Articles about the Scheme and Marine Archaeology in the Guardian
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‘Running riot through graves’: King Charles urged to protect Goodwin Sands from dredging
Over centuries the treacherous Goodwin Sands off Kent – known as the great “ship swallower” – has entombed more than 2,000 shipwrecks, dozens of second world war aircraft and is the final resting place of thousands. Shakespeare described it as “a very dangerous flat, and fatal”. In 1703, five vessels were sucked into its shifting sands during a storm, including the English warship HMS Northumberland, which only now is yielding its well-preserved secrets. Campaigners fear this unique area is now at risk from destructive dredging for building sand and aggregate. They are appealing to the crown estate, which owns the seabed, and calling on King Charles for support, to protect an area rich in maritime and cultural heritage. Writing to Charles, as a “committed conservationist, head of the armed forces and as a beneficiary of…
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Tags: Kent King Charles III Environment Second world war Crown estate Heritage UK news Down to Earth (newsletter sign up) Archaeology Article Caroline Davies The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
English warship sunk in 1703 storm gives up its secrets three centuries on
The English warship HMS Northumberland was built in 1679 as part of a wave of naval modernisation overseen by Samuel Pepys, a decade after he had stopped writing his celebrated diary and gone on to become the Royal Navy’s most senior administrator. Twenty-four years later, after the ship had taken part in many of the major naval battles of its day, it was at the bottom of the North Sea, a victim of the Great Storm of 1703, one of the deadliest weather disasters in British history. Now, more than three centuries later, the Northumberland is giving up its secrets thanks to shifting sands off the Kent coast, which have exposed a large section of its hull. A survey has revealed that the ship is in a remarkable state of preservation, with not only its timbers but ropes and even unopened …
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Tags: Archaeology Kent England UK news Science Article News Esther Addley The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
‘Long-lived and lucky’ ship wrecked off Orkney was at siege of Quebec, experts find
When a schoolboy running on a beach on the island of Sanday in Orkney last year came across the timbers of a shipwreck that had been exposed after a storm, local people knew the ship might have an intriguing history. Residents of the tiny island at the edge of the Scottish archipelago are familiar with ships that have come to grief in stormy seas, hundreds of shipwrecks having been recorded there over the centuries. But this large section of oak hull, its boards carefully knitted together by wooden pegs, appeared particularly well built and was obviously not recent. The question was, how old was the ship – and what else could they learn about it? Eighteen months after that discovery in February 2024, archaeologists and local volunteers have managed to identify the ship and to piece together the surprising history of a vessel that witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the 18th centur…
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Tags: Archaeology Scotland Heritage UK news The Guardian Headlines UK (newsletter signup) Article Features Esther Addley The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
Expedition to ‘real home of the pirates of the Caribbean’ hopes to unearth ships and treasure
Pirates of the Caribbean is a $4.5bn swashbuckling film franchise and Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham are among marauding buccaneers who have captured imaginations over the centuries. But almost nothing is known about the life and times of actual pirates. Now a leading British marine archaeologist is co-directing an expedition that has been allowed for the first time to search for pirate ships off Nassau on the island of New Providence, a notorious pirate hideout 300 years ago. No one had until now explored the seabed for their ships and treasure, let alone everyday belongings that could be as valuable to historical research as a stash of emeralds, Dr Sean Kingsley said. “The potential is enormous,” he added. “We are expecting to find some really cool stuff because this is the real home of the pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates didn’t keep journals listing their lawlessness. What happened in Nassau stayed in Nassau. If we want to discove…
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Tags: Piracy at sea Archaeology Bahamas World news Science Americas Caribbean The Long Wave Article News Dalya Alberge The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
Archaeological project maps historic boat sheds on Isles of Scilly
Swift, streamlined boats for centuries helped save lives and move people and goods around the treacherous waters of the Isles of Scilly. An archaeological project has highlighted just how crucial the agile, tough “pilot gigs” were for islanders by mapping 90 sites of sheds that housed the boats, the earliest believed to date back to the 17th century. Built for strength and lightness and propelled by six oars, the gigs carried pilots to ships navigating around the archipelago, which lies 30 miles (48km) off the mainland of south-west England. They were also used in rescues and to save cargo from wrecks, as well as supporting the building and maintenance of lighthouses and transporting people and goods between the islands. Until now, there had been no data on exactly how many gig sheds there had been on Scilly in the characterful vessels’ heyday, with previously only about a dozen reco…
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Tags: Archaeology Heritage Cornwall UK news England Culture Article News Steven Morris The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
Explorers unlock the mystery of ‘pirate king’ Henry Avery who vanished after huge heist at sea
In 1695, Henry Avery led his 160-strong crew to pull off the most lucrative heist in pirate history on the high seas, amassing gold, silver, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds worth more than £85m in today’s money. He became the most wanted criminal of his day but vanished without trace and was the stuff of legend for 300 years. Now shipwreck explorers Dr Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan claim to have solved what they call the longest cold case in pirate history: the “pirate king” had entered the service of the king of England, William III, as a spy. Operating within a tangled web of royal espionage, conspiracy and subterfuge, Avery dedicated himself to protecting the English crown from dangers at home and abroad, apparently …
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Tags: Piracy at sea Archaeology Espionage Features History books UK news Heritage Books Daniel Defoe Article Dalya Alberge The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
‘Highway to horror’: 14 wrecked slavers’ ships are identified in Bahamas
They were the ships that carried enslaved Africans on hellish transatlantic voyages through the 18th and 19th centuries, with up to 400 in a single vessel. Now the wrecks of 14 ships have been identified in the northern Bahamas, marking what has been described by a British marine archaeologist as a previously unknown “highway to horror”. The fate of the African men, women and children trafficked in their holds is unknown, but if a vessel was sinking, they were often bolted below deck to allow the crew to escape. Sean Kingsley told the Observer that this extraordinary cluster of wrecks reveals that enslavers had used the Providence Channel heading south to New Providence, Cuba and around to New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. These ships, which date from between 1704 and 1887, were mostly American-flagged, and profited from Cuba’s sugar and coffee plantations, where enslaved Africans faced a life of cruelty. Kingsley said: “Cuba pre…
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Tags: Slavery Bahamas Archaeology Americas World news Cotton Capital (newsletter signup) Article Features Dalya Alberge The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
Race against time to unlock secrets of Erebus shipwreck and doomed Arctic expedition
Archaeologists have made hundreds of new finds on the wreck of HMS Erebus, the ship commanded by Sir John Franklin on his doomed Arctic trip 180 years ago. The team’s discoveries include pistols, sealed bottles of medicines, seamen’s chests and navigation equipment. These are now being studied for clues to explain the loss of the Erebus and its sister ship Terror, and the deaths of the 129 men who sailed on them. The work is considered to be particularly urgent because the wreck of the Erebus – discovered 10 years ago in shallow water in Wilmot and Crampton Bay in Arctic Canada – is now being battered by increasingly severe storms as climate change takes its grip on the region.
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Tags: Exploration Arctic Archaeology Oceans Climate science Polar regions Climate crisis Heritage 3D UK news Article News Robin McKie The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
UK and France to investigate Dunkirk shipwrecks from second world war
Churchill called the mass evacuation of allied forces from the beach and pier at Dunkirk a “miracle of deliverance”, but the operation to rescue more than 330,000 troops trapped by German forces in May 1940 came at a heavy cost. Of the up to 1,000 vessels, from military warships to fishing boats, lifeboats and pleasure craft, that scrambled to help the stranded men, hundreds were sunk during the nine-day Operation Dynamo with the loss of many lives. More than eight decades later, French and British archaeologists are embarking on a joint survey of th…
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Tags: Second world war France Heritage Archaeology Military Europe World news UK news Article News Esther Addley The Guardian Main section UK news UK Home News
‘Norfolk’s Mary Rose’: remains of 17th-century shipwreck go on display
The remains of a 17th-century royal shipwreck will go on display in Norwich as part of an exhibition exploring its last voyage. The Gloucester sank off the Norfolk coast in 1682 while carrying the future king of England, Scotland and Ireland, James Stuart, then the Duke of York. The royal passenger was saved, but as many as 250 people drowned. Artefacts rescued from the wreck will be displayed for the first time, including wine bottles, a urine flask, spoons, the mouthpiece of a brass trumpet, parts of a woman’s shoe, combs, clay pipes, a leather pouch and the ship’s bell. The exhibition, at Norwich Castle museum, also features underwater footage filmed last summer by the divers and brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell. The ship is split down the keel and the remains of the hull are submerged in sand, but items including an anchor, rope and cannon are visible in the film, along with glass bottles. Also visible are fishing nets that…
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Tags: Archaeology Norfolk UK news First Edition (newsletter signup) Article News Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill UK Home News
‘A search for ourselves’: shipwreck becomes focus of slavery debate
In 2015, a delegation from the Smithsonian Institution travelled to Mozambique to inform the Makua people of a singular and long-overdue discovery. Two hundred and twenty-one years after it sank in treacherous waters off Cape Town, claiming the lives of 212 enslaved people, the wreck of the Portuguese slave ship the São José Paquete D’Africa had been found. When told the news, a Makua leader responded with a gesture that no one on the delegation will ever forget. “One of the chiefs took a vessel we had, filled it with soil and asked us to …
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Tags: Shipwrecked Seascape: the state of our oceans Slavery Portugal South Africa Mozambique Archaeology Africa World news Environment Europe Article News Features Sam Jones The Guardian Main section International UK Foreign
Worm-eaten shipwreck of Captain Cook’s Endeavour under threat from more marine animals
The wreck of Captain James Cook’s Endeavour is under threat not just from shipworms, but also from fish, crustaceans and the ocean itself, maritime archaeologists warn. The wooden ship rests off the coast of Rhode Island in the US, and is already worm-eaten. Experts from the Australian National Maritime Museum say time is critical in the race to save parts of the wreck that are important both historically and for future study. In February, the museum announced the identity of the wreck at the site known as RI 2394. That announcement caused a stoush with the Rhode Island custodians, who said it was premature. However, the museum says it has the evidence it needs and wanted to use the declarat…
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Tags: Australia news Archaeology Oceans Marine life US news Science Wildlife Environment Article News Tory Shepherd Australia News
Shipwreck of Captain Cook’s Endeavour being eaten by ‘termites of the ocean’, expert says
There are fears the wreck of Captain James Cook’s Endeavour is being destroyed by shipworms, the “termites of the ocean”. In February the Australian Maritime Museum announced that the shipwreck, in waters off the coast of Rhode Island in the US, was “the final resting place” of that famous historical ship. The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (Rimap) challenged that assertion, sparking a transatlantic spat over the site known as RI 2394. Related: Row erupts over wreck in US waters identified as Captain Cook’s Endeavour Now an expert has told the Boston Globe that he has fo…
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Tags: Australia news US news Archaeology Marine life Oceans Environment Article News Tory Shepherd The Guardian Main section Top stories Australia News
After 350 years, sea gives up lost jewels of Spanish shipwreck
It was a Spanish galleon laden with treasures so sumptuous that its sinking in the Bahamas in 1656 sparked repeated salvage attempts over the next 350 years. So when another expedition was launched recently, few thought that there could be anything left – but exquisite, jewel-encrusted pendants and gold chains are among spectacular finds that have now been recovered, having lain untouched on the seabed for hundreds of years. The Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas (Our Lady of Wonders) went down on the western side of the Little Bahama Bank, over 70km offshore, but the newly discovered treasures were found across a vast debris trail spanning more than 13km. Allen Exploration, with Bahamian and US marine archaeologists and divers, was licensed by the Bahamian government to explore the Maravillas scientifically and is committed to displaying the finds in a new museum in the Bahamas. An elaborate, gold filigree chain, with rosette motifs, …
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Tags: Archaeology Bahamas Science Marine life Gold History Museums UK news Article News Dalya Alberge The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
Marble head of Hercules pulled up from Roman shipwreck site in Greece
For archaeologists, it’s the underwater find that keeps on giving. A Roman-era cargo ship, discovered by chance off the Greek island of Antikythera more than 120 years ago and regarded as the world’s richest ancient shipwreck, has yielded yet more treasures in the most recent explorations of it, including the missing head of a statue of the demigod Hercules. “In 1900, [sponge divers] pulled out the statue of Hercules [from the sea] and now in all probably we’ve found its head,” said Prof Lorenz Baumer, the classical archaeologist who is overseeing the underwater mission with the University of Geneva. “It’s a most impressive marble piece,” he said, describing characteristics that bore all the hallmarks of one of the great heroic figures of Greek and Roman mythology. “It is twice lifesize, has a big beard, a very particular face and short hair. There is no doubt it is Hercules.” The discovery of the sculpture – along with the plint…
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Tags: Greece Archaeology World news Europe Article News Helena Smith The Guardian Main section International UK Foreign
Row erupts over wreck in US waters identified as Captain Cook’s Endeavour
A 22-year partnership between US and Australian researchers to identify James Cook’s ship the Endeavour has descended into a row after the Australian Maritime Museum announced the discovery. The museum’s chief executive, Kevin Sumption, announced on Thursday he was satisfied that a shipwreck in waters off Rhode Island in the US was “the final resting place of one of the most important and contentious vessels in Australia’s maritime history”. But the museum’s US partner organisation, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (Rimap), said the claim the Endeavour had been identified was a breach of contract, and blamed “Australian emotions or politics” for the “premature” announcement. The museum responded that it was not in breach of any commitments, and that Sumption was “confident” the wreck was the Endeavour. Cook sailed the ship around the South Pacific before landing on the east coast of Australia in 1770. It was scut…
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Tags: Australia news US news World news Archaeology Article Tory Shepherd Australia News
Fruit baskets from fourth century BC found in ruins of Thonis-Heracleion
Wicker baskets filled with fruit that have survived from the 4th century BC and hundreds of ancient ceramic artefacts and bronze treasures have been discovered in the submerged ruins of the near-legendary city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Egypt. They have lain untouched since the city disappeared beneath the waves in the second century BC, then sank further in the eight century AD, following cataclysmic natural disasters, including an earthquake and tidal waves. Related: Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets Thonis-Heracleion – the city’s Egyptian and Greek names – was for centuries Egypt’s largest port on the Mediterranean before Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 331BC. …
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Tags: Archaeology Egypt Middle East and north Africa Heritage Article Features Dalya Alberge The Guardian Main section International UK Foreign
Deep sea robots will let us find millions of shipwrecks, says man who discovered Titanic
He is the celebrated deep-sea explorer who discovered the Titanic, as well as the German battleship Bismarck and other historic sunken vessels around the world. Now Dr Robert Ballard is pioneering cutting-edge technology – autonomous underwater vehicles that will “revolutionise” the search for more than three million shipwrecks that lie scattered across ocean floors, according to a Unesco estimate. Many will offer new insights into life on board at the time of sinking, hundreds or even thousands of years ago. “We’re going to be finding them like crazy,” Ballard told the Observer. “It’s going to be rapid discovery because of th…
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Tags: Exploration Oceans Archaeology The Titanic Science Technology UK news Article News Dalya Alberge The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
Will Britain’s future archaeologists discover a plastic-coated coastline?
Eleven metres under the sea at Bouldnor Cliff, off the Isle of Wight, is a revealing archaeological site where our ancestors lived 8,000 years ago. The finds, which divers discovered when a lobster excavated flint tools from a burrow, include a large number of wooden objects that showed early settlers made platforms next to the sea and built boats. The wood, which survived only because of waterlogged anaerobic conditions, is fast disappearing because of tidal erosion. The finds also give insight into diets including burnt hazelnuts and show wheat arrived in Britain 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. This was a time when Britain was still part of the continent and the Channel an inhabited valley. Sea levels were rising sharply as the huge ice sheets from the ice age melted. After millennia of stability, sea levels are rising again and we are losing glaciers and ice sheets ever faster in response to heating of the atmosphere caused by humans. Sci…
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Tags: Weatherwatch England Sea level Climate crisis Archaeology Article Features Paul Brown The Guardian Main section Weather UK Weather
Was King Solomon the ancient world’s first shipping magnate?
King Solomon is venerated in Judaism and Christianity for his wisdom and in Islam as a prophet, but the fabled ruler is one of the Bible’s great unsolved mysteries. Archaeologists have struggled in vain to find conclusive proof that he actually existed. With no inscriptions or remnants of the magnificent palace and temple he is supposed to have built in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, the Israelite king has sunk into the realm of myth. Now British marine archaeologist Dr Sean Kingsley has amassed evidence showing that Solomon was not only a flesh-and-blood monarch but also the world’s first shipping magnate, who funded voyages carried out by his Phoenician allies in “history’s first special relationship”. Over 10 years, Kingsley has carried out a maritime audit of “the Solomon question”. By extending the search beyond the Holy…
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Tags: Archaeology Spain Europe Science The Bible Religion UK news World news Article News Dalya Alberge The Observer archive Main section News Observer Main
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