At the 6th Maritime Archaeology Graduate Symposium (MAGS) held in Ioannina, Greece, Professor Lucy Blue spoke with Radomír Tichý from the University of Hradec Králové, Max Šámal (Charles University of Prague) and Aleš Panáček (Archaeopark Všestary) about a series of expeditions called “Monoxylon”. Hear how a team of Czech experimental archaeologists successfully reconstructed and navigated a replica of an 8,000-year-old Neolithic logboat discovered with five other boats at La Marmotta, a submerg...
Jun 18, 2025•26 min•Season 5Ep. 1
In the last of a series on coastal archaeological sites and climate change, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Alex Kent, Coastal Connections Lead, a global partnership between English Heritage and World Monuments Fund. Learn how Hurst Castle, a coastal fort built on England’s southern coast is falling into the sea due to undercutting of the shingle due to storm surges and, like hundred of other sites globally, is suffering from the impacts of climate change. By bringing together communities aroun...
Apr 30, 2025•20 min•Season 4Ep. 4
In the third of our four-part series on climate change and the threat to maritime cultural heritage, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Georgia Holly, Project Manager of the Cultural Heritage Framework Programme (CHFP), that sits under the umbrella of Ocean Decade Heritage Network (ODHN). Remarkably, it is the only programme that integrates the marine cultural heritage into the Ocean Decade and is recognised by mainstream ocean sciences. Discover how the CHFP engages with maritime cultural project...
Mar 26, 2025•17 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Athena Trakadas, Co-founder and Co-Chair of the Ocean Decade Heritage Network (ODHN) about the role of cultural heritage within the United Nation's Ocean Decade, as part of our mini-series on climate change and its impact on marine and coastal heritage. Hear how the Ocean Decade endeavours to bring marine cultural heritage experts together with the other ocean scientists. Sitting within the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-30), is an i...
Mar 13, 2025•18 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Professor Lucy Blue asks Dr Colin Breen, Associate Head of School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Ulster University to outline the issues of climate change and its impact on marine and coastal heritage, in the first of this new Dive and Dig Series that explores this pressing theme. Although the climate has been changing over many millennia, we are now seeing the pace of change occurring at a much greater rate together with increased intensity of storms, all driving loss to heritage in t...
Feb 05, 2025•15 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Professor Lucy Blue is in Egypt with a team of specialists co-directing a project with the Universities of Southampton and Ulster as part of the MarEA (Endangered Maritime Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa) project. Together with experts from the Universities of Alexandria and Mersa Matruh, Egypt they are utilizing satellite imagery and other technologies to explore the western section of the north African coastline of Egypt. This approach has revealed an extraordinary number of an...
Dec 11, 2024•21 min
Professor Lucy Blue is in Naples speaking with Pierre Poveda (Center Camille Jullian, CNRS), a maritime archaeologist who is co-leading, with his colleague Franca Cibecchini (DRASSM, french ministry of Culture), the excavation of a shipwreck lying in French waters between Cannes and the Île Sainte-Marguerite, home to Fort Royal. The wreck dating to around 180 BC is well preserved, with its entire port side buried beneath masses of dead roots of Posidonia seagrass. A few small wooden artefacts, i...
Nov 06, 2024•15 min
Travel with Professor Lucy Blue to the village of Imbotero, Guyana to meet Dr Robert (Bob) Holtzman an expert in traditional boatbuilding to learn about the Warrau dugout canoe. Twice daily tides in the tropical mangrove swamp mean canoes are essential for survival of the indigenous Warrau people. Not only are they used for transportation, but also for foraging in the forest for land crabs, fishing and visiting neighbours. Over two field seasons Bob paddled around the villages in a canoe observi...
Sep 25, 2024•21 min
Professor Lucy Blue delves into the wreck of The London, a 17th century warship, with diver and licensee Steve Ellis. The ship exploded and sank in the Thames Estuary in 1665 and was rediscovered in 2005 when a ports authority survey was being conducted. Since 2010, Steve has been directing the survey of the vessel and recovering artefacts with permission from Historic England. A Second Rate vessel in the English Navy, The London was carrying 76 guns and a mix of over 300 crew and family readyin...
Aug 21, 2024•21 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks with associate Professor in Egyptology, Dr Claire Somaglino from the Sorbonne, about two decades of excavation at the site of Ayn Soukhna at the northern end of the Red Sea in the Gulf of Suez. During Pharaonic times, this important site was occupied over an extensive period, as not only was it close to the important centre of Memphis, but there was a spring, an oasis with trees and a sheltered anchorage, making it a perfect harbour. Rock inscriptions led to its discov...
Jul 10, 2024•19 min
Recorded live on the island of Cyprus, Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Constantinos Nicolaou a leading expert in Cypriot traditional boat building. Costantinos recently headed up a training workshop hosted by the Honor Frost Foundation’s Cyprus Regional Development Project, that brought together experts from the eastern Mediterranean region working on traditional boat recording. Costantinos directs a project that documents the remaining working boats in Cyprus and maps out different topologies and...
Jun 14, 2024•13 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Professor Giulia Boetto from the French National Centre for Scientific Research about what is possibly the oldest fully hand-sewn boat to be discovered in the Mediterranean. First spotted by fisherman in Zambratija Bay off a beach in northern Croatia, closer examination by archaeologists revealed small holes in the planks. Could this be a boat sewn together rather than built by the more common mortise and tendon method? Hear how French and Croatian researchers set a...
May 08, 2024•20 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks with archaeologist Dr Harald Lübke from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology about a recent discovery in the Baltic Sea off Germany that may be Europe’s oldest human-made underwater megastructure. Christened the ‘Blinkerwall’, it’s a continuous low wall made of hundreds of granite stones that stretches for around a kilometre. Could it have been constructed by hunter-gathers more than 10,000 years ago and if so, what was its purpose? Hear how by bringing together archaeol...
Apr 10, 2024•15 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Mohamed Mustapha Abd El-Maguid, from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt. An expert in ancient ship construction, he has installed a reconstruction of a late Roman-early Byzantine ship in the recently re-opened Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, Egypt. The pearl of the Mediterranean, Alexandria was the centre of trade and commerce. To illustrate the city’s importance in trade during ancient times, Mohamed was asked to use amphora from the museum stor...
Mar 06, 2024•14 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Crystal el Safadi who has recently recovered from a series of unfortunate events sailing the Kyrenia- Liberty. It is the third replica reconstruction of the 4th-century BC Greek merchant ship discovered in 1965 off the coast of northern Cyprus. Built in 2002, it has been on several voyages, however this one in September last year proved to be challenging. As part of the Eastern Mediterranean Experimental Sailing project, Crystal and her team set sail from Limasso...
Feb 07, 2024•15 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Chris Dobbs who has been working at the Mary Rose Trust for over 40 years, initially as an Archaeological Supervisor excavating King Henry VIII’s flagship off Portsmouth and in the last few decades as Head of Interpretation at the Mary Rose Museum. Believing that you need to tell the stories behind the objects and the people who used them, he uses smells and sounds to help bring the Tudor artefacts alive and bring maritime archaeology to the larger public. He was in...
Dec 13, 2023•16 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Professor Dave Parham from Bournemouth University who has been diving on the remains of 1944 Valentine Tank assemblage in Poole Bay. Made buoyant by the addition of a canvas skirt they proved essential in getting armoured support onto the beach during the historic D-Day landings. Scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act means they are protected by law. On a recent inspection the turret on one tank was found to have been pulled off. There were no obvious clues as to...
Nov 22, 2023•17 min
Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Dr Lisa Briggs and Dr Peter Campbell from the University of Cranfield who have been searching the deep waters of the Straits of Sicily using micro-AUVs - autonomous underwater vehicles. Deployment of these small, agile vehicles has enabled the team to map large areas of this busy maritime highway of the Mediterranean. The team aim to locate historic remains and ancient shipwrecks, and have consulted local fisherman for potential targets as they trawl the seabed and ...
Nov 01, 2023•23 min
Join Professor Lucy Blue as she discovers why the loch waters in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland are peppered with hundreds of artificial islets, known as crannogs. Here she speaks to a director of The Islands of Stones project team, Professor Fraser Sturt from the University of Southampton who has been investigating these small islands built of stones and layers of timbers. Originally thought to be settlements dating to the Late Bronze-Age and medieval periods, their work reveals they are a succes...
Oct 11, 2023•23 min
Professor Lucy Blue is captivated by the Nabataeans – the ancient Arab traders best known for their rock-cut capital of Petra. Here she speaks to Michele Stefanile from the University of Naples Federico II about two recently located submerged Nebataean temples in the Bay of Naples. Prodigious traders, the Nebataeans traded in luxury goods from the Arabian Peninsula such as frankincense and shipped grain and bitumen from Egypt via Alexandria to Rome through the ancient harbour of Puteoli (now kno...
Sep 21, 2023•21 min
Dr Lucy Blue speaks with a number of team members working under the direction of Professor of Simon James at the site of Dreamer’s Bay on the southern tip of Akrotiri Peninsula in Cyprus. At this ancient port complex discoveries range from an ancient mole – or massive stone breakwater, a wreck with a cargo of tiles, and stone anchors among other remains possibly dating to the Roman or Byzantine periods. The site poses many questions, including why the breakwater is where it is and what was the r...
Aug 30, 2023•17 min
Professor Lucy Blue chats with maritime archaeologist, Dr Daniel Pascoe about discovering the 17th century 70-gun warship, the HMS Edgar. Dan explains how a combination of boundless determination, in-depth archival research and geophysical investigations helped identify mounds that appeared to be the remains of the ship blown apart by sloppy storage of gun powder. By probing these mounds and digging test pits Dan and his team uncover artefacts and human remains that identified them as remains fr...
Aug 09, 2023•24 min
Maritime archaeologist, Lauren Tidbury speaks with Garry Momber, Director of the Maritime Archaeology Trust about what they have been discovering in the intertidal zone along the coast of Britain. This area between high and low water is revealing amazing ancient structures. Learn how during recent work off the New Forest has revealed posts dating back 3000 years to the Bronze Age and others even older – 5,200 years dating to the Neolithic. Learn how these are being interpreted by mapping their d...
Jul 13, 2023•18 min
Join Lucy Blue as she discusses the ancient Red Sea Port of Berenike in Egypt with Steve Sidebotham, site co-coordinator. Excavations at this trading hub have been conducted since the mid-90s, discovering evidence that it was connected to extensive areas of the world and was operating for around 800 years since the 3rd century BCE. According to Steve, greed drove the extensive trade here, but success required help from the gods, and recent work has unearthed Buddhas at the Temples of Isis and Se...
Jun 29, 2023•21 min
Welcome to Dive & Dig news, presented by Dr Lucy Blue, the podcast that takes you on an underwater journey deeper than you might have imagined ! In this episode, Lucy speaks to Mark Beattie-Edwards, CEO of the Nautical Archaeology Society, about the recent discovery of the Klein Hollandia off the coast of Sussex. How have Mark and his team been able to identify this shipwreck so accurately to solve a centuries old mystery?
May 18, 2023•28 min
In this episode we are in Malta at the Under the Mediterranean conference, Lucy catches up with Julie Satchell and Anna Demetriou to talk about maritime archaeological archives and oral histories. They have such huge potential to tell us about the history of our discipline and to uncover previously untold stories about our maritime past.
Mar 30, 2023•18 min
To celebrate International Women's Day we are excited to share this interview on Deep Water Archaeology with Barbara Davidde and Franca Cibecchini, using advanced technology they are exploring ever greater depths and discovering ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. #IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity
Mar 08, 2023•30 min
In this episode we hear about three fascinating research projects on wrecks discovered under the Mediterranean. Presented as part of the Under the Med conference in Malta these projects include a Roman cargo ship, the remains of an ancient sea battle off the Egadi Islands, and a 16th century merchant ship off Croatia. The team delve in to the archaeology and the archives to tell the stories of our ancient past.
Feb 16, 2023•23 min
In this episode we head to the Mediterranean and discover more about Inclusive Maritime Heritage in Southeast Sicily. We explore the ancient fishing traditions of the Marzamemi, discuss shipwrecks, connectivity, and the innovative, reflexive ways the team are working with local communities to tell the story of their maritime past. #maritimeheritage #sicily #mediterranean #inclusive #histories #marzamemi #tunafishing #ethnography #archaeology
Jan 20, 2023•13 min
In this episode, we look back to Honor Frost's first dive in a well in Wimbledon 70 years ago this week, a pivotal moment for the field of maritime archaeology. We also speak with Claire Calcagno about her discovery of an unknown and unfinished book in Honor's archive, the Second Life of a Phoenix, all about her work on the 3rd Century BC Punic Shipwreck off Sicily.
Dec 15, 2022•12 min
