It’s Not a News From Asia… But New Book is out!
Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures With The Institute of Nautical Archaeology
When I first conceived the idea of editing Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, I had in mind a well-illustrated book that would give the average reader the results of shipwreck excavations conducted by the Institute (INA). At that time, for example, I was publishing a book of more than 550 pages on just one shipwreck I had excavated, the first of three planned volumes of the same size. Few people other than a few Byzantine scholars will even look at those large and expensive volumes, but new knowledge of the past gained by the excavation, I thought, could be summarized in just a few pages for the enjoyment and education of both scholars and lay people.
To give readers of Beneath the Seven Seas the vicarious pleasure of being present during each project, I asked the twenty-six other authors to write in the first person, and to describe camp life, diving, and the necessary years of conservation and library research that follow the excavations. When possible, I tried to include pictures of authors in their chapters so that readers could better identify with them.
After I proposed the book to Thames and Hudson, the publisher, I was told that the title was not suitable, for INA did not truly work around the world–”beneath the Seven Seas.” Colleagues came to my rescue. Jeremy Green is Head of the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum, but he began his career as an underwater archaeologist with me in Turkey, and has worked on INA projects from Kenya to Turkey. For that reason, he has for years been listed as an INA Research Associate. For the book he volunteered to write about his projects in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Micronesia. Paul Johnston, Curator of Maritime History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, while he was a student worked on INA excavations from Turkey to the states of Maine and Virginia in the United States, and thus he considers himself part of the “INA family.” He said he wanted to write about his excavation in Hawaii. Soon there were chapters about projects from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, the Black Sea, and the Yellow Sea!
One geographical area I wish I could have included was Japan, with its long history of seafaring. But, unfortunately, the book was planned and near completion before Randall Sasaki’s work there on Kublai Khan’s fleet, partly supported by INA, was fully developed. Perhaps one day he will edit a new edition of the book, with full descriptions of all the new projects that are supported by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.
George F. Bass
