This paper presents initial data from an ongoing study that employs strontium (Sr) isotopic analysis (Sr-87/Sr-86 ratios) in an attempt to provenance archaeological cedar wood from the east Mediterranean region. Cedar was used in shipbuilding, among other roles, in ancient Egypt and the Near East, and provenance of recovered wood is only surmised in studies to date. As the first step in this dendroprovenance study, a ca. 600 year dendrochronology was developed for living cedars on Cyprus, extending back to about AD 1412. Additionally, Sr-87/Sr-86 ratios for wood provenance are established for two different cedar groves in the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus. The Sr-87/Sr-86 results reflect a closer correlation of cedar wood with seawater than with Troodos ophiolite bedrock, indicating the greater influence of sea-induced rainfall and sea-spray in this island environment. The results of the Cypriot wood are compared to Cedrus libani from Lebanon and Turkey with promising results. Due to the higher value of Sr-87/Sr-86 results for C. brevifolia in Cyprus, versus intermediate and lower values for Turkey and Lebanon, respectively, successful provenance of archaeological wood may be possible. In the future, this method may be coupled with dendroprovenancing techniques for more accurate localized results
In this article, we provide practical and straightforward guidance for the selection and sampling of shipwreck timbers for dendrochronological research. We outline sampling strategies and present informative figures that illustrate how to proceed in a variety of scenarios that archaeologists regularly encounter. However, in order to fully exploit the potential of tree‐ring research on these objects, we would urge archaeologists to involve dendrochronologists during the project planning phase to carefully plan and conduct adequate sampling of shipwreck assemblages.
Sr-87/Sr-86 isotope ratios of cedar wood from forests in the East Mediterranean have been compiled in order to investigate the feasibility of provenancing archaeological cedar wood finds. Cedrus sp. forests furnished a great amount of wood in antiquity, for purposes ranging from ship to temple construction, and for fashioning cult statues and sarcophagi. The Sr-87/Sr-86 signatures of archaeological cedar samples may be compared with the preliminary dataset presented here to help determine the geographic origin of wooden artifacts. Sample sites include two forest areas in the Troodos Massif of Cyprus, five in the Lebanon, and two in Turkey's Taurus Mountains. Sr ratios for wood varieties (i.e., early heartwood, late heartwood, sapwood, and twig wood) demonstrate relative uniformity between the xylem types frequently recovered from archaeological contexts. As such, this pilot study also assesses important issues of archaeological sampling and the geographical factors that influence Sr uptake in cedar trees of this region. While the regional signatures are distinct in most cases, small sample sizes and range overlap indicate the need for additional methods to make a case for a certain source forest. Alone, this method continues to be best used to disprove assumed wood provenances
Drawing on a broad theoretical range from speculative realism to feminist psychoanalysis and anti-colonialism, this book represents a radical departure from traditional scholarship on maritime archaeology. Shipwreck Hauntography asserts that nautical archaeology bears the legacy of Early Modern theological imperialism, most evident through the savior-scholar model that resurrects—physically or virtually—ships from wrecks. Instead of construing shipwrecks as dead, awaiting resurrection from the seafloor, this book presents them as vibrant if not recalcitrant objects, having shaken off anthropogenesis through varying stages of ruination. Sara Rich illustrates this anarchic condition with 'hauntographs' of five Age of 'Discovery' shipwrecks, each of which elucidates the wonder of failure and finitude, alongside an intimate brush with the eerie, horrific, and uncanny.
Following Max Liboiron’s claim that pollution is colonialism, the anti-colonial maritime archaeologist’s role in the Anthropocene might be to reframe research questions, so that focus is directed toward interactions between marine and maritime, and that the colonial ‘resurrectionist’ approach that has dominated nautical archaeology ought to be reconsidered altogether. This normative statement is put to the test with a 4000-year-old waterlogged dugout canoe that was illegally excavated from the Cooper River in South Carolina, USA. Upon retrieval, the affected tribal entities were brought into consultation with archaeologists and conservators to help decide how to proceed with the canoe’s remains. Tribal representatives reached a consensus to preserve the canoe with PEG and display it in a public museum. This procedure follows the resurrectionist model typical of maritime archaeology in the West, now the dominant protocol globally, where the scholar acts as savior by lifting entire wrecks from watery graves and promising to grant them immortality in utopian museum spaces. However, this immortalizing procedure is at odds with some Indigenous values, voiced by tribal representatives, which embrace life cycles and distributed agency. In the end, the desire to preserve the canoe as a perpetual symbol of intertribal unity dominated concerns surrounding the canoe’s own life, spirit, and autonomy, and that plasticizing it would permanently alter its substance and essence. We argue that the object of the canoe has become subservient to its postcolonial symbolism of Indigenous unity, resilience, and resistance. Further, by subscribing to the resurrectionist model of maritime archaeology, the immortalized canoe now bears the irony of colonial metaphor, as an unintended consequence of its preservation. We echo Audre Lorde’s famous sentiment by wondering if an anticolonial maritime archaeology can ever hope to dismantle the master’s boat using the master’s tools. The conclusions reached here have implications for other maritime and museum contexts too, including the highly publicized case of the wrecked 1859–1860 slave ship, Clotilda.
The postface to the book’s five chapters provides a summary of the
overarching argument, which is that nautical archaeology bears with its
contemporary practice its Early Modern origins in Christian theology.
The resurrection—or savior-scholar—model of nautical archaeology is
revisited and critiqued for its tendencies toward paternalism and interventionism,
features that appear to replicate key theological tenets emphasizing
an existential and ontological hierarchy, with humans occupying
the pinnacle. In contrast, the postface conjures Spinoza and Feuerbach
in a séance to offer an archaeology of shipwrecks whose comparatively
anarchic method relies on insurrection rather than resurrection.
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