islands.
The electronic-instrument por-
tion of the survey will be directed by
Dr. Williams Bryant of the Texas A&M
University Geological Oceanography
Department, assisted by Dr. Anne Rut-
ledge, Brett Phaneuf, Edward Webb,
and David Ball. Dr. Bryant intends to
use a side-scanning sonar, a sub-bottom
profiler, and a magnetometer to ensure
maximum possible coverage of the sea
floor. The diver verification portion of
the survey will be directed by Dr. Kevin
Crisman of the Nautical Archaeology
Program at Texas A&M and INA Ad-
junct Professor Arthur B. Cohn, with
assistance from Anne Lessmann and
Brian Jordan. Diver-archaeologists from
the Amigos do Museu, a volunteer or-
ganization connected with the Museu
de Angra, will round out the project
personnel. Support for the project has
been provided by the generosity of Mrs.
Sylvia Baird and by a grant from the
Interdisciplinary Research Initiatives
Program at Texas A&M University.

Bodrum, Turkey
At the Bodrum Museum of Under-
water Archaeology, conservation, study,
and documentation of Uluburun artifacts
will continue with several teams working
on specific projects. These include the com-
plete study of all balance weights (151),
continuing study of the copper ingots (354)
and amphoras, and documentation of hull
remains. These projects will be coordinat-
ed by Dr. Michael Fitzgerald and Patricia
Sibella.
In addition, Dr. George Bass and
Dr. Fred van Doominck will continue their
work in Bodrum on the cargo from the
eleventh-century Serge Limani "Glass
Wreck."


Some additional INA-related projects cannot be described now due to site security. We hope to bring details in future issues.


INA Quarterly 23.2


















OFFICERS ADMINISTRATION


Rebecca H. Holloway, Secretary
James A. Goold, Treasurer


William L. Allen
John H. Baird
George F. Bass
Edward O. Boshell, Jr., Vice Chairman
Ray M. Bowen
John Brock
Gregory M. Cook, Chairman
Harlan Crow
Frank Darden
Claude Duthuit
Daniel Fallon


George F. Bass, President and
Archaeological Director


BOARD OF DIRECTORS


Danielle J. Feeney
Donald G. Geddes III
Woodrow Jones, Jr.
Harry C. Kahn II
Michael L. Katzev
Jack W. Kelley
Sally R. Lancaster
Robert E. Lorton
Frederick R. Mayer
William A. McKenzie


Donald A. Frey, Vice President
Cemal M. Pulak, Vice President


Alex G. Nason
Ayhan Sicimoglu
Ray H. Siegfried II
William T. Sturgis
Robert L. Walker
Lew O. Ward
Peter M. Way
Garry M. Weber
Martin A. Wilcox
George O. Yamini


FACULTY

George F. Bass
George T. & Gladys H. Abell Professor of Nautical Archaeology/ George O. Yamini Family Professor of Liberal Arts
Kevin J. Crisman, Assistant Professor
Donny L. Hamilton, Frederick R. Mayer Fellow
Frederick M. Hocker, Sara W. & George O. Yamini Faculty Fellow
J. Richard Steffy, Sara W. & George O. Yamini Professor of Nautical Archaeology, Emeritus
Frederick H. van Doominck, Jr., Frederick R. Mayer Professor of Nautical Archaeology
Shelley Wachsmann, Meadows Assistant Professor of Biblical Archaeology


STAFF
Birgiil Akbulut
Mustafa Babacik
William H. Charlton, Jr.
Marion Degirmenci
Helen Dewolf
Adel Farouk
Michael A. Fitzgerald, Ph.D.
Sevil G6kmen
Douglas Haldane, M.A.
Ashraf Hanna
Maria Jacobsen
Emad Khalil
Claudia LeDoux
Sheila D. Matthews, M.A.
Selma Oguz
G6khan Ozagach, Ph.D.
Giines8zbay
Jane Pannell
Claire P. Peachey, M.A.
Robin C.M. Piercy
Cemal M. Pulak, M.S., M.A.
Sema Pulak, M.A.
Patricia M. Sibella, Ph.D.
Giulser Sinaci
C. Wayne Smith, Ph.D.
Tufan U. Turanli
Patricia A. Turner


RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Elizabeth Robinson Baldwin
Jeremy Green
Elizabeth Greene
George Indruszewski
Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton, Ph.D.
Robert S. Neyland, Ph.D.
Brett A. Phaneuf
Ralph K. Pedersen, M.A.
Donald Rosencrantz
Rezart Spahia
Peter G. van Alfen, M.A.

ADJUNCT PROFESSORS
Arthur Cohn, J.D.
Cynthia J. Eiseman, Ph.D.
John A. Gifford, Ph.D.
Cheryl W. Haldane, Ph.D.
Faith D. Hentschel, Ph.D.
Carolyn G. Koehler, Ph.D.
David I. Owen, Ph.D.
David C. Switzer, Ph.D.
Gordon P. Watts, Jr., M.A.

COUNSEL
James A. Goold

QUARTERLY EDITOR
Christine A. Powell


SUPPORTING INSTITUTIONS
Australian Institute of Maritime Archaeology
Boston University
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
University of California, Berkeley
University of Cincinnati
Comell University
Coming Museum of Glass
Department de Arqueol6gia Subacuatica de
la I.N.A.H., Mexico
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
New York University, Institute of Fine Arts
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Partners for Livable Places
University Museum, University of
Pennsylvania
Shell of Turkey, Ltd.
Texas A&M Research Foundation
Texas A&M University
University of Texas at Austin

GRADUATE FELLOWS
Mr. and Mrs. Ray H. Siegfried II
Graduate Fellow: Cemal M. Pulak
Mr. and Mrs. J. Brown Cook
Graduate Fellows:
Brian A. Jordan, Glenn Grieco