BRIEF HISTORY OF UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY

Earliest known search in water started in Lake Nemi near Rome. In 1446, Italian architect Leon Batista Alberti searched for two Roman vessels sank at the lake. Since he only found mere pieces of wood, he didn't draw to much attention.

In 1535 Alberti's successor used first time an instrument which was a wooden bell girded by metal. This special device which left the divers hands free was extremely useful.

1802 British Ambassador, the Earl of Elgin ordered that the freezes of Parthenon to be taken to England. The ship which was carrying the cargo sank near the Kytera with its precious cargo. Skin divers form Samos were hired to rescue the freezes. Just holding their breath, Samos divers rescued the freezes. In 1816 Lord Elgin sold them to British Museum where these are still displayed.

1819 German inventor August Siebe invented divers helmet which was miniaturized version of diving bell. This copper helmet which only covered the head was fed by a pump from the surface. This device obliged the divers to stand upright, if not their helmet would be filled with the water.

1827 Annesio Fusconi used diving bell which had 2.5 meters diameter for the Roman shipwrecks at the Lake Nemi.

1836 Deane Brothers who worked as salvage divers for British Government discovered remains of Mary Rose, British ship with historical significance. Mary Rose had been captized by the French Fleet in 1545.

1839 A. Siebe added watertight suite to his helmet. This great invention which gave great mobility to divers was used for nearly a century.

1853-4 After a prolonged drought, the levels of many lakes in Europe went down and revealed the wooden posts. It was suggested that these were the remains of wooden dwellings built on the lakes. Discoveries at these lakes led to the new search on the other lakes.

1870 First underwater campaign carried out by French Banker, Magen who was willing to discover the riches of Spanish Galleons, sank by British Dutch war fleets, while returning from America. During this organized underwater excavation newly invented underwater light projector was first time used.

This search also draw attention of the scholars to one major point. First of all, during this 744 hours total diving time some of the divers got ill and suffered from unexplained diseases.

1878, Paul Berth an Sorbonne professor put forward the theory that divers problem came from the diluted gas in their blood while they were bread and under the pressure.

In the spring of year 1900, in Antikythera, northern Crete, Greek divers who were returning from North Africa discovered a shipwreck with notable cargo consisting of marble and bronze statues. With the support of Greek Government, a great number of statues were raised to the ship from 40/55 meters depth to the surface of the water. The finds of Antikythera shipwreck caused great arguments among the scholars. Some dated the wreck to 4thcentury BC. But some others suggested the bronze statues were already antique ones when the ship sank and as to marble statues these were Roman copies of Greek Originals and dated the ship to a later period. A further study on amphorae showed that the shipwreck dated to 80 or 70 BC and ship was carrying a cargo of statues originating from west coast of Anatolia. This was possibly Pergamon.

During the 9 months of diving, one of the divers died and two became invalid for the rest of their lives.

Few years after the Antiqitera casualties, Scottish physiologist John Aldine conducted experiment with the divers of the Royal Navy and published first diving tables to avoid the decompression sickness covering up to depths. of 60 meters. Unfortunately it was too late for Antiqutera divers.

1907 Mathia Bronzes Tunisia

It was once more a Greek sponge diver located the location of ancient shipwreck filled with bronze statues and ancient pillars. Tunisian Archaeological department with the financial help of American millioner conducted the digs lasting five years. The result of the expedition was amazing. Statues filled five galleries of the Bardo Museum and had no rivals with the exception of Pompeii and Herculanium finds. Throughout the dig, the archaeologists and art historians stayed at the surface of water and just conducted the work. In those days, the archaeologists were not in the water yet.

1928 Research at lake Nemi by Mussolini

Italian dictator Mussolini decided to discover the Roman ships at Nemi Lake. After the use of powerful German built pumps, two great Roman ship were discovered at the lake. although these ships were built for the lake, it gave information on the Roman ship building methods. Unfortunately, two ships were destroyed by German troops while they were retreating in 1944.

In 1937 ,the aqualung was invented and invention opened the gates of underwater to the world. During the World Fair in Paris, divers demonstrated with aqualung which was manually supplied.

1943, invention of air regulator which supplied air from the tanks with compressed air. Scuba made the divers using their hands freely in the water.

1946 the aqualung or scuba( self contained breathing apparatus) was made avaible to public. The freedom given by the scuba led people to discovery of many new sites at the Mediterranean Sea.

1950s underwater archaeology started using scientific methods.

During the early years of underwater discoveries, the archaeologist were not present at the bottom of the sea. This work was accomplished by the divers who followed the instructions of the archaeologist. Of course this remote controlled work caused some problems. Many amphorae and shipwrecks were damaged because of the carelessness of the salvage companies and divers. Archaeologists soon realized to collect objects from the bottom of the sea was not enough.

1950 Peter Throckmorton discovered in Athens, in National Museum a very important piece showing the assembly of the planking with the use of wooden tenons and mortise.

1953 First time a prototype of underwater television was used. The technicians archeologist watched the work of divers from their armchairs.

1953 The great underwater discoveries in Turkey started when sponge divers discovered bronze statues of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and fertility. Izmir Archaeological Museum bought the statue.

1955 First Conference of Underwater Archeology was held in Cannes where the archeologist spoke of massacre of artifacts and amphorae during the Salvage operations. This was a turning point. Everyone agreed that archeologist were needed at the bottom of the sea and the excavation of an underwater site should not be considered as  'fishing for the amphorae'.

American Journalist, Peter Thockmorton came to Bodrum in 1958 and took part in underwater search with sponge divers from Izmir. Turkish sponge diver Kemal Aras guided Peter to Gelidonya, Gelidonya wreck,  loaded with bronze ingots. situated in the west of Antalya and  He dived to site.1959 Peter dived to the wreck and recognized it as Bronze age shipwreck. He  informed University Of Pennsylvania about this site. He also manage to  persuade a field archeologist, George Bass to excavate there. The dig at Gelidonya revealed great information on the Bronze Age shipwrecks and ship building techniques of the ancient times on the Eastern Mediterranean. This was also first underwater dig in Turkey and  first time a metal grid was used to mark the location of an excavation site on one of the shipwrecks.

1957/59 A different approach was tried in Sweden after the discovery of five shipwrecks at very swallow waters. Swedish archeologist built a cofferdam around the shipwrecks and pumped the water and excavated these ships.

A great number of classical Shipwrecks were discovered on the French Mediterranean Coast.

The Yassiada shipwrecks, excavated in 1961 at Yassiada, showed us two major ship building methods: shell first and frame first techniques. This was also first underwater excavation in the proper meaning where archaeologist used metal grid system.

Serce Limani Wreck

Uluburun Shipwreck

From this date on, the archeologist chose their sites to improve their knowledge on ship building techniques.