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THE INA
QUARTERLY
Summer 2001 Volume 28 No. 2
The INA Quarterly
Volume 28 No. 2 Summer 2001
3 The 2000 Excavation Season at Tekta Burnu, Turkey
Deborah N. Carlson MEMBERSHIP
Institute of Nautical Archaeology
8 Conservation on the Rocks at TektaS Burnu P.O. Drawer HG
Asaf Oron College Station, TX 77841-5137
11 A Increases its Fleet Learn firsthand of the latest discov-
11 INA Increases its Fleet
series in nautical archaeology. Mem-
George F. Bass bers receive the INA Quarterly and
other benefits.
14 Black Sea Trade Project 2000
Cheryl Ward Researcher (students only) ... $25
Seafarer ..................... $75
17 Preliminary Survey of Iskendenin Bay, Turkey Surveyor ....................$150
Ay A taz Restorer .................. $500
AySAauz Curator ................. $1,000
Excavator. ................ $2,500
19 News and Notes Navigator................ $5,000
20 Ribbon Cuttings Checks in U.S. currency should be made
George F. Bass payable to INA. The portion of any do-
nation in excess of $10.00 is a tax-de-
26 Conservation for an Exhibit: ductible, charitable contribution.
The Uluburun Shipwreck Display
Kathy Hall
29 In the Field
On the cover. The submersible Carolyn
30 Askin the Reason Why on site at TektaS Burnu allowed the ex-
Sthe y cavation director and his assistant to
Matthew Harpster watch their teams at work. The two per-
son mini-submarine will enable INA
32 Selma Agar-Tributes and Remembrances and the Turkish authorities to system-
atically survey the Turkish coastline.
34 In Memoriam: Selma Agar Photo by Don Frey.
35 From the President
June 2001 by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. All rights reserved.
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The Home Page for INAis at http://naurhtarutamuedu/ina/
The Institute of Nautical Archaeology is a non-profit scientific and educational organization, incorporated in 1972. Since 1976, INA has
been affiliated with Texas A&M University, where INA faculty teach in the Nautical Archaeology Program of the Department of Anthro-
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The INA Quarterly was formerly the INA Newsletter (vols. 1-18).
Editor: Christine A. Powell
The 2000 Excavation Season at Tekta Burnu, Turkey
Deborah N. Carlson, Assistant Director
Photographs by Donald A. Frey
As is often true of archaeological projects, the sec-
ond excavation season at Tekta$ Buru, Turkey, was far
more productive than the first. A team of twenty students
and volunteers from nine countries toiled for twelve weeks
on the Classical Greek shipwreck with INA staff members
and Director George Bass (fig. 1). The timely issuance of
our excavation permit on June 17, 2000, along with our
ability to overcome many of the site's logistical challeng-
es, meant we could make the most of our time on site.
Before leaving Bodrum, we were already aware of
two major problems that would complicate our task. At
the end of the 1999 season, we had hauled our two mas-
sive generators, each weighing more than a ton, far from
the water's edge (INA Quarterly 26.4). To our total dismay,
we underestimated the power of the winter storms, which
plucked the generators from the rocks and hurled one of
them into the sea. With the help of fisherman and long-
time INA friend Mehmet Turguttekin and his seventy-five-
foot trawler Yunus Emre, Murat Tilev organized a team to
recover the generators, which were subsequently rebuilt
in Bodrun. Still, we knew that we could not place the gen-
erators on the rocks as they had been in 1999. Further disap-
pointment came in April, when we learned that the Virazon,
upon which we had relied so heavily in 1999, had sprung a
leak and needed repairs. In response, Dr. Bass asked Meh-
met Turguttekin to bring Yunus Ernre to camp, where it
housed our generators and recompression chamber.
In late May, Robin Piercy, INA engineer extraordi-
naire, visited Tektas Buru with a team of Turkish carpen-
ters. They rebuilt some of the 1999 structures that had been
damaged by the winter storms and enlarged other build-
ings. By early June, Robin had overseen the construction
of a dive platform, a large galley, two dormitories, and a
handful of small private cabanas for our commissioner and
director, among others. Robin's masterpiece included two
separate bath complexes with flushing toilets, which were
incredible luxuries-a fact reiterated by anyone and ev-
eryone who has ever worked on an INA project in Turkey.
On June 8, seven of us journeyed to TektaS Burnu to facil-
itate the arrival of the rest of the team a few days later. For
the next week, we unpacked, organized, installed, adjust-
ed, and improved various fixtures around camp, awaiting
Fig. 1. Tektaf Burnu is located near the major trade routes between the Aegean Islands and the coast of Asia Minor.
INA Quarterly 28.2
the advent of our Turkish commissioner and excavation
permit.
On June 17, we were delighted to see our local sup-
ply boat captain, Hiiseyin Aldemir. He was bringing us
not only our Turkish commissioner, Huseyin Vural of the
(esme Museum, but also Ron Vandehey, a member of the
Northwest Friends of INA in Portland, Oregon. Ron spent
the night in camp and was able to join us as we began our
acclimatization dives to twenty meters. Unfortunately, div-
ing had to be halted temporarily when our recompression
chamber became inoperable, but acclimatization dives re-
sumed the next day. Soon we were installing safety equip-
ment and airlifts, hammering in datum stakes, and laying
a string grid to orient excavators to the wreck site. On June
27, we raised the first of the 122 complete amphoras re-
maining on the seabed.
While the summer season was getting underway at
Tektas Burnu, progress of a different kind was underway
at the Bodrum shipyard. Longtime INA associate Merih
Karabag was putting the finishing touches on INA's new
catamaran, Millawanda, described in an accompanying ar-
ticle by Dr. Bass. The catamaran was designed to transport
INA's equally-new two-person SEAmobile submersible
Carolyn. However, we knew it would also serve as the ide-
al support vessel at Tektas Burnu, where it could hold our
recompression chamber and the two generators. Therefore,
as July approached, Dr. Bass made the difficult decision to
send Yunus Emre off to Bodrum so that it could tow the
catamaran and submersible back to Tekta5 Burnu, where
they would stay for the remainder of the summer. The
departure of Yunus Emre meant the absence of our genera-
tors and chamber, requiring us to suspend excavation un-
til the arrival of Millawanda. Before Yunus Emre sailed for
Bodrum, we celebrated the Fourth of July (a day early),
complete with fireworks and the best champagne one can
buy in Qegme.
Yunus Emre carried away a large part of the excava-
tion team and seven amphoras bound for the Bodrum
Museum of Underwater Archaeology. Some of the new
students took advantage of this mini-vacation to visit ar-
chaeological sites, including Pergamon and Troy. Most of
us returned to Bodrum. There we delivered the amphoras
to the castle, shelved the Homer and Dorothy Thompson
collection of books in the new INA Library, and helped
Matthew Harpster reorganize the Bozburun ship timbers
in the new conservation laboratory. Sheila Matthews, busy
processing datum measurements, helped us greet Jeremy
Green, the second half of our mapping team. Jeremy
brought with him a program called Site Surveyor, which
he and Sheila employed as a supplement to the photogram-
metry-based mapping system we used in 1999. This two-
pronged approach meant that large groups of amphoras
could be photographically recorded on the seabed, while
small, fragile artifacts could be hand-measured and raised
more quickly. Mapping with wide-angle photographs
saved time under water. Mapping with tape measures,
which eliminated the need to scan photographs and pro-
cess the data into coordinates, saved time topside. The dual
approach reduced the chance of an artifact remaining ex-
posed on the site.
We returned to Tekta$ Buru the next week. The
catamaran reached camp on July 13, her voyage facilitated
by some of the calmest seas we would see all summer. Div-
ing began again on July 14, with everyone anxious to re-
sume excavation. At this point, the nature of the work was
twofold: some team members were dedicated to mapping
and removing amphoras from the center of the wreck,
while others airlifted the heavy sand around the periph-
ery of the amphora mound. Gradually, as the amphoras
and the sand came away, smaller artifacts began to appear
in both areas. Among the amphoras, the finds were large-
ly fragmentary, including wood pieces, black gloss pot-
tery sherds, copper nails, and lead weights and fasteners.
In the loose sand downslope from the amphora mound,
David Gibbins uncovered three intact, well-preserved one-
handled bowls like those found in 1999 (fig. 2). When Turk-
ish commissioner G6khan Bozkurtlar arrived on July 17 to
replace Hiiseyin Vural, he returned to work in the deepest
part of the wreck, at the edge of the shelf, where he had
begun excavating in 1999.
As airlifting and amphora removal continued, the
sea conditions changed almost cyclically, growing rough
and then suddenly calm for four or five days at a time.
Fortunately, the seas cooperated long enough for Dr. Bass
to make the first submersible dive with pilot Jon Council
on July 20. Jon used the next few days to get acquainted
with the wreck site, learning to circumnavigate the vari-
ous hoses, lines, and pipes, all of which posed potential
hazards to the submersible. On July 25, in 105" F. heat, about
thirty INA Directors, family members, and friends paid us
a visit. Our guests, accompanied by INA President Jerome
Hall and Director of Development Gail Vermillion, includ-
Fig. 2. Five of the ten one-handled bowls recovered to date.
ENA Quarterly 28.2
ed Jerry Baldridge, Joe and Donna Ballew, Ned and Raynette
Boshell, John and Donnie Brock, Tom, Joy, Jesse, and Shan-
nan Campanero, Allan, John, and Marlene Campbell, Gregg
and Nancy Cook, Frank and Toby Darden, Claude Duthuit,
Danielle Feeney, Rob and Lenay Hartman, Alex Nason, Har-
ry Potts, Don and Becky Russell, Scott and Deborah Seger,
Bob and JoAnn Walker, Gordon and Mary Ann Wallace, and
Lew and Myra Ward. The group arrived in two wooden
gulets, which anchored around the cape at a lovely beach
about thirty minutes away, returning to Tekta$ Buru the
following morning. During their two-day visit, twenty
guests made submersible dives to the wreck site, and even
those who had never dived before found nothing to fear
while descending to a depth of 140 feet with pilot Jon Coun-
cil. Six other visitors donned scuba gear to get a firsthand
tour of the site from team members.
With the departure of our guests on July 27, we knew
we had barely a month before most of our team would
return to their respective universities to usher in the fall
semester. On the seabed, excavators working on the pe-
riphery of the amphora mound began to find that, in some
cases, what we had thought was bedrock was in fact a fri-
able stony overgrowth that sometimes concealed pockets
of sand and artifacts. On the upper part of the wreck, I
encountered such a pocket, nearly two feet deep, from
which I recovered two table amphoras, two lead weights,
and copper nails. Team member William Murray, work-
ing nearby, located an oil lamp and lead weight under sim-
ilar circumstances. Meanwhile, divers excavating in the
heart of the amphora mound detected a third layer of am-
phoras stretching across three of our two by two meter
grid squares. This discovery, though exciting, lessened the
chances that we would be able to complete the excavation
in 2000. On the conservation platform in camp, it seemed
every available comer was home to an amphora; we were
quickly running out of storage space. We began individu-
ally wrapping amphoras in preparation for transport back
to the Bodrum Museum. On August 11, we loaded thirty-
nine complete, and almost as many partial, amphoras on a
truck bound for Bodrum.
For the next month, we focused much of our efforts
on the mapping and removal of the remaining amphoras,
in hopes that we could determine whether any of the ship's
hull had been preserved. During the 1999 season, we had
learned that the ship carried at least three amphora types:
pseudo-Samian, Mendean, and Chian. The pseudo-Sami-
an amphoras, which may have been manufactured nearby
at ancient Clazomenae (a hypothesis to be tested by chem-
ical analysis), constitute the bulk of the cargo, estimated at
around 200-250 amphoras.
To date, the ship has yielded ten Mendean ampho-
ras, nine of which are filled with a pitch-like substance stud-
ied by Curt Beck of the Amber Research Laboratory at
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Dr. Beck has
identified this substance as a low-temperature pine tar, sim-
ilar to that found in a ceramic pot recovered from the late-
Roman ship Isis off the coast of North Africa. A pine tar
such as this may have been used to caulk or repair a ship,
line transport amphoras (many of the TektaS Burnu am-
phoras are lined), or even flavor wine. This last possibility
is interesting, for wine from the northern Greek city of
Mende was widely celebrated in antiquity. Perhaps the
pine tar inside these nine amphoras was a "secret ingredi-
ent" of Mendean wine. The tenth Mendean amphora con-
tained butchered beef bones, as did a pseudo-Samian
amphora raised the previous year.
In 1999 we recovered two amphoras from the Greek
island of Chios, which lies almost due west of TektaS Bur-
nu. One of these, belonging to the last phase of the bul-
bous-necked Chian types, is securely dated to the years
between 440-425 BCE. Pottery parallels from the Athenian
Agora suggest that the earlier date, around 440, is prefera-
ble for the TektaS Bumu shipwreck.
Many of us were intrigued to see that some of the
pseudo-Samian amphoras still carried the impressions of
ancient stamps, some of the earliest known. The most fre-
quent stamp is an incuse circle, about a centimeter in di-
ameter, located on either the neck or shoulder, or at the
base of one handle. Classical scholars surmise that these
stamps were a means of testing the hardness of the clay,
for they appear on too many different amphora types to
denote content or origin. Eighteen amphoras raised in 2000
carried a circle stamp, and I suspect more will appear in
the future as additional amphoras are cleaned. At least six
amphoras were stamped with a lozenge shape framing a
small grape leaf (fig. 3). Such leaves are a standard motif
of Dionysiac imagery in Classical Greek art, and they may
reveal that these amphoras held the stuff of Dionysus--
wine. Another pseudo-Samian amphora had the Greek let-
ter eta (H) incised on its neck.
In addition to the three amphora types outlined
above, the 2000 excavation season produced lone exam-
ples of at least three other amphora styles, as yet unidenti-
fied, but thought to come from the eastern Greek islands.
Scattered around the wreck, team members found several
ribbed amphora body sherds, which probably belong to
Fig 3. The "grape leaf" am-
phora stamp from Tektal
Burnu (drawing by Deborah
Carlson).
INA Quarterly 28.2
Fig 4. Three of at least seven Greek drinking cups, or kantharoi.
Fig 5. One of ten large (probably Rhodian) table amphoras. I _______- __
an amphora from the Byzantine period. In one of his more than ninety dives to the wreck, Jon Council located a similar,
fragmentary ribbed amphora lying in approximately fifty-two meters of water. A small team sent to retrieve the amphora
used the opportunity to investigate the deep sand below the shelf on which the wreck sits, but found nothing.
Many of the artifacts recovered during the 2000 season at TektaS Burnu exemplify types already known from the
previous year. These include at least seven kantharoi, or two-handled drinking cups (fig. 4), ten one-handled bowls, nine
oil lamps, and four coarseware cooking pots. Some of the most handsome pieces are the two small, and ten large, table
amphoras that probably come from the island of Rhodes (fig. 5). Their pitch-lined interiors, the subject of current analyses
by Curt Beck, suggest that they were for wine. Many of the fine ceramics, in-
cluding four small pouring vessels called olpai and all but one of the table am-
phoras, came from the center of the wreck. It was here that Asaf Oron and Tara
Bonds excavated a large, intact askos (fig. 6). Just slightly further downslope,
Diving Safety Officer Ken Trethewey discovered a miniature version of the
large askos, eight centimeters in diameter (fig. 7). One can still see, through the
marine concretion on the surface, that the small askos is made of a bright orange
fabric and coated with black glaze. Both of these features are visible in another
piece from Tektas Burnu, a shallow bowl, and both are characteristic of pottery
made in Attica, the district surrounding Athens. The small askos, like the alabas-
tron discovered in 1999, would probably have been used to carry and dis-
pense scented oil.
Toward the end of August, a small group of us took a day trip to
Chios, where we visited the newly-renovated Chios Archaeological Muse-
um, which houses a modest collection of Classical pottery. Among the piec-
es I saw several strong parallels for the lamps, olpai, and small one-handled
bowls from TektaS Burnu. Subsequent correspondence with Sir John Board-
man, who excavated the Chian site of Emporio between 1952 and 1955, con-
firms that a portion of the Tekta5 Burnu pottery, particularly the baseless
kantharoi, shares strong affinities with Chian types.
One of the season's most exciting discoveries was made on August
24. The date is particularly memorable for me because I was not there. Just
Fig 6. Conservator Asaf Oron inspects the large askos.
INA Quarterly 28.2
Figs. 7-9. The small askos (left), perhaps from Attica. The ship's two marble ophthalmoi, or eyes (center). The so-called ship's lamp (right).
as the most significant finds of the 1999 season were made
the week I left camp, so in 2000 I suspected that my tem-
porary absence would bear reward. On that day, Dr. Bass
directed Koray Atalag to airlift sand on the upper slope of
the wreck. What Koray discovered was the second of the
ship's two eyes, or ophthalmoi (fig. 8), just meters from
where the first eye had been found in 1999. However, not
every exciting find of the 2000 season was made on the
seabed; a few occurred in camp, while emptying ampho-
ras for flotation. One such discovery was that of a small
lamp, probably pulled into the amphora by an acquisitive
octopus. This lamp was markedly different from the nine
other lamps we had found on the site; it was coarsely made,
taller and heavier, had a deeper oil well, and showed signs
of use (fig. 9). All of these criteria led us to dub it "the ship's
lamp."
As August drew to a close and we prepared to shut
down the excavation, we grew optimistic that, by season's
end, we would have mapped and raised every last com-
plete and partial amphora remaining on the site. We hoped
that, once the amphoras had been removed, we would have
some idea of the condition of the ship's hull remains. What
we discovered instead were more lead anchor stock cores,
similar to the two excavated and published by Ken Tre-
thewey in 1999. We found four of these cores lying in a
row, the remains of what is believed to be the largest and
earliest example of this type of anchor. Incredibly, small
pieces of the original wooden stock were still attached to
the lead bars, and one of the two wooden arms of the an-
chor was found nearby. A total of ten lead anchor stock
cores has now been recovered and these are thought to
represent four individual anchors.
On September 2, Yunus Emre returned to TektaS
Burnu. Over the next five days, owing to remarkably calm
seas, we loaded all of the remaining artifacts (including
seventy-six complete amphoras), heavy equipment, dive
gear, and computers on board the ship. When the seas
changed for the worse on September 6, we closed the site
and Yunus Emre sailed for Bodrum the next day, bringing
the season to a close.
We are most pleased with the progress of the 2000
season at TektaS Burnu. The two grid squares that we have
yet to excavate in their entirety have proven the richest
archaeologically, producing whole artifacts on the next-
to-last dive day. Our current plan is to return to the site in
2001 with a small team to make a final, comprehensive
investigation of the site and recover any and all hull re-
mains from the wreck.
Acknowledgements: I continue to be completely in awe of the talent, skill, and initiative exhibited by the 2000 Tekta
Burnu team. Special thanks must go to Director George Bass, for a season that was, we both agree, hugely rewarding-
archaeologically, professionally, and personally. The season would not have been possible without the generous finan-
cial support of the Directors and members of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, The National
Endowment for the Humanities, The National Geographic Society, and Turkish Airlines. We were happy to have Na-
tional Geographic photographer Courtney Platt with us again at Tekta Bumu, and equally delighted to receive visits
from National Geographic editors Carol Lutyk, Don Belt, and Bert Fox. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Murat Tilev,
who ensured that every piece of equipment in camp kept running, even when he couldn't, and Robin Piercy, our
engineer, who sustained various injuries in camp, not the least of which occurred when a moray eel tried to eat him for
lunch. I shudder to think how we would have fared without the culinary genius of our head chef Angie Mitchell and
her assistants Jules Doner, Semra Gill, and replacement chef Arif Degirmenci. Accolades to our conservators Asaf Oron
and Laura Pretsell, and the flotation chain gang, especially Ayse Hortacsu, Kris Trego, Catharine Inbody, Mutlu Gunay,
INA Quarterly 28.2
and Deniz Soyarslan. Ann Bass cleaned more amphoras than anyone
else and complained the least about it. Mark Polzer and Bridgit Bux-
ton dazzled us with excellent artifact illustrations. Kudos to our Div-
ing Safety Officer, Ken Trethewey, and Divemasters Erkut Arcak, Travis
Mason, and Annette Schreur, for seeing us through more than 2100
dives unscathed. Thanks to our team of doctors Koray Atalag, Chris
Edge, and David Perlman (who also scanned photos and always
dressed for dinner). Zeynep Hasrcaoglu, Troy Nowak, Berta Lled6-
Solbes, and Tufan Turanh, all members of the 1999 team, returned to
lend us a hand in 2000. For two weeks, we enjoyed the company of
nautical archaeologists Sergei Zelenko and Toly Tsymbal, visiting from
Ukraine. Other guests who brightened our summer include Nick Griffis,
James Beringer-Pooley, John Carlson, Susan Green, and Jeff Hakko
(who clothed us when we could not bear to don the same foul t-shirts).
Finally, thanks to Don Frey, for shooting hours of spectacular video,
Liz Greene, the Assistant Director's assistant, and Sheila Matthews,
who tackles any task put before her and sees it through to perfection;
we couldn't have done it without you-all of you. ,
The 2000 dive platform and conservation area at Tekta$ Burnu. All three plat-
forms can be seen. At water level the lifting crane is situated to the left of the
diving operations area. The amphora processing area is to the right of the stair
case. The top platform is located behind the windbreaks of woven matting. The
catamaran Millawanda is at right. This area served one and all throughout
the excavation season.
Conservation on the Rocks at TektaS Burnu
Asaf Oron
Virtually every excavation produces artifacts that
require immediate care. The fragile state of most archaeo-
logical finds, special conditions affecting preservation, and
the need to address stability problems during recovery are
among the reasons why conservation is taken to the field.
The unstable state of most waterlogged finds magnifies
these factors at an underwater excavation. They create an
immediate need to handle, identify, and suitably store a
large volume of diverse material. This requires close col-
laboration between conservators and archaeologists on site.
In addition to hands-on support of the find process-
ing and basic preservation procedures, such as initial clean-
ing, stabilizing, and documenting, the on-site conservator
should aim at starting long-term conservation procedures.
These normally include the removal of marine growth and
heavy concretions from objects; decanting, sieving, and
floating amphora contents; and transition desalination from
seawater. Another important requirement is the transpor-
tation of the retrieved material to a permanent conserva-
tion and storage facility. This requires advance planning
and adequate packing to maintain a wet environment and
physical support during transportation.
Establishing an on-site conservation facility is not a
straightforward procedure. Unfortunately, ships tend to
founder at places hostile to human habitation. Thus, many
shipwreck sites do not lend themselves easily to the con-
struction of an expedition camp, let alone a conservation
laboratory. Such a facility requires electricity, running
water, and shaded areas for work and storage.
During the past few years, INA has gained a great
deal of experience in setting up on-site conservation facil-
ities in Turkey. This work has shown that by starting long-
term procedures on site, it is possible to reduce significantly
the time and cost of post-excavation conservation work.
In addition, it has demonstrated that a well-integrated fa-
cility on site contributes to the archaeological process by
promoting the smooth and safe flow of artifacts from the
seabed to the long-term conservation area. This is achieved
by providing handling guidelines, suitable labeling tech-
INA Quarterly 28.2
niques, temporary storage facilities, and hands-on help in
the identification and sorting of newly retrieved material.
A good case study for the construction and opera-
tion of an on-site conservation facility is INA's current ex-
cavation of a fifth-century BCE wreck at Tekta Burnu,
Turkey. The "One Rock Cape" (as it is translated from
Turkish) is exposed to strong winds and open sea waves.
It has no convenient moorings or shallow beach to allow
for unloading supplies. Steep rocky slopes terminating in
a sheer drop of five to sixty meters into the Aegean charac-
terize the terrain above the wreck. The site has no fresh
water source or electricity and is accessible only by a for-
ty-minute boat ride from the small village of Zeytineli.
In preparation for the first excavation campaign,
project director George Bass led a reconnaissance trip to
the site. Although the primary goal was to locate a conve-
nient spot for the construction of an expedition camp, it
soon became apparent that the nearest suitable beach was
too far from the wreck for commuting. Consequently, it
was decided to construct the excavation camp on the slopes
above the wreck site. From the beginning, we integrated a
conservation laboratory into the design.
Extremely jagged rocks that restricted surface area
for work and storage and the lack of fresh water and easy
access to the sea were some of the challenges faced during
camp construction at Tekta$ Burnu. To overcome these diffi-
culties, we placed the wooden buildings on stilts (fig. 1). The
Fig. 1 (below). To overcome the steepness of the site, the platforms
the different areas of operations were built of wood and placed on
conservation facility was incorporated into the diving plat-
form, thus saving on building materials and reducing the
need to transfer artifacts to a separate part of the camp.
The conservation working area was on three levels
(see the photograph on page 8). We used the lowest plat-
form primarily to support the diving operation, but also
as the artifact recovery point. To facilitate the recovery of
items carried by surfacing divers, we fitted an electric crane
with a rotating arm. This safely lifted both heavy ampho-
ras and fragile materials from the sea.
The second platform was set back and slightly raised
above the dive platform. We used it primarily for process-
ing, cleaning, and storing amphoras (fig. 2). It was
equipped with work benches, a pneumatic chisel (air
scribe), and work stations. Custom-made suspended sieves
aided in decanting, floating, and sieving the sediment
found in many of the ceramic jars. We dedicated the third
platform, located directly above the second, to registra-
tion and recording (including digital photography) and to
the conservation and storage of objects.
In order to support conservation work on all three
levels, two separate supply systems were designed to pro-
vide fresh and salt water. The sea water supply system,
which was rigged to an electric pump located on the dive
platform, allowed an unlimited supply at various pres-
sures. We used this for cleaning, decanting, and tempo-
rarily storing artifacts during their initial processing stages.
Fig. 2 (right). Ayse Hortapsu and Kris Trego decant and filter amphora con-
tents using a custom made sieve suspended in water.
luLU. L.. i Lcy
rNA Quarterly 28.2
The fresh water supply system depended on the expedi-
tion reverse-osmosis machine. It was used (conservative-
ly, due to limited output) for tasks such as the gradual
desalination of ceramic objects and storage of most metal-
lic artifacts.
To overcome the lack of space for the construction
of storage tanks-and the absence of a shallow-water zone,
which can normally be used for temporary storage of large
objects-fifty-gallon polyethylene drums were adapted as
individual storage units. These were cut longitudinally and
laid on their sides to hold two amphoras each. This pro-
vided instant wet storage that could be shifted around the
campsite to fit working patterns and available space. Once
we filled the storage capacity of the camp, we shipped the
processed amphoras to INA's permanent conservation
facility in Bodrum. This allowed us to retrieve a new batch
of amphoras from a temporary depot located near the wreck
on the seabed. The efficiency of the conservation facility at
Tekta5 Bumu is demonstrated by the large amount of con-
servation accomplished on site. The assembly of artifacts
was moved smoothly to Bodrum, where work continued
with little disruption of routine.
Setting up an on-site conservation facility similar to
the one used at TektaS Burnu requires advance planning.
However, its actual construction poses minimal increase
of workload. Its presence on site greatly reduces the time
and cost of post-excavation conservation work. This was
clear at Tekta5 Bumu.
Acknowledgements: Conservation at an underwater excavation is a labor-intensive process requiring help from many
team members. I would like to thank all the Tekta$ Burnu staff for their enthusiastic help in building and running the
conservation area throughout the past two summers. Many thanks to Laura Pretsell, Assistant Conservator, and to the
dedicated Meghan Ryan, Ayse Hortagsu, and Esra Altinanit-G6ksu (at the Bodrum lab), without whom chaos would
have prevailed. Thanks also to INA's Chief Engineer Murat Tilev for his tireless technical support throughout the
season. Finally, special thanks to George Bass and Deborah Carlson for their commitment to on-site conservation. .
Suggested Readings
Lawson, Eric
1978 "In Between: The Care of Artifacts from the Seabed to the Con-
servation Laboratory and Some Reasons Why It is Necessary."
In Beneath the Waters of Time: The Proceedings of the Ninth Con-
ference on Underwater Archaeology, ed. J. Barto Arnold II, 69-
91. Austin: Texas Antiquities Committee.
Oron, Asaf, and Jane Pannell
1996 "The Institute of Nautical Archaeology: Bozburun Shipwreck
Excavation Site." In Archaeological Conservation in Turkey. Kaman
Kalehcyiik Symposium Report, ed. G. Wharton, 22-23. Japan.
Peachey, Claire
1990 "Taking Conservation Underwater at Ulu Burun." INA Quar-
terly 17.3: 10-13.
Robinson, Wendy
1998 First Aid for Underwater Finds. London: Archetype Publications
Ltd.
Spriggs, Jim
1980 "The Recovery and Storage of Materials from Waterlogged De-
posits at York." The Conservator 4: 19-24.
Fig. 3. Ann Bass places an amphora in a storage
drum in the conservation area.
INA Quarterly 28.2
INA Increases its Fleet
George F. Bass
It all began when Malcolm Wiener, founder of the
Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP), and a noted Mi-
noan scholar, asked me what it would take to find a Minoan
shipwreck. We were having dinner at Seluk, near Ephesus,
during a 1995 trip through the eastern Greek islands and
down the western Turkish coast. He had invited Ann and
me, and two other archaeological couples, to travel with him.
I did not have a ready answer, even when he asked
me again several days later. Nevertheless, I took the ques-
tion seriously. INSTAP not only supports its splendid
Study Center for East Crete, but also provides grants for
numerous preclassical excavations in Greece and Turkey,
including INA's ongoing conservation of artifacts from the
Uluburun shipwreck. Malcolm also sustains the Wiener
Laboratory of the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens, and the Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Dendrochro-
nology Laboratory at Cornell University.
Later that fall, I sent Malcolm a lengthy summary of
the thoughts I had gathered about finding ancient wrecks.
Divers visually found all eight of the known Bronze Age
shipwrecks (Cape Gelidonya, Seytan Deresi, Uluburun, and
Alanya in Turkey; Dokos, Iria, and Kyme in Greece; and pos-
sibly Hahotrim in Israel). Those at Alanya and Kyme were
partly salvaged by Greek sponge divers earlier in this centu-
ry, and have not been located again, INA surveys have addi-
tionally located over a hundred ancient wrecks between
Antalya and Cesme during the past two decades. We have
interviewed Turkish sponge divers or simply dived with
scuba equipment, sometimes with underwater scooters; we
located only two or three wrecks by sonar.
Although in 1967 we demonstrated for the first time
that ancient wrecks can be found by side-scan sonar, not a
single one of the wrecks I have excavated over the past
forty years would have been found using this technology
Most lay among rocks or were otherwise camouflaged. It
is also highly unlikely that any of them would have been
found by magnetometers; by definition, pre-Iron Age ships
did not carry much ferrous metal. In other words, the re-
mote sensing equipment we have used successfully to lo-
cate as many as six more recent wrecks in a single day on a
Caribbean reef are far less useful in the location of ancient
coastal wrecks. Thus, it seemed that we would most likely
find a Minoan wreck-or a Mycenaean or Iron Age
wreck-by eye.
In Deep Water, Ancient Ships, the late oceanographer
Willard Bascom published his study of Lloyd's register of
losses of sailing ships in the nineteenth century. Most sank
because they hit land; only ten to twenty percent sank in
the open sea. This means that most ancient ships, includ-
ing Bronze Age ships, must Lie fairly close to shore and
usually not in very deep water. This does not preclude
splendid wrecks in the deep open sea. Examples include
the two Phoenician wrecks spotted from the U.S. Navy's
nuclear submarine NR-1 while it searched off the coast of
Israel for the missing Israeli submarine Dakkar, and later
photographed by a team led by Robert Ballard. Neverthe-
less, if the same historical and archaeological information
can be learned from wrecks within scuba diving depths, it
will save millions of dollars in excavation costs. Such
wrecks certainly exist.
Remotely operated television cameras can inspect
and record wrecks once they are found, but are less useful
when making random searches of the kind required by the
preclassical archaeologist who has no historical records to
serve as guides. If past experience holds true, only one or
two wrecks out of every hundred located will be from pre-
classical times. It is necessary, therefore, to locate many
wrecks in order to find one Minoan wreck, and the best
means of doing this in diving depths is by sight. Survey
divers can stay at depth for only twenty minutes or so at a
time, yet they find wrecks. What if they could stay down
for hours at a time?
I proposed to Malcolm Wiener a two-person sub-
mersible that would simply imitate a survey diver swim-
ming along a rocky shoreline looking for wrecks that had
smashed against the coast. Such a sub need go no deeper
than scuba divers can excavate. Malcolm gave me the go-
ahead to look for a suitable vessel.
Carolyn
Having launched Asherah in 1964 as the first private
research submersible built in the United States for any
purpose, I knew some of the pitfalls we now needed to
avoid. We wanted something with far better visibility than
through small ports, we needed something with greater
ease of operation than Asherah, and something with sim-
pler maintenance. During the next two years, I correspond-
ed with submarine manufacturers around the world while
visiting and inspecting submersibles in Sweden, the Unit-
ed Kingdom, Canada, Turkey, and California. I was not
satisfied with any.
I consulted my old friend Don Walsh, one of only
two people to have reached the deepest part of the oceans,
nearly seven miles down in the bathyscaphe Trieste. He
suggested that I look into SEAmobiles, made by SEAmag-
ine Hydrospace Corporation of Claremont, California. I
was hesitant at first, since this was a new design built by
William and Charles Kohnen, two brothers with no sub-
INA Quarterly 28.2
Fig. 1. George Bass realizes a dream--Carolyn, a two persc
ible that will enable INA and Turkish authorities to system
vey the Turkish coastline.
Phol
in s~
itica
mersible experience before they formed SEAmagine. How-
ever, after two trips to Claremont, with a test dive in a
murky lake, I was sold. I applied to [NSTAP for the funds
to have one built and received approval from INSTAP Pres-
ident Philip Bentancourt, the distinguished Minoan archae-
ologist at Temple University. Let me get ahead of myself
Milla
To carry the submersible from place to
place, and take it out of the water at the end of
each dive, Tufan Turanh suggested that we build
a steel catamaran. We asked our friend Merih
Karabag, who in 1973 had been a diver on INA's
very first survey, to design it and oversee its con-
struction. The resulting forty-five-foot catama-
ran has a large ramp that is lowered between its
pontoons and then, once the sub has been driv-
en onto it, is raised quickly with a electric winch.
As soon as the two occupants step out onto the
deck of the catamaran, the sub can be rinsed with
fresh water and have its batteries charged. The
catamaran can also serve as a complete diving
center for an excavation, for we mounted on its
deck our large multi-person recompression
chamber, and in its pontoons electric generators,
air compressors, and other support equipment.
We named the catamaran Millawanda, the Hit-
tite name for Miletus, where an INSTAP-spon-
sored German excavation has unearthed the first Fig. 2. M
evidence of a Minoan settlement in Asia Minor. provide
to say that the submersible built for us, which we
named Carolyn after Malcolm Wiener's wife, per-
forms even better than we had dreamed possible.
Carolyn is around fifteen feet long by nearly
eight feet wide, and weighs something over three
tons. It is buoyant, kept under water by a propeller
that provides vertical thrust (think of an upside-
down helicopter). Should electric power fail, the
submersible will simply float to the surface, where
two large rubberized bladders can be inflated to give
it greater freeboard. Power lasts eight to ten hours
between battery recharges, although the emergen-
cy life-support system lasts for days. Driven by two
other propellers, the vessel, we learned, can cruise
at three knots at a depth of 150 feet, even when tow-
ing the small surface buoy that allows a support
team to follow directly above in a small boat. On
o: INA the boat is equipment that would allow rescuers to
ibmers- dive quickly to the sub in the unlikely event of its
Ily sur- entanglement by an abandoned fishing net or line
Wireless surface-to-sub communications are superb.
For surveys, Carolyn offers excellent visibili-
ty, maneuverability, and ease of handling. A pilot and pas-
senger sit inside a cear acrylic sphere, able to look in all
directions. I was surprised at how much more I could see
than when diving with a mask. The pilot maneuvers the sub
with something as simple as the controls for a computer
game.
wanda
4iUawanda will not only act as a tender for Carolyn, but will also
supportfor a complete diving expedition.
INA Quarterly 28.2
rnoto: LINA
Carolyn and Millawanda
The submersible saw its first action in Turkey in July
and August of 2000, during the excavation at TektaS Buru.
At a nearby port we placed Carolyn on Millawanda, which
we soon moored near the wreck for the rest of the summer. Jon
Coundl ofSEAmagine had come to train a number of pilots, but
it proved impractical to run a training course in the midst of a
major diving operation. The same people to be trained as pilots
were busy around the dock keeping pumps, generators, com-
pressors, and fresh-water makers running smoothly. Neverthe-
less, Jon gave us an opportunity to become familiar with the
submersible and its capabilities. During ninety-four flawless
dives to the wreck, 140 feet deep, we learned how good the sub's
maneuverability is as it moved between airlift pipes and var-
ious seabed-to-surface hoses and cables. Deborah Carlson
or I could, for the first time, watch team after team of exca-
vators from only feet away. I also discovered that on a slop-
ing seabed, such as those on which we have often found
shipwrecks, the submersible's occupants can easily see down
to 180 feet and up to about a hundred feet, spotting any
wrecks in that wide swath.
The submersible also took many visitors to the wreck,
some of them non-divers who were seeing the underwater
world for the first time. It gave me special pleasure to see
Captain Mehmet Turguttekin, the fisherman with whom I
had worked closely in the 1960s and 1970s, disappear be-
neath the waves for his first look at what lies on the sea floor.
In an accompanying article, Deborah Carlson mentions oth-
ers who got their first glimpse of the wreck from Carolyn.
Carolyn, Millawanda, and Virazon
Jon had to return to the United States before the end
of the excavation, but we brought him back to Turkey in the
fall to train Murat Tilev and Feyyaz Subay as pilots in a U.S.
Coast Guard-approved course. Both, having passed their
written examinations on theory, and having piloted the sub-
mersible for twenty hours
apiece, are now certified.
With the approach of winter
and the probability of violent
storms, we decided to test the
system dose to Bodrum, in
G6kova Bay. We used the
newly repaired Virazn, now
captained by Feyyaz Subay,
as a floating hotel to accom-
pany the catamaran and sub-
mersible. On board with me
were Claude Duthuit Don
Frey, Mutlu Gunay, Zafer
Gill, Angle Mitchell, Robin
Piercy, Murat Tilev, Tufan Fig. 3. Carolyn passed all tests
Turanh, and Taner Aksoy,
representative of the Ministry of Culture. We spent the first few
days at an island almost within sight of Bodrum to allow
Murat and Feyyaz to get in more piloting hours. Then we
went to work. In only three days we relocated and searched
around the Seytan Deresi site to see if we had overlooked
anything during its 1975 excavation, relocated and exam-
ined a reef where I had seen Iron Age amphora fragments
during a 1973 dive, and found a well-preserved Roman am-
phora carrier 130 feet deep. The system works beautifully.
The pilots found that they could stay down for two and a
half hours at a time without discomfort, sometimes covering six
or more miles. Practically speaking, for the pilots must some-
times maneuver around boulders or slow down to allow the
examination of seabed anom-
alies, they might in future sur-
veys reasonably cover five
miles in the morning and five
miles in the afternoon. The
Turkish coastline is approxi-
mately 5,300 miles long. In the-
ory, then, Carolyn could cover
the entire coast in 530 days,
spotting all wrecks within div-
ing depths on steep slopes, and
many of those on flatter bot-
toms. The latter areas would
actually demand extra days to
Photo: INA search, perhaps with sonar
vithflying colors, mounted on the sub. Since we
do not operate the Carolyn and
Millawanda in strong winds and high seas, we would ideally
conduct surveys during the calm fall months, when we might
be able to dive fifty days a year. Thus, I have proposed to the
Turkish Ministry of Culture a joint ten-year survey to spot an-
dentwrecks around their coast The resulting inventoryof coastal
wrecks would be good not only for archaeology, but for the
Ministry of Tourism, which wishes to find and openmore wreck-
free areas for scuba diving in order to attract diving tourists.
Acknowledgments: I can hardly express my gratitude-and that of INA-to Malcolm Wiener and the Institute of Aegean Prehisto-
ry for making this magnificent tool available. In addition, Iwould like to thank INA, Texas A&M University (through my endowed
George T. and Gladys H. Abell, and George O. Yamini Family Chairs in Nautical Archaeology), and the National Geographic
Society's Expeditions Council for their generous support in assembling and testing this unique archaeological fleet a'
INA Quarterly 28.2
1
Black Sea Trade Project 2000
Cheryl Ward
Since 1995, Robert Ballard of the Institute for Explo-
ration (IFE) has been working with an interdisciplinary
team of archaeologists, nautical archaeologists, engineers,
and other researchers in an effort to explore the depths of
the Black Sea (fig. 1). In an outstanding example of a holis-
tic approach to archaeology, the Black Sea Trade Project in-
cludes both land and underwater survey components. In this,
it follows the Red Bay project in Labrador or the surveys
and excavation of Spanish colonization at Pensacola, Flori-
da. They selected the Black Sea for this project because it is
ringed by cultures connected to each other by water, water
that below about two hundred
meters is toxic to most life forms.
About seven thousand
years ago, rising sea levels in the
Mediterranean broke through a
narrow strait into the Black Sea
basin, which had been a freshwa-
ter lake fed by glacial runoff. The
influx of salt water smothered the
fresh water below, and a lack of
internal motion and mixing meant
that no fresh oxygen reached the
deep waters. They are anoxic
(without oxygen) so none of the
well-known wood-destroying or-
ganisms can survive there.
The geological aspects of
the flood are still being clarified.
However, Columbia University
marine geologists W. Pittman and
W. Ryan believed that it was in-
credibly rapid, perhaps raising the
level of the lake by over 150
meters within only a few years.
Other geologists argue that more Fig. 1. Northern Horiz
turbid flow of up to several centu- research vessel, with pier
ries may be reconstructed from 120 sidescan sonar unit
available evidence. In any case, it cules (center right), and
was easy to understand the enthu-
siasm Fred Heibert, University of Pennsylvania and INA Ad-
junct Professor, had for seeking ancient human settlement
sites near the edge of the ancient sea and its preceding lake.
His team's land surveys have discovered evidence for
Neolithic stone-workers in relatively isolated groups, and
for an active Bronze Age settlement on one of Sinop's high
points. They have found a rich record of farming groups from
the time of Greek colonization through the medieval period.
In taking the search for archaeological remains be-
neath the sea, project members are attempting to under-
stand how people used this maritime environment, still a
vital part of local economies. To that end, surveys in 1998,
1999 (see INA Quarterly 26.3,4-6), and 2000 have explored
different aspects of Sinop's underwater seascape, includ-
ing a search for both human settlement and shipwrecks.
The project, funded primarily by IFE, National Geo-
graphic Society, and the J. M. Kaplan Fund, brings together
professionals and graduate students to examine, analyze, and
interpret data and images from robots and drones far be-
neath the sea. In 2000, INA support allowed Kathryn Willis
(a graduate student in the Nautical Archaeology Program at
Texas A&M University) and me to join the project. We
worked west of Sinop for a total of about three weeks. An
unexpected accident to our support
vessel in dry dock pushed our expe-
ditionseason from August to Septem-
ber. Luckily, Kathryn was able to
represent INA for the entire voyage,
from Malta to Turkey and back, fill-
ing in wherever she could and learn-
ing about the application of
technology to deep-sea research
through hands-on experience.
One of the first steps in any re-
mote sensing survey is to define the
search area by laying overlapping
transects-long parallel lines-
across the seabed with a sidescan so-
nar unit. The team, which included
representatives from the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institute
(WHO[), launched a DSL 120 unit
that quickly began to detect a large
number of anomalies, or irregulari-
ties on the seabed that cast shadows
to intrigue us. Under Ballard's direc-
Photo: C. Ward tion, the team selected several of
n served us well as a these targets to examine more close-
ty of room for the DSL ly with a remotely operated vehicle
lower right), L'il Her- (ROV). The ROVs could send video
rgus(ready to launch). images back to the ship along the
thickly clustered wires in the umbil-
ical cord that allowed pilots to maneuver precisely along
the seabed and, we knew, within the archaeological sites
there.
IFE designed and built two ROVs especially for ar-
chaeological exploration and imaging (fig. 1). Argos and
Little Hercules (L'il Herc for short) served as platforms to
carry lights and cameras on this project. L'il Herc looks like
a bright yellow balloon on a black "string" attached to Ar-
gos, and moves more freely and easily because it is not di-
rectly towed by the support ship. The two vehicles worked
extremely well, and provided us with high quality video
and still images to use in analysis of our finds.
INA Quarterly 28.2
lI
Early efforts concentrated on examining what Fred
Heibert called the "sweet zone," gentle slopes that would
have been somewhat elevated above the ancient lakeshore.
It is on similar dry hills around Sinop that his team has found
most of the archaeological sites. This area is about eighty to
one hundred meters deep in the Black Sea today. One of the
first targets we visited was a fascinating site that includes
natural and handcrafted features. The site looks as if it sits
on a small ridge, and a series of rough rectangular blocks
(about forty by twenty by six centimeters) attest to human
presence at an area now ninety meters below the sea. Anum-
ber of wooden stakes and small logs are scattered over the
site, but radiocarbon dating of these and several shaped
wooden objects showed them to be less than two hundred
years old. Further examination, and perhaps excavation, at
the site will clarify its ambiguous nature, but as Fred Heib-
ert says, it is an incredible privilege simply to see this an-
cient landscape, sunk beneath the waves for millennia.
Even more exciting to me were the events of my first
watch as nautical archaeologist on duty. A little before midnight,
Icame into the "van" whereall theequipmentwas setup. Itwas
a real thrill to approach our first target and see L' Herc's lights
suddenly illuminate a wall of amphoras standing about two
meters above the seabed: the season's first shipwreck. Ship-
wreck A is of a Byzantine period vessel, laden with carrot-
shaped amphoras typical of Sinop and probably dating be-
tween the fourth and sixth centuries CE (fig. 2).
We moved to another target location, with a quick
stop along the way to check what turned out to be a large
rock, and almost immediately, the ROV came upon another
shipwreck. Like the first, this site also consisted of a large pile of
Sinopian amphoras. Several amphoras with strongresemblance
to some from the Yassiada Byzantine wreck lay atop the mound,
These hourglass amphoras suggest that this site might date to
the fifth to early seventh century, according to Fred van Doom-
inck's preliminary evaluation of photographs.
Shipwreck C is another scattered pile of amphoras,
again dating to the fourth to sixth centuries CE. In the
Mediterranean, archaeologists have studied many ampho-
ra wrecks, but most are swathed beneath a bed of posei-
don grass or other sea growth. The shipwrecks we found
in the ninety to one hundred meter depths are all charac-
terized by piles of amphoras in a mound above the sea-
bed, but without the Mediterranean-style cloak of grass.
The last find, Shipwreck D, was identified as a tar-
get in 320 meters of water. Its sonar signature was a long,
slender line that identified it as an upright feature of the
seabed. This line transformed itself into a wooden mast
Fig. 2 (left). Amphoras from Sinop, Turkey, cover a mounded wreck site on the seabed near Sinop. The shipwreck was one of four
discovered in a National Geographic expedition led by Robert Ballard lastfall.
Fig. 3 (right). Wooden stanchions behind a mast speak eloquently of the preservative powers of the Black Sea's anoxic waters.
Wood-devouring organisms cannot survive in the oxygen-free depths, and this 1,500-year-old ship is the best-preserved ancient
vessel ever discovered. Photos: 1FE
INA Quarterly 28.2
standing about twelve to fourteen on the vessel. In the anoxic envi-
meters above the seabed. The mast ronment where the rope fibers
is beautifully preserved, without a would not become food for oppor-
trace of erosion or damage. A small tunistic organisms, only time would
cavity at its tip suggests something A destroy them. Because of this and
once was attached there, probably the way the hull components were
to facilitate attaching the yard. At t arranged, I suggested the ship was
deck level, the mast disappears into a perhaps fifteen hundred years old.
thick brown sediment topped with e Quick thinking and engi-
a fluffy, whitish organic substance neering on the run had allowed
biologists call "marine snow," the Martin Bowen of WHOI's Deep
remains of tiny organisms that live Submergence Laboratory to rig up
in the water column. A number of a device to get a wood sample from
spars, partially covered with drift- the ship. Three small samples were
ed sediments, lay along the deck, taken from a timber that might have
some between two pairs of stan- been a quarter rudder support. Re-
chions aft of the mast (fig. 3). Frame suits of radiocarbon testing suggest
ends stick out of the sediment, and the wood was cut sometime be-
allow a rough tracing of the ship's tween the late fourth and early sixth
shape and dimensions, century, and so we had our fourth
Kathryn originally thought Byzantine shipwreck.
the ship might be either ancient As the projectended, and the
or only a hundred years old be- crew began packing away equip-
cause she knew that fishing ment and storing the videotapes and
boats in the area had maintained Photo: C. Ward images from the season, it was
wood-only construction, and no Fig. 4. Much offtheproject's day-t-day data recovery and clear that the promise of the Black
one aboard could see any metal monitoring is carried out by graduate students from the Sea's anoxic environment had
fastenings or rigging elements University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of only begun to be explored. Rob-
(fig. 4). It was a real puzzle to try- Technology, and Texas A&M University. Kathryn Will- ert Ballard is continuing his work
to learn about a vessel-we could is is a Nautical Archaeology Programn M. A candidate, in the Black Sea, off the coast of
see only at deck level and above. Bulgaria in late summer of 2001.
However, it was clear when I saw the images that some- INA will be there, continuing to write the story of ships
thing else was missing: there was no cordage anywhere and seafaring in the ancient world.
Acknowledgements: As always, the work of INA is supported by its dedicated members. I would like particularly to
acknowledge the support of Harry and Joan Kahn and Marilyn and George F. Lodge. My appreciation goes to Robert
Ballard and the staff of IFE, and particularly to Fred Hiebert for his organization and coordination of all aspects of our
work in Turkey. a
Suggested Readings
Ballard, R., et al.
2000 "The Discovery of Ancient History in the Deep Sea Using Advanced Deep Submergence Technology." Deepsea
Research Part 147.9:1591-1620.
Ballard, R., D. F. Coleman, and G. Rosenburg
2000 "Further Evidence of Abrupt Holocene Drowning of Black Sea Shelf." Marine Geology 170: 253-261.
Rose, M.
1999
"Neolithic Noah. Are the claims of two geologists all wet?" Archaeology 52.1: 75-78.
Ryan, W. and W. Pitman
1998 Noah's Flood. The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Uchupi, E., and D. A. Ross
2000 "Early Holocene Marine Flooding of the Black Sea." Quaternary Research 54: 68-71.
INA Quarterly 28.2
Preliminary Survey of Iskenderun Bay, Turkey
Ayse Atauz
Iskenderun Bay is in the
northeast corer of the Mediterra-
nean Sea, just north of the Turkish-
Syrian border, and includes a
number of smaller natural harbors
and sheltered anchorages (fig. 1).
Geophysical surveys reveal that
many of these are in different loca-
tions than the ancient ports, which
are completely silted up. This pre-
sents a challenge for an underwater
survey. The coastline has shifted to
such an extent that it is difficult to
determine the position of the ancient
coastline in relation to sites known
from historical and archaeological
sources.
The coast of Iskenderun Bay
has been occupied since the Neolithic
Period. One of the most important lo-
cal archaeological sites is Kinet
H8yiik, on the east side of the bay.
This is the largest mound, or "Tel,"
of Eastern Cilicia, occupying a stra-
tegic location for ancient trade and
cultural exchange. The mound is
now five hundred meters inland.
However, it originally occupied a
promontory between two harbors, a
small natural bay on its north side
and the estuary of a river immedi-
ately south. Other pre-Hellenistic
eastern Mediterranean ports, such as
Kinet's nearest excavated neighbor
Al Mina (sixty-five kilometers to the
south), also have estuarine locations.
Since 1992, Dr. Marie-Henri-
ette Gates has directed excavations
by Bilkent University's Department
of Archaeology and Art History (fig.
2). These have confirmed that Kinet
had an important role throughout
antiquity in maritime exchanges be-
tween an inland network and the Ae-
gean, Cyprus, and Levant. The
evidence shows attempts, particular-
ly in the Hellenistic Period, to pre-
serve this commerce by controlling
harbor silting. However, Kinet was
abandoned about 50 BCE because
these facilities had become unusable.
Map: A. Atauz
Fig 1. Areas covered by the authors team during the 2000 Iskenderun Bay survey. Area
1 was six kilometers long by 250 meters wide, centered on the Kinet Hiiyilk mound.
Area 2 was eight kilometers by three hundred meters in the eastern part of the bay.
INA Quarterly 28.2
I'nltOS: A. ArCaX
Fig 2. The mound of Kinet Hoyiik.
Fig 3. The recovery of the towfish onto the deck of the survey vessel.
Finds from the Kinet H6yiik excavations span all
periods of history. They indicate contacts with (among oth-
ers) Cypriots, Hittites, Canaanites, Mycenaean and Iron
Age Greeks, Phoenicians, Phrygians, Persians, and finally
Crusaders. The extensive maritime activity of the harbors
at Kinet is confirmed by the shipping containers that make
up a significant proportion of ceramic finds from the site.
It seems likely that a proportion of the visiting vessels were
wrecked due to adverse weather, equipment failure, or bad
navigation. Therefore, the bay holds substantial promise
for the location of shipwrecks.
The Preliminary Survey
It was believed that an underwater survey could lo-
cate additional evidence of the extensive maritime trade
in the region, increasing our knowledge of contacts and
commerce. I, the summer of 2000, Ihoped to establish the
groundwork for a detailed survey project throughout Isk-
enderun Bay in future years. The bay is the terminus for
several oil pipelines carrying petroleum from the Caspian
Sea. Heavy tanker traffic greatly complicates safe diving
in the area. It was necessary to gather specific information
about climatic conditions, wind and current patterns, vis-
ibility, water temperature, hazardous and restricted areas,
boat traffic, and other factors affecting underwater work.
My former professor Dr. Gates could not have been
more helpful in arranging the permits and accommodations,
sharing information about the archaeology of the region, and
in going out of her way to assist with everything. My small
but very efficient team included Bilkent University students
Enver Arcak and Huseyin Tanman and our excellent pho-
tographer Aykut Arcak. Isik Adibelli from the Adana Muse-
um, representative of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, was
also a very valuable member of our team.
The first survey site was three kilometers out to sea,
parallel to the shore, covering an area six kilometers long
(centered on the Kinet Hoyiik mound) by two hundred
fifty meters wide by thirty meters deep. We detected no
obvious shipwreck sites. However, the area is subject to a
high rate of sedimentation. It is possible that some of the
anomalies in our sonar data represent archaeological ma-
terial or shipwrecks buried in silt. We hope to conduct fur-
ther investigations of these targets in 2001 using a
magnetometer and diving inspections.
The second survey area was in the eastern part of
Iskenderun Bay between two rivers, where the bottom is
more sandy than near Kinet H6yik. This gave us a better
understanding of the characteristics of such sediments. An-
other reason for working here is that in 1998 local divers re-
ported seeing ceramic artifacts on the sea floor. We surveyed
three eight-kilometer-long parallel track lines, each one hun-
dred meters in width, between twenty-five and thirty meters
in depth. Again, we found no obvious shipwrecks, but sev-
eral targets for future investigation. Poor visibility is en-
demic in the region during late summer, and these
conditions obstructed diving inspections of the targets.
INA Quarterly 28.2
1
Prospects
We determined that October and November are the
best months for an underwater survey, since the sea is gen-
erally calmer and the visibility is considerably better. This
will also allow the use of accommodations at the Bilkent
University Excavation House, which is only available af-
ter the end of the terrestrial excavation season at Kinet
H6yik.
The Water Products faculty of Mustafa Kemal Uni-
versity in Iskenderun has agreed to provide a survey ves-
sel at no cost. Their cooperation, and their knowledge of
the geology and sedimentology of the bay, will prove in-
valuable. Fishermen and captains in the port of Iskenderun
will also provide essential information about areas of par-
ticular promise and of particular danger.
We confirmed that silting is a problem in certain
areas of the bay. The eastern coast has stronger currents,
and therefore higher potential for visible archaeological
material. This should therefore be our first area of concen-
tration. However, the western bay also has ancient har-
bors that were involved in extensive maritime trade. A
lower frequency side-scan sonar will be employed to sur-
vey this area. Coupled with a magnetometer, this should
yield improved results despite the thicker sediments.
Acknowledgements: This project was made possible through the generous financial support of INA, as well as Marty
Wilcox and Director George Robb, Jr., who generously provided the remote sensing equipment. The Turkish Institute
of Nautical Archaeology took care of the customs arrangements and provided funds for the temporary export of the
remote sensing gear to Turkey. I would again like to express my gratitude to Dr. Marie-Henriette Gates, the Director of
Kinet Hoyiik Excavations, and to Bilkent University students Enver Arcak and Huseyin Tanman, and photographer
Aykut Arcak. I owe particular thanks to Isik Adibelli from the Adana Museum for her knowledge of the region and her
suggestions for the future of the project. o
Suggested Readings
Gates, M-H.
1999 "Kinet Hoyiik in Eastern Cilicia: A Case Study for Acculturation in Ancient Harbors." Olba I1.2: 303-12.
Ozaner, S.
1994 "Dortyol-Payas (Issos) Ovasi'nda (Antakya) Tarihi Caglardan Gunumu2e Suregelen Jeomorfolojik Degisikliklerin
Kinet Hoyiik Uzerindeki Etkileri [Observations of Diachronic Geomorphological Changes in the Dortyol-Payas
(Issos) Plain (Antakya) in the Context of Kinet H6yiikl." Arastirma Sonuclari Toplantisi 12: 513-27.
News & Notes
Bass receives Golden Plate Award
On May 5, George and Ann Bass were seated at
dinner with former Prime Minister of Israel and Mrs.
Ehud Barak, former President of Poland Lech Walesa,
paleontologist Donald Johanson, and film-maker
George Lucas. Walesa then presented Barak and Lucas
presented Bass with Golden Plate Awards from the
American Academy of Achievement. The publicity-shy
Academy for the past forty years has provided the an-
nual opportunity for 250 high-school honor students
from around the country to mix with leaders of the arts,
politics, military, science, and sports. The 2001 event
convened in San Antonio for three days where this
year's thirty honorees included Nobel laureates, Pu-
litzer-Prize-winning authors, the first woman to have
commanded a space shuttle mission, the President of
Stanford University, a holder of the Congressional Med-
al of Honor, and the founder of Amazon.com. a
Academic Honors
Bill Charlton, INA's Diving Safety Officer and Nau-
tical Archaeology Program Ph.D. candidate, and Mason
Miller, Nautical Archaeology Program graduate student,
were both inducted into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa
Phi (OKQ) at Texas A&M University on 27 April 2001. This
is Charlton's second such honor, his having been elected
to Phi Beta Kappa (QBK) at Trinity University in 1975.
On an historical note, other Nautical Archaeology
Program students and faculty have also received academ-
ic honors. Christine Powell, NA Quarterly editor and Nau-
tical Archaeology Program doctoral candidate, is Phi Beta
Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Golden Key. Dr. Fred Hocker,
former Program graduate student and professor, and Dav-
id Grant, former Program graduate student are both Phi
Beta Kappa. INA would like to compile an up to date list
of honors bestowed on NAP students and faculty, so please
contact the Editor with any information you may have. a'
INA Quarterly 28.2
Ribbon Cuttings
George E Bass
The Bronze Age Shipwreck Hall in the Bodrum Museum
July 23 and 24, 2000, were certainly red-letter days
in the history of INA. On the afternoon of July 23, several
hundred people attended the opening ceremonies for the
new Bronze Age Shipwreck Hall in the fifteenth-century
castle that houses the Bodrum Museum of Underwater
Archaeology. These included a contingent of about forty-
five INA representatives and guests, and dozens of mem-
bers of the Turkish press and television They had come to
see new and stunning displays of the Cape Gelidonya,
Seytan Deresi, and Uluburun wrecks. I was proud that
they would see the results of over three decades of my
own fieldwork, and appreciate the result of decades of co-
operation between the Museum and INA. Mainly, how-
ever, this was a dream come true for museum director
Oguz Alpozen, who had spent so many years-realizing
his vision. In 1991, even while Cemal Pulak was still exca-
vating the Uluburun shipwreck, Oguz began looking at
various plans for the new building, eventually choosing
that of architect Mustafa Kocaefe. After obtaining neces-
sary funding from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, Oguz
broke ground for the new structure in 1994. Extensive ex-
cavation followed. So as not to break the castle's profile,
the splendid new structure is set well down into the
ground, its flat roof not much higher than the flower gar-
den Isil Gilven and Ahmet Berk designed next to it.
Among those I saw in the standing-room-only
crowd were the INA Co-Chairmen and their wives (Gregg
and Nancy Cook, and Ned and Raynette Boshell), Presi-
dent Jerome Hall, and Development Officer Gail Vermil-
lion. Representing both Texas A&M University and the
INA Board were President Ray and Sally Bowen, Vice-Pres-
ident Robert and JoAnn Walker, and Dean of Liberal Arts
Woodrow Jones and his wife Mary Wolf. Other INA Di-
rectors present were Oguz Aydemir, Joe and Donna Ballew,
John and Donnie Brock, Frank Darden and son Toby (who
has since joined the INA Board), Claude and Barbara
Duthuit, Danielle Feeney, Alex Nason, Ayhan Sicimoglu,
Fred and B.J. van Doorninck, Lew and Myra Ward, and
Associate Director Allan and Marlene Campbell, with their
son John. Still other guests are named in Deborah Carl-
son's accompanying article, which describes their later visit
to the Tekta Bumu excavation.
Now, after almost a decade, it was Oguz Alpbzen's
moment. The time for the official opening of the Bronze
Age Shipwreck Hall had arrived. While I was greeting Joan
Parris, wife of American Ambassador Mark Parris, who
had flown in from Ankara to represent the embassy both
here and at our INA openings next day, I noticed Ann Bass
in a tearful reunion with two daughters of the late Kemal
Aras. In the mid-1950s, this Bodrum sponge diver discov-
Photo: INA
Fig. 1. Turkish Minister of Culture fstemihan Talay (center),
with George Bass to his right, is greeted at the entrance to the
new Bronze Age Shipwreck Hall by staff of the Bodrum Muse-
um of Underwater Archaeology dressed as Near Easterners of
1300 BCE.
ered the Cape Gelidonya wreck, which in 1960 became
the first ancient shipwreck excavated in its entirety on the
seabed. Following speeches by Minister of Culture Istemi-
han Tatay, Director of Antiquities and Museums Alpay
Pasinli, the governor of the district (Mugla) in which Bo-
drum lies, Cemal Pulak, and others, Oguz Alp6zen praised
the cooperation between the Museum and INA. I said a
few words, and soon we all moved in a herd toward the
entrance to the new building.
Suddenly, in the great throng of people pressing
toward the steps leading down to the door, Oguz Alp6zen
appeared, grabbed me by the hand, and pulled me through
the crowd. On the steps, I was greeted by one of the mu-
seum staff, dressed like a fourteenth-century BCE Syrian
merchant. Then Oguz placed my hand over that of Minis-
ter Talay, holding a pair of scissors, so that we cut the open-
ing ribbon together (fig.l). It was an unexpected and
touching honor.
Inside the air-conditioned building, at the far end
of the first gallery, a large flat plasma television screen,
givenby INA Director Oguz Aydemir, continuously shows
a DVD version of the Uluburun film edited by INA Co-
Founder Jack Kelley. This new cut is from the much long-
er film he originally produced for television. This was
shown in the United States on the PBS series Nova.
On one side of the gallery, below three large color
photographs of the actual excavation, wall cases display
the finds from the Cape Gelidonya wreck of around 1200
BCE. I was glad that INA Director Claude Duthuit, who
INA Quarterly 28.2
rnoto: IJNt.
Fig. 2. Claude Duthuit (left) and George Bass get a dtucklefrom Claude's pho-
tograph taken forty years earlier, during the exarvation of the Cape Gelidonya
shipwreck that is displayed in the new Bronze Age Shipwreck Hall.
Fig. 3. Oguz Alpozen, Dirctor of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Ar-
chaeology, introduces George Bass to Queen Nefertiti near a display of her only
known gold scarab.
had loaned his pup tent to Ann and me for our honey-
moon at Cape Gelidonya forty years earlier, was still with
us for the opening of this attractive exhibit (fig. 2). On the
opposite side of the gallery, again under large photographs
of their excavation and conservation, are the large jars from
the enigmatic Seytan Deresi wreck of around 1600 BCE. It
was during its excavation in 1975 that we first dived with
recent university graduates Cemal Pulak, Tufan Turanh,
and Ayhan Sicimoglu, whose names are still tied to INA,
and who were all at the opening.
From a balcony that runs the length of the next gal-
lery, visitors look down on a full-scale diorama-dimly lit
by blue and green light-of the Uluburun wreck as it rested
on the seabed. Huge terra-cotta jars, rows of copper ingots, a
scatter of blue glass ingots, amphoras, heavy stone anchors,
and dozens of smaller finds have been replicated and placed
in their original positions according to the site plans. The
diorama differs from reality in that the slope of the rocky
seabed is lessened. Otherwise, since the wreck originally lay
between 145 and 200 feet deep, the upper end of the diora-
ma would have gone through the roof of the building!
Directly opposite the balcony and at the same level
on the far wall is a full-scale reconstruction of the Ulubu-
run ship, cut in half to show the cargo as it was stowed in
the hold when the ship sank about 1300 BCE (see page 28).
The model is based on a painting that appeared in the De-
cember 1987 National Geographic Magazine. Cemal Pulak
and I were consultants on the painting, explaining where
all of the finds should be depicted in the ship's hull. Un-
fortunately, we are unable to say what the ship looked like
above the waterline, since all upper parts of its wooden hull
had long since been devoured by marine borers. For the hull
and rigging, therefore, we pointed the National Geographic
artists to a fourteenth-century Egyptian tomb painting of a
Syrian ship. The Museum visitor can now even see, as in the
painting, the ship's wickerwork fence that served like a splash
board to keep out spray, based both on the Egyptian tomb-
painting and a line in Homer's Odyssey (5.257). Then the vis-
itor can turn and see on the balcony wall, among a series of
large photographs, a picture of the Uluburun ship's wick-
erwork fence being uncovered 160 feet below the surface.
The entire concept of this spectacular first gallery
was Oguz Alp6zen's (fig. 3). He personally oversaw the
replication of hundreds of artifacts by the museum staff,
and the recreation of the seabed on steel scaffolding. A
donation by INA Director John De Lapa helped bring the
vision to realization.
From this gallery, the visitor moves into a room con-
taining the actual objects from the wreck: the world's "old-
est known book," an ivory-hinged wooden diptych that
reminds us of the one in Homer's only mention of writing
(Iliad 6.169); the largest collection of Canaanite gold and,
silver jewelry from any site; the fine Canaanite statuette,
partly covered in gold, of a female, probably a goddess;
[NA Quarterly 28.2
the only known gold scarab of Egypt's famed Queen Nefer-
titi; a figurine, two duck-shaped cosmetics boxes, and a
small trumpet, all of ivory, with raw ivory in the form of
hippopotamus teeth and part of an elephant's tusk; ostrich
eggshells; rings; beads; a faience drinking cup shaped like
a ram's head; bronze tools and weapons; pottery from a
number of lands; a stone macehead from the western Black
Sea coast; ingots of glass, copper, and tin; and so much
more.
This great treasure, from what was undoubtedly a
royal shipment, was stunningly displayed with the help
of Sandy Walcott, Senior Installer, Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York. Aiding in an understanding of the
artifacts are drawings of similar objects in use. These were
executed by Douglas Fau.mann of the Institute for Aegean
Prehistory's Study Center in East Crete. He based the draw-
ings on Egyptian tomb paintings.
Other Museum Exhibits of lNA Research
Earlier on the morning of July 23, INA staff had
led our visitors from abroad through the entire Muse-
um of Underwater Archaeology. We began with the full-
scale replica of the stern third of the seventh-century
Yassiada Byzantine ship (INA Quarterly 24.3, 3-11). As
we walked on the deck and peered down through a hole
in the galley's tile roof to see the figure of a cook work-
ing by a portside firebox filled with glowing coals, I was
pleased that Fred van Doorninck was with us. It was
Fred's pioneering work, beginning as a fellow gradu-
ate student with me at the University of Pennsylvania
Photo: I
Fig. 4. New structures opened at INA's Bodrum campus in 2000.
left to right, everything below the terrace level and the entrance stair
Nixon Grffis Conservation Laboratory, entered through the large doors
right. The square building behind, to right of center, is the new library.
in the early 1960s, that made the replica of the galley
possible. He was the first person to make sense of the
broken fragments of wood routinely uncovered by oth-
er early underwater archaeologists in the Mediterra-
nean. Fred's ingenious work led not only to this replica,
but to an entire new branch of archaeology, the study
of shipwrecked hulls, continued brilliantly by INA's
Dick Steffy and Fred Hocker. Also with us on the repli-
cated deck were Larry Joline and his wife Polly. Larry
had been my right-hand man during the excavation of
this and another Yassiada wreck, handling virtually all
of the logistical problems, even after a 1961 case of bends
ended his active diving days. Claude Duthuit had been
our chief diver back then, and Ann Bass was chief pot
mender, shopper, accountant, and general camp moth-
er. It was moving that we were all together for this
wonderful day.
After the Byzantine exhibit, we moved to the
Serce Limani Glass Wreck Hall (INA Quarterly 15.3, 1-
31), and again I was glad that Fred van Doorninck was
with us, for he had served as assistant excavation di-
rector there. Others from the 1977-79 excavation now
in the Museum were INA Director Ayhan Sicimoglu;
Sheila Matthews, who had stayed on in Turkey to reas-
semble part of the ship's hull from a thousand fragments
of chemically treated wood; Robin Piercy, who over-
saw the treatment; Cemal Pulak, who spent a year in
Bodrum organizing the mending of the world's largest
collection of medieval glass out of a million shards; and
Sema Pulak and Netia Piercy, who (later with Selma
Agar and Berta Lled6-Solbes) exquisitely drew
so many hundreds of artifacts for the final pub-
lication of the site.
Kathy Hall, who had helped arrange the
displays in the new Bronze Age Hall, gave a be-
hind-the-scenes tour through the conservation
laboratory that INA uses in the Museum. Our
visitors saw materials from the Uluburun, Tek-
taS Burnu, Bozburun, and Serce Limani wrecks
in various stages of cleaning, mending, and pres-
ervation.
There are many other galleries in the Mu-
seum, including one devoted to the history of an-
cient glass, and an outdoor display of the history
of amphoras, from the Bronze Age until modem
times, under a long, tiled roof. However, one can-
not see them all in one morning.
Our day of tribute to the cose cooperation
between the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Ar-
rey chaeology and INA ended in the castle with a buf-
From fet dinner provided by the Sea Garden resort near
is the Bodrum. The nearly five hundred people who came
to the faced long queues, but for those of us who did not
give up, the food was delicious and plentiful.
INA Quarterly 28.2
Fig. 5 and 6. The Tooze Reading Room of the library is on two floors, with journals, classical texts, and other reference works shelved
above. On the other side of the reading room, a plaque honors Mary and Lamar Tooze, Jr., whose love of Turkey made it possible.
INA Library
Next evening, after an all-day Executive Commit-
tee meeting, we had our own opening ceremonies at the
INA Headquarters in Bodrum (fig. 4). Following Turkish
folk-dancing and drinks on the terrace at the top of our
new monumental entrance stairway, architect Turgut
Cansever, foreman Necati Celik, and INA's Robin Piercy
jointly cut the ribbon across the door to our new four-sto-
ry library. These three, who represented the anonymous
donor who made the library possible, had spent a decade
constructing our now completed Bodrum campus.
Robin, who served as INA's sub-contractor, remem-
bers vividly the words of the Danish architect who had
been asked to review various plans submitted for this cam-
pus. "The most important decision to make is whether you
want a place you look forward to get to every morning,
and where the architecture stresses friendship between the
participants." Implied was: "Or do you want as many func-
tional and cheap square feet as possible?" After ten years
of close involvement with the construction, Robin agrees
with all of us who use the buildings that we made the right
decision. It started with our choosing, under Don Frey's
presidency, the noted Turkish architect Turgut Cansever,
winner of two prestigious Aga Khan awards.
I remember Turgut's telling me, early on, that the
heart and center of any academic or research institute is its
library. We needed places first, however, to work and to
house students, scholars, and other visitors. Thus, the li-
brary had to wait until completion and dedication of the
main office building and the dormitory next to it (INA
Quarterly 21.4, 22-23, and 22.3, 26).
The new library did not come alive, however, until
we had begun to fill it with books. The Friends of INA in
Portland, Oregon, organized by Mary Rosenberg, provid-
ed funds to purchase nearly four thousand volumes of clas-
sical archaeology from two noted scholars, Homer and
Dorothy Thompson. I had known the Thompsons since my
student days in Athens, and I am happy that they were
pleased to see their books come to INA. Dorothy recently
celebrated her hundredth birthday, but Homer, for many
years director of the Athenian Agora excavations in Greece,
died in the spring of 2000. Their books were added to the
G. Roger Edwards, Peter Throckmorton, and Joel Shiner
collections already in College Station and shipped with
them to Turkey. This was without charge, thanks to INA
friend and TINA member Jonathan Beard, but more about
TINA in a later Quarterly. The same Friends of INA in Port-
land are now giving money toward a library endowment.
The top floor of the library, where journals, refer-
ence books, and classical texts are shelved, has a large cen-
tral opening that looks down on the main reading room (figs.
5 and 6). Both floors were entirely furnished, including pho-
tocopier and computer, by means of a gift from Mary Tooze
of Portland. She wished to honor her late husband, Lamar
Tooze, Jr., because of their love of Turkey. Another part of
her gift, matched by INA Directors, will go toward a library
endowment. These two floors are lit in daytime by more than
a dozen skylights, in addition to glass windows, and floor-
to-ceiling doors that lead out to balconies. Care was taken,
however, to avoid direct sunlight from hitting and bleach-
ing the books. The walls of the building are double, with
an air space between, to keep any dampness from seeping
into the climate controlled atmosphere.
The next floor down currently serves as stacks, with
plenty of room for additional shelves. The bottom floor is
the INA Archive, where original notes, plans, drawings,
photographs, and the like will be stored in file cabinets
and map cases after each excavation or survey has been
published.
ENA Quarterly 28.2
rnoto: U 17rey
rnoto: u Prey
Fhoto: LNA
Fig. 7 (above). Alex Nason cuts the ribbon to the new Nason Computer
Center. From left to right, INA friend Ercan Acidel, architect Turgut
Cansever, George Bass, and Alex Nason.
Fig. 8 (top right). The Nason Computer Center was being used even
before its interior was completed.
Fig. 9 (bottom right). A sponge-diver's suit is displayed in the INA
office building courtesy ofJeffHakko, honoring the late Kemal Aras, who
first led archaeologists to shipwrecks.
Nason Computer Center
As soon as the guests had examined the new library, we moved
back outside so that INA Director Alex Nason could cut the ribbon to
the outer door of the new three-story Nason Computer Center (whose
bottom floor holds the heating plant for the entire campus)(figs. 7 and
8). Like the library, the center can be reached via a vaulted hallway
running from the original office building. Here INA friend Jeff Hakko
has put on permanent loan a sponge-diver's suit. This honors Captain
Kemal Aras, who showed the first ancient wrecks to Peter Throckmor-
ton in the 1950s (fig. 9).
Like several directors, Alex is not the first in his family to sup-
port INA. His late grandfather, J. Alex Nason, founder of the Lubrizol
Corporation, made INA's initial field project possible back in 1973 by a
gift that enabled us to purchase the two-person, double-lock recom-
pression chamber we still use. John Baird, once an executive with Lu-
brizol, introduced us in Cleveland shortly after John had joined the
INA Board of Directors that year. It was a special treat, therefore, not
only for us to see Alex open the new building, but to enjoy his compa-
ny as a fellow diver during his subsequent visit to TektaS Burnu. With
the two buildings officially opened, we had dinner for 110 people in
the garden, its trees beautifully lit.
Photo: D. Frey
Photo: D. Frey
INA Quarterly 28.2
I
Nixon Griffis Conservation Laboratory
I only regretted that Hethea Nye could not be there to open the
third new structure. Her father, Nixon Griffis, was the first person ever
to support my underwater research, having made a pledge to the 1960
Cape Gelidonya excavation even before I had started my YMCA diving
lessons. Then President of Brentano's bookstores, Nick continued and
increased his support over the years, becoming in 1973 a Founding Di-
rector of INA and remaining on the Board until his death in 1993. During
one of his summer visits to Yassiada to dive with us in the early 1960s, he
was accompanied by his teen-age daughter Hethea. I had seen her only
briefly since then, so I was at first surprised when I received a call from
Hethea Nye about three years ago. She wanted to know if there was
something the family foundation could do to honor her father. After some
thought, I suggested a conservation laboratory on the INA campus in
Bodrum. She liked the idea. This led to the large, multi-storied laborato-
ry where wood from the Bozburun wreck is already being desalinated.
One can imagine my surprise when last spring I received a let-
ter from Hethea's nephew, also Nick Griffis! A recent graduate in ar-
chaeology, he wanted to come to Bodrum to learn more about his
grandfather's involvement in our field (fig. 10). A son of Hethea's broth-
er, he not only saw the laboratory, but later stayed with us in the exca-
vation camp at TektaS Burnu. He was so taken by what he saw that he
returned to Bodrum, took a course, and became a certified diver.
With the completion of these three new structures, INA's Bo-
drum campus is complete. a
rAnoco: K. rtercy
Fig. 10. Nick Griffis visits the INA anmseration labo-
ratory in Bodnor, which is named in honor of his late
grandfather, INA Founding Director Nixon Griffis.
rnuormu; T
Opening celebrations on the terrace at the top of the new monumental entrance stairway ofthe INA Headquarters in Bodrum, Turkey.
INA Quarterly 28.2
Conservation for an Exhibit:
The Uluburun Shipwreck Display
Kathy Hall
The conservationists at the Bodrum Museum of
Underwater Archaeology were thrilled to help Museum
Director Oguz Alpozen fulfil his vision of how to exhibit
finds from the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck. [NA
excavated this ca. 1300 BCE site between 1984 and 1994 and,
together with the Museum, began the conservation of some
twenty tons of artifacts immediately after the first excava-
tion season... work that still continues today. The exhibit
finally opened, with great ceremony, on July 23.
Completion of the new building in 1999 was fol-
lowed by the construction inside of a huge diorama de-
signed by Director Alpizen. This features a reconstruction
of the ship as it was being loaded thirty-three hundred
years ago, as well as a replica of the whole assemblage on
the sea floor. It was amazing to see what the Bodrum mu-
seum staff could achieve with several bags of plaster and
few other materials. Now dramatically lit, this section is a
favorite with museum visitors.
After the diorama was completed, it was time for us
to begin work on the "Treasure Room," where the most
interesting and important artifacts from the Uluburun ship-
wreck are now displayed. After looking at several proto-
type museum cases, Oguz Alp6zen planned the layout of
the room and ordered the showcases from zmi.r.
Since we intended the display to be permanent, we
needed to consider the conditions inside the showcases for
the Bronze Age artifacts. Ancient objects tend to deterio-
rate more quickly on display than they do in protective
boxes on undisturbed depot shelves. In exhibits, light, heat,
humidity, and the effects of ill-chosen supports can all
shorten the life span of a fragile artifact. In addition, the
modem materials used to build and decorate cases can emit
harmful substances that can cause severe corrosion and
other problems. Since many of the artifacts from the U1-
uburun shipwreck are already extremely fragile, it was
necessary to prevent any further damage. The staff made
sure to eliminate these risks. Luckily, the case supplier and
electrician understood that we were simply trying to pro-
tect the artifacts and helped to come up with some cre-
ative solutions.
The showcase containing ivory objects was a partic-
ular problem. All the ivory from Uluburun is very fragile,
its structural strength reduced by long burial underwater.
Many of the artifacts are networked with cracks, which
could easily grow and cause objects to fall apart. The solu-
tion required several steps: the staff created purpose-built
mounts that fully supported the artifacts, then built a com-
pletely sealed case lit from the outside to prevent internal
temperature changes. In the hidden base of this case (fig.
1), a reservoir of saturated solution of magnesium nitrate-
6-hydrate ensures that the air inside remains at a stable
relative humidity of fifty-five percent. The unique wood-
en diptych is also displayed in a similar, smaller-sized pro-
tective case.
Fig. 1 (left). The Uluburun cases are specially designed to maintain constant hu-
midity.
Fig. 2 (right). Great care has been taken to make the exhibits accessible to all visitors.
INA Quarterly 28.2
Photos: K. Hall
Fig. 3 (left). Many of the artifacts, like the two duck-shaped cosmetic boxes, provided special challenges to the conservationists.
Fig. 4 (right). The shattered ostrich egg shells were carefully reconstructed and missing fragments replicated.
The Museum tried to make the entire exhibit acces-
sible and delightful both to scholars and to the casual vis-
itors who make up most of their guests. After much
discussion, we assigned themes to the showcases, such as
"Gifts fit for a King," and "The Mycenaean Presence." Of
course, this was only one of an infinite number of ways to
classify the artifacts (fig. 2).
Now it was time for the fun part-choosing which
artifacts to display. The staff looked carefully at everything
and selected only the most stable for display. Thanks to
the hard work of previous INA conservators, many of the
unique artifacts from Uluburun were ready to exhibit.
However, we needed to conserve the ivory trumpet made
in the shape of a curved ram's horn, and two ivory cos-
metics boxes in the shape of ducks. In addition, we recon-
structed two ostrich eggshells.
The ivory trumpet was crushed between two cop-
per ox-hide ingots, and found in more than a hundred piec-
es, most of them very small (less than a centimeter in size).
In the conservation lab, these were desalinated, consoli-
dated (strengthened with a stable acrylic resin), and dried.
The conservators put the trumpet back together using a
specially formulated weak adhesive. Missing areas were
filled using paper and plaster, and toned to match the orig-
inal ivory.
They treated the two duck-shaped cosmetic boxes
in the same way. Again, the ivory was found extremely
fragile, with extensive structural cracking. We measured
and recorded all these cracks. In the future, Museum staff
can check the pieces, and, if the cracks have lengthened,
replace the artifacts with replicas. For the duck boxes, the
fact that several pieces were missing was a problem. There
was no attachment point for the main body of either duck
to the feet plaque (and even if there had been, this was
now too fragile to bear any weight). In addition, the neck
of one of the ducks was missing. The staff built intricate
mounts that held everything in place (fig. 3). This was saf-
er than trying to adhere heavy, fragile ivory pieces to each
other. In the same fashion, we joined the neck of the large
duck to the body using a specially made wooden dowel.
There are three ostrich eggshells from Uluburun.
Amazingly, one of them survived the shipwreck and re-
mains unbroken. The other two were in pieces, with many
fragments recovered from large conglomerations of arti-
facts cemented together with marine concretion. Conser-
vators removed much of this laboriously by hand before
the eggshells were reconstructed using an adhesive made
from a stable acrylic resin. One eggshell was smaller and
thinner than the other two and proved to be the most dif-
ficult to reconstruct. Approximately forty percent was miss-
ing, and some of these lost fragments were needed to
support other pieces that were present. The eggshell was
reconstructed carefully. When necessary, we replicated
missing fragments by pouring plaster of Paris into two-
sided molds of dental wax in situ on the egg. The plaster
sections were toned to match the original (fig. 4).
The staff was concerned about how to mount the
artifacts in the cases. Since the "Treasure Room" is small,
most of the space in the cases is vertical. Many of the arti-
facts needed to be attached to the vertical backboard in a
secure and yet aesthetic way. Luck was on our side. Sandy
Walcott, Senior Installer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City, was ready to volunteer her services for
three weeks. Under her guidance, we placed stable materi-
INA Quarterly 28.2
als inside the showcases. Plinths were made of good quality
plywood, given three coats of varnish and covered with
linen cloth in a natural pale brown. The backboard and
base of each case were covered in the same fabric. In-
dividual mounts for the artifacts were made using brass
rods of different thicknesses, formed and soldered to
cradle the artifacts securely-even in case of an earth-
quake. The staff fastened small artifacts in place using
steel insect pins. The brass mounts, buffered with thin
foam at the contact points, were painted to make them
unobtrusive. Probably the most difficult mount was
that for the little bronze and gold leaf Canaanite god-
dess, who now stands proudly upright in the center of
a case and draws all eyes. Doug Faulmann (an artist
with the Institute for Aegaen Prehistory-East Crete) cre-
ated enlarged illustrations of the Egyptian scarabs and
the cylinder seals for the exhibit.
Finally, it was time to write the text. We made an
effort to answer all the most common questions people
have when faced with the materials from Uluburun. The
experience of talking with groups of visitors to the castle
about the material was invaluable here. Did we succeed?
We look forward to hearing your opinions when you visit
the new display.
Acknowledgments: First, we must thank Oguz Alp6zen, Director of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archeology, for
his leadership. Additional thanks are due to Alexandra Walcott, Senior Installer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
and to Jack Kelley, who made a generous donation to cover the cost of her ticket to Turkey. In addition, Douglas
Faulmann and Uluburun intern Gaby Kienitz provided skilled assistance. r
Photo: D. Frey
A full-scale replica of the ship wrecked at Uluburun around 1300 BCE is cut in half to
show how the cargo was slowed in the hold. Below, usually dimly lit by blue and green
light, is a diorama of the wreck as it lay on the seabed.
Suggested Reading
Thomson, G.
1986 The Museum Environment. London: Butterworths.
Creahan, Julie
1991 "Controlling Relative Humidity with Saturated Calcium Nitrate Solutions." Western Association of Art Conser-
vators (WAAC) Newsletter 13.1 (January): 17-18.
INA Quarterly 28.2
In the Field
Tekta Burnu, Turkey
George Bass and Deborah Carlson
plan to conclude the excavation of the ffth-
century BCE shipwreck at Tekta Bumu,
Turkey, during the summer of 2001. All
of the visible cargo of amphoras has been
removed, so the thrust of the campaign is
to complete the excavation of several
squares, two meters on a side, that have
not yet been excavated down to bedrock.
They also plan to complete the excavation
of the deep sand that surrounds one side
of the wreck, and to uncover and raise any
extant hull remains. An additional objec-
tive is to determine the relationship be-
tween the main amphora mound and a
small duster of artifacts downslope at the
edge of the shelf.
Bodrum, Turkey
Matthew Harpster will be at the Bo-
drum conservation laboratory working on
the hull of the ninth-century Bozburun
Byzantine shipwreck (see page 30).
Urfa, Turkey
Cemal Pulak willbe searching for the
findspot of copper ingots recovered near
Urfa eight years ago. The oxhide ingots
suggest that copper artifacts similar to
those on the shipwreck at Ulubun.n, Tur-
key, were being transported on the Euph-
rates tributaries during the Bronze Age.
Israel
An ancient warship ram was found
in 1980 near Athlit, about twelve miles
south of Haifa, IsraeL Weighing 465 kilo-
grams and cast in a single piece, this re-
mains one of the largest and best
preserved ancient bronzes known today.
It was the subject of a 1991 volume, edit-
ed by Lionel Casson andJ. Richard Steffy,
in the Nautical Archaeology Series from
Texas A&M University Press. Neverthe-
less, there are still many questions about
how the ram was made. Asaf Oron of the
Nautical Archaeology Program at A&M
hopes to provide some answers about an-
dent bronze casting technology, building
on earlier studies by Shlomo Eisenberg at
Haifa University.
Egypt
Douglas Haldane of INA-Egypt re-
ports that many projects are now under-
way. These include ongoing excavations
of the Qait Bey Fortress, built on the foun-
dations of the Pharos Lighthouse in Alex-
andria, trainingcourses atThe Alexandria
Conservation Laboratory for Submerged
Antiquities, and cooperative projects with
the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria
and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. We
hope to report on all these in future issues
of the FNA Quarterly. INA-Egypt will fo-
cus on two other projects this summer, an
excavation and a survey.
The Quseir Shipwreck
INA-Egypt has applied for permis-
sion to excavate the Roman shipwreck at
Quseir on the Red Sea. Quseir (Myos Hor-
mos, "Mouse Harbor," in Roman times)
sits at the end of the Wadi Hamamat It
probably served the pharaonic sailing ex-
peditions to Punt (modem Somalia) for
luxury goods.
The Roman shipwreck at Quseir
dates between the first centuries BCE and
CE. It was part of Emperor Augustus' ini-
tiative to create a direct sailing link be-
tween Egypt and India.
Safe excavation of this deep wreck
will require specialized training in mixed-
gas diving, among a host of other safety
measures. Thanks to funding from John
and Donnie Brock, the team plans to raise
an amphora in July 2001 for archaeobo-
tanical analysis. They will also survey the
wreck photographically to create a prelim-
inary site map for work beginning in 2002.
Mediterranean Survey
In August-September, 2001, INA-
Egypt plans to survey the area between
Umm al-Rakham and Marsa Matrouh
(approximately 280 kilometers west of
Alexandria) to a depth of thirty meters.
University of Liverpool land excavations
at Umm al-Rakham have found about
twenty Canaanitejars, closely resembling
some found at Uluburun, Turkey. The ex-
cavators have also found Late Bronze Age
pottery in the temple fortress belonging
to Ramses 11(1304-1237 BCE). The Ulubu-
run ship (probably bound from Syria to a
Mycenaean port when it wrecked) may
have been following a circular route that
made its landfall from Crete nearby. This
point on the ancient border with Libya
marks the furthest western extent of the
ancient Egyptian empire. The operating
assumptions of the Mediterranean survey
are, first, that these jars came to Umm al-
Rakham by ship and, second, that not ev-
ery ship arrived safely.
Normandy
Brett Phaneuf will be in Normandy,
continuing the Neptune 2K Project on the
naval aspects of Operation Overlord, the
1944 Allied invasion of Nazi-held Europe
(see INA Quarterly 28.1:17-21). He will be
using Remotely Operated Vehicles to in-
spect targets found in 2000.
Phaneuf will also be working with the
US Navy Nuclear Research Submarine
NR-1 off Sardinia in July.
Portugal
Felipe Castro will spend June with a
team from INA and TAMU in Lisbon,
helping the Portuguese archaeologist Pau-
lo Rodrigues with the recording of the
Cais do Sodr6 vessel. This large early six-
teenth-century wreck was found in 1993
during the excavation of a subway station.
In July, Castrois going to the Algarve,
in the south of Portugal, with Dr. Fran-
cisco Alves, the director of the Centro
National de Arqueologia NAutica e Sub-
aquatica. They intend to investigate the
mouth of the Arade River, near Portimio,
where seven possible wrecks are report-
ed. The objective of this survey is the se-
lection of one or possibly two wreck sites
that may allow INA to create a summer
school for nautical archaeology students,
beginning in 2002.
Azores
Kevin Crisman will be returning to
the island of Terceira this summer to lead
a team researching the nautical history of
the Azores. The project, part of a multi-
INA Quarterly 28.2
year survey and inventory of Azorean
shipwrecks (see INA Quarterly 26.1:3-9),
will be conducted jointly by INA and the
Azorean Direc o Regional da Cultura.
Angra do Heroismo, on the south
coast of Terceira, was the Azores' princi-
pal port between the late 1400s and the
late 1600s. At least a hundred shipwrecks
are known to have occurred near the city.
The adjacent anchorage at Fanal Bay was
also used by ships avoiding the treacher-
ous entrance to the harbor at Angra. Re-
mote-sensing survey of these areas will
continue during the 2001 field season. Lee
Cox and Wes Hall of Dolan Research
in Philadelphia will return for a week of
sidescan sonar and magnetometer survey,
while Art Cohn and Pierre LaRocque of
the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
will dive on identified targets.
Students Sara Brigadier, Katie Custer,
Erik Flynn, Gustavo Garcia, Sara Hosk-
ins, Erika Laanela, Anthony Randolph,
and Carrie Sowden from the Nautical Ar-
chaeology Program at Texas A&M Uni-
versity will assist Azorean archaeologists
with the underwater recording of timbers
from the disassembled hull of the Angra
D wreck The ship was excavated in 1998
and is believed to be a late sixteenth or
early seventeenth-century merchantman
of Iberian construction. The timbers of the
ship hold significant information regard-
ing the development of naval architec-
ture, and many interesting construction
features have already been observed.
The ship was entirely sheathed with
lead and is the first of its type discov-
ered to date.
The Azores will also be the location
of the INA Board meeting, to be held in
July in Angra, a UNESCO World Heri-
tage Site. Boardmembersmayalso travel
to the island of So Miguel.
Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic
Jerome Hall will lead a team back to
Monte Cristi Bay on the northwestern
coast of the Dominican Republic, scene of
an INA project from 1991-95 (NA Quar-
terly 21.1/2 29-37). They will resume ex-
cavation and research of the "Pipe Wreck,"
an English-built ship (probably sailing
under the Dutch flag) that most likely sank
between 1652 and 1656. Research will fo-
cus on the hypothesis that the vessel was
operating under the guise of the Dutch
West India Company, but was actually
trading illegally with the boucaniers on
Hispaniola's north coast. The excavation
will form part of a comprehensive multi-
year research, conservation, and publica-
tion project
Civil War Blockade Runner Project
INA's Director of Texas Operations,
J. Barto Arnold, will be conducting the
second (and final) excavation season on
Denbigh in Galveston Bay (see !NA Quar-
terly 26.2). The main objective is to com-
plete the excavation of the last sixtypercent
of the engine room and to enlarge Unit 4
in the stemn The crew will include last
year's supervisory staff, two graduate
students in the Nautical Archaeology
Program at Texas A&M University
(Mark Fuelner and Sara Keyes), at least
three undergraduate students from the
A&M campuses in College Station and
Galveston, and others from Canada,
Sweden, and around the US. They hope
to have a small exhibit ready to show in
Galveston during the fieldwork, center-
ing on the connecting rod recovered last
summer.
Oklahoma
Barto Arnold is investigating the Red
River Wreck, which appears to be an ear-
ly nineteenth-century steamboat that may
have been among the first on the river. He
is working in partnership with the Okla-
homa Historical Society and the PAST
Foundation. Arnold and Mark Feulner are
conducting a season there. This will con-
sist of about a month of test excavations
with a field school offered through the
University of Indiana's scientific diving
program.
Asking the Reason Why
Matthew Harpster, Ray H. Siegfried Fellow, 2000-2001
During the summer of 1999, I found myself in Tur-
key helping Don Frey give a tour of the Bodrum Museum
of Underwater Archaeology. Don, about 25 visitors, and I
had arrived in the air-conditioned confines of the Serce
Limaru exhibit, where we began to answer questions from
the guests. One of them asked, "What is the point... really..
of putting these boats back together?" It was the sort of question
that I, as a liberal arts major, love to ponder but hate to an-
swer. It means I have to justify my research and face the real-
ity that my work as a nautical archaeologist will probably
never prevent the stock market from crashing, save the world,
or allow me to drive a Ferrari when I retire.
Nonetheless (although I cannot honestly remember
what I told that visitor), I feel that there are basically two
answers to the question. The first is that we put these boats
back together because it is a puzzle we long to solve. We are
curious. We want to understand things. The second answer,
which I feel is directly related to the first, is that we are constantly
asking ourselves, "Why?" "Why did this boatsinkand why was
it here when it did so?" "Why was it carrying these goods and
not others?" Reconstructing a vessel is one of the best ways of
solving these mysteries. My own favorite question is not
"How was the ship built?" but "Why was it built that way?"
My research, which concerns the hull remains from
the ninth-century CE merchant shipwreck excavated near
Bozburun, Turkey, is currently at an interesting crossroads.
As much as I would love to say that I know precisely why
this ship was built, after three years of work I am still de-
termining how. Since 1999, I have spent my summers ex-
amining and cataloguing the preserved hull material at INA
headquarters. During that period, I have developed two
basic theories regarding the construction of this ship.
INA Quarterly 28.2
The first theory, and the one to which I have been
subscribing for the past year or so, argues that this ship
was built in a manner similar to the construction of the
vessel excavated at Serqe Limam, which sank in approxi-
mately 1026 CE. In other words, all the framing elements
were constructed in a similar manner, and a rule of thumb
using proportions of a set length determined the gen-
eral design and shape of the ship. I have evidence from
the keel and framing elements at Bozburun that sup-
ports this conclusion. Based on what we know of gen-
eral trends in shipbuilding at the time, it is a logical
conclusion to make.
The second theory, which I have pursued only re-
cently, argues that the Bozburun vessel was not built like
the later vessel from Serce Limaru, but like many earlier
ones found in the Mediterranean. Essentially, I see the al-
ternate possibility that at one time, the Bozburun hull may
have been constructed with floors, half frames, and fut-
tocks, rather than with just a series of frames. It would seem
that this should be an easy problem to solve. Approximate-
ly thirty-five to forty percent of the starboard side of the
hull is preserved. That is a great deal of material and con-
siderable information with which to work.
However, there are two immediate problems. The
first one is simply that only the starboard side of the hull is
preserved. A major difference between the two theories out-
lined above is that, in the first theory, the floors are asym-
metrical, while in the second, they are not. As I only have
half of each floor with which to work, determining wheth-
er they correspond to the first or second theory is tricky.
The second problem concerns the different materials
used to build the hull. The keel, stem, stempost, planking,
and seven of the floor timbers are constructed of oak. The
other thirty-two floor timbers, on the other hand, are of pine.
Because of this difference in materials, and since the pine
floor timbers do not correspond to either of the theories out-
lined above, Ialso feel that this ship may have been rebuilt at
some point. If so, only the seven oak floor timbers in the hull
correspond to the original construction of this vessel, while
the remaining pine floors were later replacements. I really
only have the starboard halves of seven oak floor timbers to
use in determining the original manner of framing.
However, my work this summer should begin to
solve these problems as I catalogue the remaining plank-
ing material. I suspect that, if the ship was rebuilt, the orig-
inal planking was retained and only new floor timbers were
added. Therefore, all the fastening holes associated with
the original framing elements should still be present in the
planking, indicating the initial framing pattern. If, on the
other hand, there are no superfluous fastening holes in the
planking, I have an entirely different problem to tackle:
"Why did the builders of this ship change framing pat-
terns after only one-quarter of the ship was built?"
Of course, as much as I would love to pursue why
the builders changed techniques, or why the ship was re-
built, or why there are thirty-two pine floor timbers and
only seven oak floor timbers, or even why the ship sank
where it did, I cannot. Well, at least not yet. I still have to
answer my first question, how this ship was built. By the
end of this summer, I hope to have a better answer. a
INA Quarterly 28.2
Selma Agar-Tributes and Remembrances
Selma Agar was a well loved employee of the museum, the two compli-
menting each other. She now lives on through her illustrations of the artifacts
from the Serge Limanm shipwreck. Each time we enter the exhibition hall we can
watch her image on the video film and prepare to meet her again sooner or later.
Wishing that the days filled with love may last eternally.
Oguz Alpozen,
Bodrum Museum Director
Not only was Selma a delightful and
true friend, but I told her on more than one
occasion that she was the perfect INA em-
ployee: she came to work on time, did her job
with exceptional skill, was always cheerful,
and never became involved in gossip or pet-
ty internal politics. The world would be afar
better place if there were more Selmas.
George Bass
Selma and I used to stroll through town, stopping here and there in a
quiet place, talking or falling into a companionable silence, and meeting
friends along the way--she had so many. Derin, her pretty little boy, would
ride his bicycle, always ahead of us. Selma loved living here, where the shim-
mering sea gives you hope. We never lost hope that she would pull through,
for she was full of life and showed so much determination. She continued to
work as her condition allowed, drawing amphoras as she had done for so
happen to Derin were she not to recover. Such a charming woman, full of
cheerfulness, courage, and generosity. Her perfume was "C'est La Vie"...
Adieu, mon amie. Marion Feildel
Selma is one of the few people I have known who was truly kind and
lovely. She was that rare type who never found fault with people (or at least never
showed it) and was kind to everyone. I will especially remember her laughter.
Sheila Matthews
Figures, top to bottom. Just one of the superb drawings which is more than ar-
chaeological depiction. That wonderful smile. Selma, full of life. Her dive card, ASYON
making her one of the most influential of Turkey's professional divers. Oppo- 25
site page. Cats were just one of her passions. Selma and her sister, Selda. Beau-
tiful and smiling to the end she shares happier times with her treasured son,
Derin. Photos: INA. and courtesy of family and friends
INA Quarterly 28.2
Sometimes one is privileged to meet a person like Selma whose joy
of life and wisdom are inspirational. We joined INA within months of
each other, soon becoming firm friends and fellow conspirators. We loved
to shop and tourist-watch, encouraging each other's sense of the ridicu-
lous, mixing English and village Turkish. We even invented a few phras-
es I still use today! We indulged each other's love of animals, nursing
countless strays, and daydreamed of a cat ranch with roaming herds of
kittens! We shared our problems and rejoiced in each other's happiness.
Selma had an uncanny gift of getting to the crux of a situation. No late
night phone call, car drive, or help with translation was a bother for her-
she was fiercely loyal to those she cared about. A fabulous and elegant
dancer, Selma's performance was unforgettable. One promise we made was
that we would enter a cosmetic surgeon's together, hand in hand, in old age.
But Selmna did not need to gild the lily; we adlled her the "Pocket Venus." Her
hair brushing and maquillage at day's end was a ritual that amused all the lab.
Selma took our smiles with the affection intended. I know that I could erasper- /
ate her sometimes, but she always put me right, even as her illness took hold.
She was concerned about me worrying about her. She was simply my ablasi
(sister) and, golly, I miss her.
Jane Haldane
I had known Selma for a long time but came to know her well in
1998-99 when she was already ill. I learned to admire and love her as
a woman of tremendous strength. Her courage and her selflessness
were then and are now an extraordinary inspiration to me. She never
complained in the face of her adversity and was able to empower her-
self through it. She was also extremely caring of others. She once sent
a beautiful gift, a teapot decorated with a protective evil eye, to friend
of mine in the States, a man whom she had never met but with whom
she had corresponded regarding special diets, particularly therapeutic
teas. Selma and I had dreams of diving together on the Tektas Burnu
wreck in the summer of 1999 and of her visiting me in the States the
following year. Although we were not able to realize those dreams and
her passing is a terrible loss, I am grateful for having had her as a
friend and for so many fond remembrances of all we had shared. Sene-
ca once wrote: "Let us therefore make the best of our friends while we
have them. One who has lost a friend has more cause of joy in having
once had the friend, than in grief that the friend is taken away."
Faith Hentschel
A memorial fund has been established for Derin's education. Anyone wishing to contribute
should send-donations to INA, who will forward them to the managers of the fund.
INA Quarterly 28.2
IN MEMORIAL
Selma Agar
1956-2000
The Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the
INA community in Bodrum lost a valued colleague and
dear friend with the death of Selma Agar on November
2, 2000, after a valiant two-year struggle with cancer.
She is survived by her mother, Esme Agar; brother, Sey-
hun Agar; sister, Selda Baptie; and son, Derin Okuz. A
memorial fund has been established for Derin's educa-
tion.
Born in Ankara, Selma spent her early years in
Batman, SE Turkey, where her father worked in the pe-
troleum industry. In 1966, the family moved to Istan-
bul, where she graduated from the Uskudar-American
Girls' College in 1974, and from Istanbul University in
1978, with a degree in En-
glish. For the next decade,
she worked first at Ege
Bank and then at the
Braun (household and
kitchen goods) company.
Soon after Selma
moved to Bodrum in
1983, Sema Pulak began
to teach her how to mea-
sure and draw amphoras
and, in 1985, how to draw
glass. Selma began regu-
lar employment as an
INA artifact artist in Jan-
uary 1986 and learned
more about artifact draw-
ing from Netia Piercy during the years that followed.
Throughout her professional career, Selma preferred to
draw amphoras. She was unusually adept at making high-
ly accurate drawings of large ceramic vessels and at con-
veying the essential appearance of distinctive ceramic
surfaces within the limited convention of dotted shading.
Her first published drawings were under the name Selma
Karan, and later, under the name Selma Oguz. However,
the main bulk of her work, principally amphora draw-
ings, remains to be published and will appear in the final
publications of the Serqe Limarn, Uluburun, and Bozbu-
run wrecks, and in the republication of the seventh-centu-
ry Yassiada amphoras.
Selma started sports diving in 1990 and quickly got
her 1s, 2"' and 3rd Star diving certificates from the Confed-
eration Mondaile des Activites Subaquatiques (CMAS).
By 1993, she had become a 3 Star diving instructor and
was elected to the CMAS Committee of Turkey. In 1994,
she was elected to the provincial committee of the Turk-
ish Underwater Sports, Lifesaving, Water Ski, and Fin
Swimming Federation. Through this organization, she rep-
resented Turkey at meetings and courses in France, Italy,
Herzegovina, Switzerland, Mauritius, Norway, and Sin-
gapore until her illness in 1998. During the same period,
she was instrumental in organizing a CMAS Technical
Meeting in KuSadasi and represented Turkey at a joint
CMAS and DAN meeting in Rome. She was also involved
in translating the CMAS Instructor's Manual into Turkish
and in the preparation of a diving manual and a diving
book for children.
Selma's services
as a translator and inter-
preter were in constant
demand and in so many
different ways. There
was the endless stream of
notices, letters, or even
publications that the Bo-
drum Museum or INA
needed to have translat-
ed into English or Turk-
ish. Then there were the
notices from the post of-
f lice, municipality, bank,
S or customs that were not
understood. One of Sel-
ma's smiles somehow brought government car inspections
to a speedy conclusion. No day was really complete for
those working at the castle conservation lab unless Selma
had translated everyone's horoscope in the newspaper into
English.
The thing that one remembers most about Selma
was her radiant smile and cheery greeting. One often made
a point of stopping by her desk in the conservation lab
just to get the day off to a proper start. Last spring, during
a period of good health, Selma, who had not ridden a bi-
cycle after falling off one and breaking her arm as a child,
took up bicycling with her son Derin. Some of us last saw
her then: a healthy, beautiful woman, calling to us as she
pedaled past, with laughter in her voice and joy in her
face. It is the Selma we will forever remember. -
Netia Piercy and Fred van Doorninck
INA Quarterly 28.2
FROM THE PRESIDENT
INA's greatest asset is its intellectual capital.
Years ago, our Co-Founders, Dr. George Bass and Mr. Jack Kelly, wedded scholarship and sponsorship to
produce an academic organization second to none. The result of that union is an unparalleled association of staff
employees, researchers, graduate students, volunteers, collaborators, members, and directors. All are united in the
effort to fulfill our organizational mission to better understand civilization through nautical archaeological research.
My recent visit to Paris, France, for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) convention for the protection of submerged cultural resources was a powerful reminder of the impor-
tance of our work. Around the world, shipwrecks are disappearing at an alarming rate. Although there are variety
of reasons for this destruction, far too many sites fall victim to intentional disturbance by salvors and treasure
hunters. It is against this backdrop that INA clearly emerges as an international advocate for the protection and
proper management of these resources. Our reputation as the leader in the field of underwater archaeology is not
just predicated on the care with which we excavate an archaeological site. It is also based on the tedious scholar-
ship that characterizes our archival research, laboratory conservation, and academic publications. Hardly a day
passed at the convention without one of the delegates commenting on the high caliber of our research projects.
Some spoke of the superior quality of INA project directors with whom they had been privileged to collaborate.
Others mentioned articles they had recently read that were authored by INA researchers, or the exceptional illus-
trations that accompanied those publications. In listening to their enthusiastic comments, I realized several things:
First, the product of INA is knowledge. Most of us understand that the success of an organization, be it a
grocery market or an academic institute, stands or falls on the product that it places in the display case. Therefore,
we work hard to ensure that our product-knowledge that fills in the gaps of seafaring history-is neither inferior
in quality nor short in supply.
Second, knowledge is generally the result of intense and careful labor. I often remind students-whether
in the classroom or in the field-that not all of the data they collect will become information; neither will all of the
information they gather necessarily give way to knowledge. In fact, years of careful research will often result in
nothing more than a simple fact confined within a short sentence or footnote. However, that single idea-that bit
of knowledge-becomes the property of all who examine it; in essence, it becomes a foundation upon which
future research and subsequent knowledge is built. Moreover, it is that knowledge-that footnote to the history of
human seafaring-for which we aspire.
Third, knowledge is a consequence of collaboration. Shiny apples that miraculously appear in the fruit
bin at the corer market are the results of months of cooperative efforts. Farmers, soil scientists, meteorologists,
mechanics, field workers, mechanical engineers, vehicle manufacturers, truck drivers, stevedores, grocers, and
shelf stockers all work hard-and together-to deliver a single product to the customer. The next time an INA
Quarterly article captures your interest, remember that many dedicated, energetic, and creative personnel from all
departments within our institute created that product.
We have entered a new millennium filled with endless possibilities of discovery. We are embarking on new
research projects that are inter-institutional and interdisciplinary in scope. We have new directors, new commit-
tees, and new leaders who have injected our organization with fresh enthusiasm. In the midst of this novelty, it is
important to realize that the wealth of our organization-our greatest asset-is not newly found. It has always
been here in the form of intellectual capital: dedicated individuals-bookkeepers, model-builders, artists, conser-
vators, directors, teachers, editors, administrators, archaeologists, and countless others-who work together to
produce knowledge of civilization through nautical archaeological research. Together, they comprise that intri-
cate and beautiful mosaic known as INA.
Thank you, too, for being part of that mosaic. Your enthusiasm, support, encouragement, and participation
are critical to the vitality of this wonderful organization.
Have a great summer,
Jerome Lynn Hall
INA Quarterly 28.2
- INSTITUTE OF NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
OFFICERS ADMINISTRATION
George F. Bass, Ph.D., Co-Founder
Jack W. Kelley, Co-Founder
ferome L. Hall, PhD., President
William L. Allen
Oguz Aydemir
John H. Baird
Joe Ballew
George F. Bass, Ph.D.
Edward O. Boshell, Jr.,
Chairman and Treasurer
Ray M. Bowen
John A. Brock
Elizabeth L. Bruni
Gregory M. Cook
Harlan Crow
Allan Campbell, M.D. Robin
Donald A. Frey, Ph.D., Vice President
Cemal M. Pulak, Ph.D., Vice President
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
William C. Culp, M.D.
Thomas F Darden
John De Lapa
Claude Duthuit
Danielle J. Feeney
Donald G. Geddes UI (Emeritus)
Woodrow Jones, Jr.
Harry C. Kahn II (Emeritus)
Michael L. Katzev
Mustafa Kog
Robert E. Lorton
William A. McKenzie
Alex G. Nason
ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS
P. Hartmann Bill Klein, M.D.
James A. Goold, I.D., Secretary & General Counsel
Claudia LeDoux, Assistant Secretary
& Assistant Treasurer
George E. Robb, Jr.
L. Francis Rooney
Lynn Baird Shaw
Ayhan Sicimoglu
William T Sturgis
Frederick H. van Doorninck, Jr., Ph-D.
Robert L. Walker
Lew O. Ward
Peter M. Way
Carry A. Weber
George O. Yamini
Sally Yamini
Dana F. McGinnis
Molly Redy
FACULTY
George F Bass, Ph.D.,
George T. & Gladys H. Abell Professor of Nautical Archaeology/George 0. Yamini Family Professor of Liberal Arts
Kevin J. Crisman, Ph.D., Nautical Archaeology Faculty Fellow
Donny L. Hamilton, Ph.D., Frederick R. Mayer Faculty Fellow
Cemal M. Pulak, Ph.D., Frederick R, Mayer Faculty Fellow of Nautical Archaeology
C. Wayne Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Professor/Director of the Archaeological Preservation Research Laboratory
J. Richard Steffy, Sara W. & George 0. Yamini Professor of Nautical Archaeology, Emeritus
Frederick H. van Doorinck, Jr., Ph.D., Frederick R. Mayer Professor of Nautical Archaeology, Emeritus
Shelley Wachsmann, Ph.D., Meadows Associate Professor of Biblical Archaeology
J. Barto Arnold, M.A., Texas Operations
STAFF
Esra Altnarut-G6ksu
Mtinevver Babaak
Mustafa Baba.k
Chasity Burns
William H. Charlton, Jr., M.A.
Michelle Chmelar
Mehmet Ciftlikli
Marion Feildel
Tuba Ekmekci
Adel Farouk
Jana Gober
Zafer Gi
Jane Haldane
Kathy Hall
Emad Khalil
Sheila D. Matthews, M.A.
Mistie Moore
Muammer Ozdemir
Robin C. M. Piercy
Sema Pulak, M.A.
iikran erenytiz
GiilserSinaa
Murat Tilev
Silleyman Tiurel
AREA DIRECTORS
Douglas Haldane, M.A., INA-Egypt
STAFF (continued)
Maria Upton
Gilnes YaWar
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Jeremy Green
Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton, Ph.D.
John McManamon, Ph.D.
Robert S. Neyland, Ph.D.
Ralph K. Pedersen, M.A.
Brett A. Phaneuf
Donald Rosencrantz
ADJUNCT PROFESSORS
Arthur Cohn, J.D.
David Gibbns, Ph.D.
Faith D. Hentschel, Ph.D.
Fredrik T. Hiebert, Ph.D.
Carolyn G. Koehler, Ph.D.
Wiliam M. Murray, Ph.D.
David I. Owen. Ph.D.
Cheryl Ward, Ph.D.
Gordon P. Watts, Jr., Ph.D.
QUARTERLY EDITOR
Christine A. Powell
Tufan U. Turanh, Turkish Headquarters
SUPPORTING INSTITUTIONS
Australian Institute of Maritime Archaeology
Boston University
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
University of California, Berkeley
University of Cincinnati
Cornell University
Corning Museum of Glass
Department de Arqueol6gia Subacuatica de
la L.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, Uruversity of Pennsylvania
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: Matthew Harpster
Marian M. Cook Graduate Fellow:
Filipe Castro
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