• January 9, 2026 | 8:00 AM - 10:30 AM
• Continental 6, Ballroom Level

4B: A History of the Mediterranean in Six Shipwrecks (Workshop)

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Organizers:
Elizabeth S. Greene, Brock University

Overview Statement:
In 1966 George Bass published Archaeology Under Water, in which he explained the methodologies of underwater archaeology, highlighted early discoveries in the field, and emphasized the importance of its inclusion within archaeology more broadly. Since then, archaeologists have recognized the Mediterranean as a connecting force, linking vast social, religious, and economic networks, and providing a crucial counterpart to traditional views from land. Now sixty years later, the field has progressed such that David Gibbins could recently write a public-facing History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, analyzing wrecks as time capsules for unique historical moments and worlds joined by the sea.

Recent finds of bronze rams speak for the battles of Punic Wars; archaic Cypriot terracotta votive offerings emerge off the Turkish coast. New trajectories of analysis bring clarity to mechanisms of elite exchange in the Late Bronze Age and the movement of agricultural goods when Athens ruled the seas. Renewed explorations allow scholars to rethink the famous cargoes of bronze statues and architectural marble from Antikythera and Marzamemi. These ongoing investigations offer an opportunity to consider how shipwrecks reveal key events in Mediterranean history, mechanisms of exchange, modes of movement, naval strategies and technologies, and the daily lives of people who lived and sailed on the ancient seas.

Following an opening overview by the organizer that reviews the trajectory of the discipline and current frameworks for the preservation of this heritage—2026 also marks the 25th anniversary of the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage—participants will share brief highlights of their projects, emphasizing current directions, methodologies, discoveries, and modes of analysis. A robust session of moderated questions and audience engagement will reflect on the contributions of shipwrecks to Mediterranean archaeology. Participants consider how their wrecks serve as snapshots of unique moments yet also reveal broader historical narratives; how the stories of individual ships and sailors align with larger datasets from particular regions or periods; how wrecks help us to write social, political, and economic histories; how we can make visible the many different people who moved across the seas and the habits and customs they followed; how shipbuilders responded to technical and environmental challenges; and how new technologies for discovery, new theoretical approaches, and new methods of scientific analysis allow us to ask and answer questions Bass scarcely imagined 60 years ago.