a storm from the north wrecked two of
the ships and the soldiery brothers
mussels onto a reef we were the first
people to discover this shipwreck and
the reason being because it was such a
remote part of the world its son an
island and the Indian Ocean 25 miles off
the coast of Oman
we went back into the Portuguese
archives and we found a letter from one
of the captains of one of the five ship
to letter to the king explaining how the
ships actually sank and where they sank
since then the actual excavation has
been a very major expedition between
ourselves and the Oman government the
starting team was about 10 persons in
2013 the last time we went out at the
end of 2015 we had 54 people on board so
it built up to be a very large
expedition itself I’ve had
archaeologists professional divers
anthropologists people who could operate
magnetometers people who were very
detailed in terms of our GPS positioning
aware of thing is cameramen
photographers aerial photographs but
beyond that is another layer of
scientists and specialists who helped us
actually confirm the provenance the age
and the identity of this shipwreck and
that’s the key to the science that we’ve
completed
whether its twentieth century of the
early 16th century a shipwreck sites a
scene of tragedy it’s a scene of great
death so it’s it’s a place that you
treat with respect because many people
died there this is very shallow water
science so we’re talking 2 meters to 6
meters so we’re using handheld
magnetometers metal detectors all of our
positioning was done with differential
GPS that’s a very precise method the
excavation was done using an airlift
system driven by a air compressor and
that was one of the logistically most
difficult things to do we had to use a
heavy-lift helicopter from the that’s
our precious air compressor courtesy of
the Royal Amani Air Force put it in the
lovely position for us
we’re very early into the archeological
assessment of the 2800 individual
artifacts for the first time we’re
seeing some very rare African ceramics
we have Asian ceramics from the Ming
Dynasty so these are the sorts of
details that the archaeologists over the
next several years are going to be
teasing out from this collection while I
have felt confidence a long time ago and
you know nearly 18 years the captain of
one of these ships was called Vicente
sodré be yes it really has been very
satisfying and fulfilling to do all the
scientific analysis and that has been a
necessary exercise but it’s been an
enjoyable one as well hard but enjoyable
you
the ships and the soldiery brothers
mussels onto a reef we were the first
people to discover this shipwreck and
the reason being because it was such a
remote part of the world its son an
island and the Indian Ocean 25 miles off
the coast of Oman
we went back into the Portuguese
archives and we found a letter from one
of the captains of one of the five ship
to letter to the king explaining how the
ships actually sank and where they sank
since then the actual excavation has
been a very major expedition between
ourselves and the Oman government the
starting team was about 10 persons in
2013 the last time we went out at the
end of 2015 we had 54 people on board so
it built up to be a very large
expedition itself I’ve had
archaeologists professional divers
anthropologists people who could operate
magnetometers people who were very
detailed in terms of our GPS positioning
aware of thing is cameramen
photographers aerial photographs but
beyond that is another layer of
scientists and specialists who helped us
actually confirm the provenance the age
and the identity of this shipwreck and
that’s the key to the science that we’ve
completed
whether its twentieth century of the
early 16th century a shipwreck sites a
scene of tragedy it’s a scene of great
death so it’s it’s a place that you
treat with respect because many people
died there this is very shallow water
science so we’re talking 2 meters to 6
meters so we’re using handheld
magnetometers metal detectors all of our
positioning was done with differential
GPS that’s a very precise method the
excavation was done using an airlift
system driven by a air compressor and
that was one of the logistically most
difficult things to do we had to use a
heavy-lift helicopter from the that’s
our precious air compressor courtesy of
the Royal Amani Air Force put it in the
lovely position for us
we’re very early into the archeological
assessment of the 2800 individual
artifacts for the first time we’re
seeing some very rare African ceramics
we have Asian ceramics from the Ming
Dynasty so these are the sorts of
details that the archaeologists over the
next several years are going to be
teasing out from this collection while I
have felt confidence a long time ago and
you know nearly 18 years the captain of
one of these ships was called Vicente
sodré be yes it really has been very
satisfying and fulfilling to do all the
scientific analysis and that has been a
necessary exercise but it’s been an
enjoyable one as well hard but enjoyable
you
Please follow and like us: