The HFF Team in Lebanon

The recent growing coastal urbanization in Lebanon has constituted one of the main threats to the coastal and underwater archaeological resource in the country. The Honor Frost Foundation has therefore combined efforts with the Directorate of Antiquities, Ministry of Culture, Lebanon in order to contribute to the study, inventory, protection, conservation, and management of the country’s maritime heritage. HFF has established a team of seven members including: Dr. Lucy Semaan, Dr. Naseem Raad, Dr. Enzo Cocca, Dr. Nicolas Carayon, Mario Kozaily, Elissa Nader and Edmond Tannous. 

The main objective of the team is to efficiently respond to the needs in case of rescue archaeology sites. While combining both terrestrial and underwater archaeological interventions, the team adopts a seamless approach between land and sea to the study of the maritime environment and its material and immaterial culture. To that end, several methods are deployed ahead of development projects at targeted sites such as coastal and underwater diver-based surveying, the application of remote-sensing technologies and photogrammetry recording, as well as generating a digital database and a GIS platform. 

When Frost first came to Lebanon in 1957 she dived at numerous underwater sites, which she either had personal knowledge of or learnt about from local maritime communities. Her main interests included coastal landscapes, harbor archaeology, shipwrecks, site formation processes, and a typology of anchors, all focused on the major three ancient harbors in Lebanon, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. However, she also undertook surveys in smaller towns on the Lebanese coast. She believed in a multi-disciplinary approach to archaeology, looking beyond the object to understand the community that produced it. She also demonstrated an understanding of the intrinsic link between archaeology and sea-level changes coupled with other geological factors. Hence, the HFF Lebanon team is carrying on from Honor Frost’s work in the country by assisting Lebanese archaeologists operating in coastal environments and filling in the expertise gaps where needed.

The Honor Frost team in Lebanon also endeavors to develop local capacity through raising the profile of the different stakeholders and create awareness towards Lebanon’s maritime heritage. This aspect of the HFF Lebanon team echoes Honor Frost’s vision. Indeed, when Angela Croome described Honor Frost, she said Frost used her “attention to and flair in nurturing the young”, It thus important for our local team to shape the minds and skills of Lebanese archaeologists with a penchant for maritime archaeology.

HFF Lebanon Projects

Click here to find out about the current projects our team in Lebanon are working on

Minor in Marine Sciences and Culture

Click here to find out more about the work HFF Lebanon is doing with the American University of Beirut

Find out more about the activities of the HFF Lebanon Team on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages

Lucy Semaan

Lucy Semaan has been HFF’s lead maritime archaeologist in Lebanon since 2019. Lucy has participated in and directed international maritime and terrestrial archaeological surveys and excavations, as well as marine geophysical, geoarchaeological, and capacity building and outreach projects in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arab world since 1996. She also teaches the Minor in Marine Sciences and Culture at the American University of Beirut (AUB), and has lectured in maritime archaeology in Lebanon and abroad. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Archaeology from the Lebanese University, a Master’s degree in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton (2007) and a PhD in Arab and Islamic studies with a focus on maritime archaeology from the University of Exeter (2014). From 2016 to 2018, Lucy was awarded a three-year HFF-funded post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Balamand, Lebanon.

Naseem Raad

Naseem Raad is a maritime archaeologist currently serving as the Academic Coordinator for the Marine Sciences and Culture Minor at the American University of Beirut. He acquired an MA in Archaeology from the American University of Beirut (2015), an MA in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton (2016), and successfully defended a PhD entitled 'Roman Beirut: An Analysis of Economic Systems and Maritime Commercial Networks' in 2020 at the University of Southampton. His research centres around historical economics and maritime trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the olive oil and wine industries in the Classical Period.

Elissa Nader

Elissa Nader is HFF's assistant maritime archaeologist. She completed a degree in arts and archaeology at the Lebanese University, a minor in Marine Sciences and Culture at the American University of Beirut, and a Msc in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton. Her thesis focused on public engagement with maritime cultural heritage in museums, taking Lebanon as a case study.

Edmond Tannous

Edmond Tannous is the newest addition to the HFF Lebanon team. He holds a BA in both Graphic Design and Audio visual studies and is a professional underwater photographer. He is also a dive master, and currently undertaking his diving instructorship program. Edmond has been working on the HFF-Lebanon’s Modern Shipwreck Project since 2020 as a photographer and photogrammetry expert, and more recently as an ROV pilot and technician during underwater survey projects.

Enzo Cocca

Enzo Cocca is a GIS Expert in underwater and terrestrial survey for the Honor Frost Foundation in Lebanon. He has worked in many countries across the MiddleEast, Africa and Central Asia. From 2016 to 2019 he was Project manager of the Al-Khutm UNESCO site (Bat- Oman). His main research interests and professional skills are prehistory, archaeology, Bronze age, lithics, archaeological data management, spatial databases, geostatistics, GIS, burial practices in Arabia, social complexity, subsistence strategies in arid and coastal environments. https://www.adarteinfo.it/

Nicolas Carayon

Nicolas Carayon is an archaeologist and geoarchaeologist specialising in harbour and coastal areas. He is based at Marseille at the Ipso Facto company (http://ipsofacto.coop). He successfully defended a PhD entitled “Phoenicians and Punics ports. Geomorphology and Infrastructures” in 2008 at the Strasbourg University. He has been involved in several coastal project in Lebanon since 2002 and he is now in charge of the geoarchaeological approach to the lebanese coastline in relationship with the different Honor Frost Foundation funded project in Lebanon.

Mario Kozaily

Mario Kozaily is the HFF Lebanon chief diver, he is both a recreational and technical diving instructor and has been participating in several underwater archaeological projects since 2013 in Anfeh, Beirut Damour, Sidon, Adloun, Zahrani, Kharayeb as chief diver and logistics management.

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