Shipwrecks and Sunken Cities

This podcast with us. Frank is the president of the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology, and he's one of the world's foremost maritime archaeologists. He's also senior visiting lecturer within the School of Archaeology here at the University of Oxford. Perhaps his most famous work has been in Egypt, where he rediscovered the ancient harbour of Alexandria and

The sunken cities of Heracleon and East Canopus. Although he also has extensive research interests in Cuba and the Philippines, where in conjunction with the National Museum of the Philippines he's excavated ancient shipwrecks dating from the eleventh to the So I suppose the first question, Frank, must be how did you get involved in maritime archives? I have always been fascinated by history and archaeology. Although my studies were more mathematical

And I started my career in economics and finance. One day I thought let us take care of the serious matter. And I dove in archaeology.

So in terms of underwater archaeology, what do you think are the main challenges? The underwater archaeology requires, I would say, more logistic than land. and the challenge is also not to disperse yourself and to have a good, like in archaeology, to have good programs, very well studied before you start any research.

So your research is really quite extensive, um in many many countries. Could you tell us a little about each of the places that you work in? Yes, uh of course. Uh the main focus is the relation between the man and And uh of course it does involve the trade, the migration, the discoveries, but also the In Egypt we are working on Alexandria Portus Magnus and we map the second part of the city. En Aboukirbe, en Égypte, nous découvrons un mât.

cities of Heraceon, Tonis and Canopus and we are performing excavations there every year since now more than twelve years. For the Philippine uh the focus is more uh trade relations in the non high region between Philippine, China, Philippine and the surrounding uh countries. Philippine is uh go at six thousand island. That's of course trade relations and uh cultural interchange by boats and by maritime routes are essential to Philippines.

Thus uh we uh started a very vast programme in the eighties with the National Museum of the Philippines and we are still going on with that programme. Uh we have also a project in uh Cuba where we focus more on the discovery period of the American

That's all very exciting. Um underwater archaeology though is is notoriously very expensive. How do you fund Yes, underwater archaeology requires a very heavy logistic, I would say. And all those projects can be only funded by sponsors. and we have sponsors which are following us for all our activities and the ET Foundation is supporting. So if we can first look at Egypt, what first drew your attention to the search for the sunken cities?

When you consider that some text are talking about cities which has never been found, which must have been port for some of them and you see the coast of Egypt. And in that coast of Egypt those cities were never discovered. Thus you could think that natural phenomena made those cities. And my idea is that those cities were never discovered because they were not online. And whoever look for them and spot them by chance like that on land we're doing mistakes.

Thus, with the Supreme Council for Antiquity of Egypt, we started a vast survey. programme in nineteen ninety two and thanks to that programme and thanks to a very heavy geophysic survey which still lasting as a matter of fact, we were able to discover some very important archaeological sites at more than seven kilometers away from the course actual course of present course of it.

Trying to identify those sites we performed excavation, very um spotted excavation and we were able to identify thank to the artifacts, the city as well. city of Herakion, Tonis, and then the city of Cannabis. So out of all the discoveries in in Egypt, which have been which do you think have been the most important? They are of different I would say important

but and a different type of importance. I would say that the mapping of the Portus Magnus of Alexandria is an important work which is still uh going on. Of course, the discovery of the city of Heraceon and the discovery of inscribed in artifacts. Which proves that Erachion and Tonis was one and the same city is also a nice achievement for the team. In Canopus, the discovery of the temple of Seracus. with the loss of the decade close by was a great achievement of the team.

So clearly uh the sites themselves have given a great deal of uh evidence about life in uh these port cities. If people are interested, how can they find out more about it? Of course, uh we have uh done pu uh scientific publication, grand public books also and uh movies. And you can refer to our site on the web and uh there is a gallery of picture and there is also some scientific report and a progress report on all our activities.

And uh I think it's uh it could be interesting. And also there's the exhibition. Yes, we have decided with the Supreme Council of Antiquity of Egypt to uh create a large exhibition which is called uh Egypt Sanken Treasures and uh that exhibition is travelling around the world and has a beautiful had a beautiful success.

In Oxford we're very fortunate in that we have uh Centre for Maritime Archaeology, which you yourself helped to found, um and we work in close collaboration with you. What was your decision? What was be the reasons behind your decision to work I think with my team we were working in so different types, so different fields. involved in such a different period of time civilization. That to study all this material.

To get the best of what we could map and find we needed a kind of huge reservoir of knowledge and science. and uh looking around the world uh when you speak you s you think about uh archaeology and science in history, the first world uh which comes is Oxford and I saw Köszönöm szépen, köszönöm szépen, köszönöm szépen, köszönöm szépen. in Egypt, in the Philippines, in the America, to study and to publish uh all the material we are coming across. Have you found any unexpected benefits of work?

I think the unexpected benefit is that at the beginning we made a collaboration on Egypt and that collaboration is now wide widening and uh opening to to the Philippine and maybe to the America and I think uh Also uh the fact that students are making uh their masters, their PhD on some material material that we are finding, it's a great achievement because it links history with the future and I love that.

So you uh you really enjoy the tea? Yes, I I love to give some lecture and what I love to do is to give some lecture on very recent results which give life you know, to um to what we are doing with the team and also as a kind of uh interesting flavour for the attendants and the students which And so do you have uh intentions to uh to build up the

I would love to do this. We are working since nineteen eighty five with the National Museum of the Philippines, for example. We have still Huge program ahead of us to illustrate all the maritime trade in the Nanhai region with the National Museum of the Philippines. We have to perform a geophysic survey, we have to perform new excavation and it will be beautiful is if Oxford for uh the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology will be fully involved in the process.

of geophysic survey, excavation and publication. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Philippines and the... We decided with the National Museum of the Philippines to study what is very important for the Philippines. and to sta to study it from the period of the Norsong Dynasty up to the eighteenth.

And to illustrate the various periods by finding the vector of that trade that means shipwreck studying their cargo, what they were importing, what they were exporting, and uh To link that study with what has been found during archaeological excavation on land mainly on burial site and to make a parallel between what is found And what is the origin of those ceramic for example or the type of artifact that we are finding online?

look having them on b on the boat all together because once a boat arrives to a trading post the the goods are scattered And they are they are also, I would say, discriminated.

the rich people we take the very nice artifacts, the poor people who would have taken the course uh ceramic etc. And when you uh do excavation of burial sites, you might not have the true picture of the trade for example of ceramic in a certain period If you find a boat of that period of time, you will find inside the same boat the coarse ceramic, the very fine ceramic, but also all the objects which were important.

iron woke, the bronze gong, the brasset in bronze, the iron ingots, uh, the uh glass beads, etc. And y you have a clear idea of the world trade of that period.

So there clearly is an intense trading network that's happening in the South China Sea in which the Philippines plays a major role. Do you think it's re exporting its good the goods to elsewhere at the same time? Of course, uh the boats that we are finding clearly indicate to us that there were I don't know if we can speak about Emporia, but let us say some port were gathered from different regions of the non-high.

and re exported other world to other regions. It's a very it was a very complicated, very integrated trade and very busy. It certainly seems as if it's it's one of the foremost periods of uh of world trade and is uh in in many ways a forerunner.

the trading systems that we have today. Do you do you make that explicit link within Yes, we do uh make that link because after the internal trade of the non that there has been a relay towards the western country thanks to the Acapulco Canyon, which lasted for 200 years at trade through the Pacific. Then after you had also the direct link between Asia and a European or American country, thanks to the Indian Mail, which were linking directly Canton to Dan.

Uh we have a kind of a pattern which expand from the very beginning of the non high trade, then towards the America to Acaba by Acapulco and then directly to a Western country. And uh you can follow the extensions in the maritime trade during the period of eight hundred years.

And so you're clearly interested in this crucial period where there is contact with European colonial powers and the changes that happen. And you you look at this in the Philippines but also uh out in Cuba. Uh could you say a little bit more about your work Yes, I I am fascinated by the fact that the trade brings contact cultural contact and cultural interest. This has happened of course in the Philippines but it has also happened in Egypt.

Uh the port of Erakaeon was the main emporium of Egypt before Alexandria has been founded and this It was a a place of contact, a place of uh cultured meeting there. And we have the archaeological proofs of that and it's fascinating. The same for the Philippines. When you find for example a Spanish Guyon and you see all the influence from the West, from the East, from the Arab world, in the artifacts that uh you are finding in that Guyon, you can understand.

the mixture of culture, the encounter of culture and you can also understand that uh the uh trade we are becoming global.

Turning now to the future, uh if you uh y you use a great deal of high um mini submarines to dive to great depths and very sensitive magnetometers to to map the seabed. Where do you see technology going? I think we have to uh use the technology of our time to make our work more efficient. Of course, when we see how people were excavating 20 years ago, we say, oh, we are doing a much better work than...

people has have done twenty years ago. But we have to expect that within twenty years we will look at our work and say, What a disaster, what have we made there? We could have done um uh Eddie and study on this and on that and that we have not done. Thus I think uh All technology which could be applied should be applied, and one of the points which could help us a lot is I would say i i it seems very simple, but tagging an artifact.

giving inside the artifact its identity and also its history of course how this was done You had a nice tag and you were saying that artifact found in that position that year by this person and very few elements of identification. If you could c consider that y you can put an electronic device, a microelectronic device which will give all this information and which will be linked to that piece for ever.

i it could be something very interesting when you consider always the objects that you find in the reserves of the museum and you look at an object and you don't know from where it's coming or you have lost its history. using most of his interest for the science. And um this is something we could we should study and we should develop I think. So finally, if there if you could pick out one single aspect of your work, one single find, one single idea.

What would it what would your what would it be? I would think that uh we could summarize all the work done by the team with one hour. It's a steel, black granite steel, that we found in the city of Herakia. That steel speaks... about the trade, establish the city as an emporium.

speaks also about religious context you know link with the trade and even social and commercial subject about the custom rights that people Paid, but the custom right is for such a temple, etc. And then at the end the still mention that that city of is the city, the famous city of Tunis. Thus, in one artefact, you found the uh I would say a summary of all our work. Our work is about maritime trade but it's about establishment

of uh emperor and port. It's also about culture uh mixing each other and we have the Greek here mixing with the Egyptian etc. Uh you have everything summarized in one piece. I would say It summarizes twenty-five years of work. Thank you very much. Thank you very much and thank you very much to Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology and I think we will have uh a lot of work to do in the future. Thank you.