2016

University of Balamand Lebanon Post Doctoral Fellowship – Dr. Lucy Semaan – 2015 -18

The HFF Post Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) granted to Dr. Lucy Semaan for a period of three years, from 2015 to 2018, is the first initiative of its kind by HFF in Lebanon. The research will be undertaken jointly under the supervision of Dr. Nadine Panayot-Haroun, head of the Department of Archaeology and Museology at the University of Balamand, Lebanon, and Dr. Lucy Blue, head of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton, UK. Dr. Semaan will be essentially based at the University of Balamand with regular research stays at the University of Southampton.

The main research interest of this PDF considers the development and the significance of the maritime cultural landscape of the ancient site of Anfeh, in North Lebanon; and poses the question how did people use and modified the waters and adjacent coasts of Anfeh in ancient times? Textual evidence and vestigial remains on the site’s promontory and surrounding underwater environment suggest substantial maritime activity and practices from the Late Bronze Age to the Ottoman Period (Panayot-Haroun 2015). Previous underwater visual surveys were undertaken at the site in the seventies by Chollot (1973: 152), in the early nineties by Amadouny (1999: 61-75), and in the past decade by the late Lebanese archaeologist Michel Hélou^†; but these were not systematic nor comprehensive. In October 2013, an international team of maritime archaeologists under the supervision of Dr. Semaan undertook a preliminary underwater visual survey (Semaan et al. in press). This survey assessed the important archaeological potential of the waters of Anfeh and provided a preliminary idea of the underwater topography and physical settings.

Hence, the focus of this PDF is to pursue and build on these previous underwater endeavours and aims at reaching a wider appraisal of the underwater cultural heritage of the waters adjacent to the site. Underwater surveys would attempt to locate shipwrecks which are indicative of seafarers and seafaring, navigation routes, boatbuilding techniques, and trade. Meanwhile, identifying harbour installations and anchorage points would shed light on the use of the physical environment, i.e. the coastal landscape and shallow waters, as well as on the economy and maritime sustenance at the ancient site of Anfeh. The research area extends from the promontory of Ras al-Natour to the north, stretching along 1.5 km south of Ras al-Qalaat until the geographical limit of the Barghoun River; while covering a 2km² area in the open sea.

In addition, the study of the characteristics of the bio-physical environment of Anfeh (hydrological, meteorological, sedimentological, and oceanographic) would help to understand how these enabled and/or constrained, maritime activity in the past. Thus, there is a need to expand an appreciation of this aspect of the coastal and underwater landscape through geomorphology, remote-sensing, and a study of sea-level changes. This will help reveal the nature of the maritime connectivity of Anfeh’s coast with the sea and neighbouring coastal communities; how the maritime space was experienced through the ages and how this changed over time; and most importantly the maritime accessibility that Anfeh’s coast afforded to people and how cultural and natural agents modified and engaged the maritime landscape.

Finally, this PDF is a crucial step towards promoting capacity building in the field of maritime archaeology in Lebanon, one of the Honor Frost Foundation main goals. It will contribute to the knowledge of Lebanon’s archaeology by establishing a firm three-year maritime research program to investigate an otherwise understudied aspect of one of the most relevant historical and archaeological sites in North Lebanon. The results of this PDF would be published in a monograph to diffuse information and advance maritime research in Lebanon and beyond.

References:

Amadouny, Z.E., 1999. Plongée archélogique sur le littoral libanais, Beirut.

Chollot, M., 1973. Perspectives d’archéologie sous-marine au Liban. Cahiers d’Archéologie suaquatique, 2, pp.147–156.

Panayot-Haroun, N., 2015. Anfeh Unveiled: Historical Background, Ongoing Research, and Future Prospects. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies, 3(4), pp.396–415.

Semaan, L. et al., The underwater visual survey at Anfeh. In N. Panayot-Haroun et al., Mission archéologique d’Enfeh. Résultats préliminaires des travaux de prospection et de fouille 2011 – 2015. Bulletin d’archéologie et d’architecture Libanaises, in press.

Maritime Horizons on Early Cyprus, c. 11,000–1050 BC – Duncan Howitt-Marshall – Interim Report 2016

Introduction

This doctoral thesis examines the role of seafaring and coastal adaptations (modes of subsistence, settlement and economy) in the rise of social complexity in Cyprus from the Late Epipalaeolithic to the beginning of the Early Iron Age, ca. 11,000–1050 Cal BC. The study draws on five seasons of fieldwork on the maritime landscape of western Cyprus, including a case study of an underwater survey near the Late Bronze Age site at Kouklia Palaepaphos and the discovery of 120 stone anchors and line weights (Howitt-Marshall, 2012). The extended chronological framework, broadly couched between the dawn of agriculture and the aftermath of the ‘systems collapse’ of Late Bronze Age palatial centres throughout the eastern Mediterranean, aims to establish Cyprus within its broader, regional and temporal setting. This research, therefore, is rooted in the Braudelian approach to the longue durée of Mediterranean history and closely adheres to Horden and Purcell’s (2000) theme of (maritime) ‘connectivity’.

The evidence for seafaring and coastal adaptations is often overlooked in the study of the development of socio-political forms on early Cyprus. During the Late or Protohistoric Bronze Age (ProBA, ca. 1750/1700–1100 Cal BC), for example, the island is frequently referred to as a ‘crossroads of civilisations’, yet very little research has focussed on the development of maritime coastal communities or the role of seafaring during this period (cf. Howitt-Marshall, 2002, 2003; Knapp, 2014), save periodic references to Cypriot pottery on the Uluburun (Lambrou-Philipson, 1991: 14) or Point Iria (Lolos, 1995) shipwrecks, and the topographical typologies of Bronze Age harbours (e.g. Gifford, 1985; Blue, 1997).

By contrast, in earlier periods, from the end of the Late Aceramic Neolithic (Khirokitia phase) to the Late Copper Age (Chalcolithic), a period spanning approximately two and a half millennia, the island is widely assumed to have undergone social and cultural development in almost total isolation, and is often referred to as a ‘sequestered island society’ (Broodbank, 2010: 251, 255). During this time, there is very little evidence for external contact with the Levant or Anatolia, creating a degree of ‘insular idiosyncrasy’ in the archaeological record and a perceived indifference to alternative, comparatively more advanced technologies and modes of existence on the adjacent mainland (Broodbank, 2013:216).

In the last thirty years, there has been a significant number of small-scale underwater archaeological surveys along various sections of the Cypriot coastline (e.g. Giangrande et al., 1987; Leonard and Hohlfelder, 1993; Hohlfelder and Leonard, 1994; Hohlfelder, 1995a, 1995b; Leonard, 1995a, 1995b, 2005; Manning et al., 2002; Howitt-Marshall, 2002; 2003; 2012; Leidwanger, 2005a, 2005b; Leidwanger and Howitt-Marshall, 2006; 2008; Howitt- Marshall et al., 2016; Howitt-Marshall and Leidwanger, in press;). All have provided valuable insight into the longue durée of the island’s maritime past from the Bronze Age to the present; the location of shipwrecks and cargo scatters, anchorage sites, stone anchors, and so on. Very few, however, have attempted to develop a more holistic approach to the wider maritime cultural landscape, seafaring, marine subsistence, and archaeologies of maritime culture during the prehistoric and protohistoric periods (c.f. Howitt-Marshall, 2002, 2003; Knapp, 2014). The motivation for this study, therefore, is to engage the available evidence for seafaring and maritime lifeways from a range of archaeological contexts on the island, and develop a more holistic approach to the study of early Cypriot society in its broader Mediterranean, maritime context.

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The Analysis of Modern Documentation Methods: A Case Study of a Shipwreck off Veruda Island -Roman Scholz 2015 -16

The Analysis of Modern Documentation Methods: A Case Study of a Shipwreck off Veruda Island – Roman Scholz M.Sc. – Report 2016

ROMAN SCHOLZ, LUKA BEKIĆ, MLADEN PEŠIĆ, MARCO BLOCK-BERLITZ

Summary

The island of Veruda, also known as “Monks’ Island”, is a favourite holiday destination for the citizens of the city of Pula, Croatia. Archaeologists from the International Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar (ICUA) surveyed the Veruda area in the autumn of 2013. They discovered a mound of ballast stones which appeared to be a shipwreck. Small archaeological artefacts and the remains of the structure of a wooden vessel were discovered under the ballast stones. By 2016, the Veruda excavation project was founded by the ICUA Zadar, the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Faculty of Information Technology/Mathematics at the Dresden University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economy (HTW-Dresden). A completely new system of digital documentation was developed and used during excavation in the spring of 2016. In this manner, the complete wooden construction of the vessel was uncovered and a very precise 3D model and drawing were produced by Structure from Motion. The artefacts that were recovered during the excavation suggest that the ship’s cargo consisted of copper scrap metal and some halffinished copper and bronze objects. A few small shards of post-medieval pottery and glass can be dated to the second half of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century.

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The Harbour of Naukratis, Dr Ross Thomas – 2016

The British Museum Naukratis Project’s fifth fieldwork season at Kom Ge’if, Egypt

(Beheira MSA site no.100253)

April–May 2016

Ross Thomas, Alexandra Villing, Astrid Lindenlauf, Ben Pennington, Edwin DeVries, Jeffrey Spencer, Wendy Reade, Louise Bertini, Giorgos Bourogiannis, Ashley Pooley, Camille Acosta, Eleanor Maw, Nicole Colosimo, Ahmad Rezk El Sayed Al Arabi, Waleed Abo Zeid Soliman Nosir, Bassem Mahmoud Morsi Abd El Gawad, Ahmed Abd El Mawla Mohamed Abd El Gawad and Radwa Sami Mohamed El Faramawy.

Read the 2016 Field Report