The challenge of nautical archaeology

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1 A senior archaeologist at the Museum of London, Peter Marsden has also become a specialist in ancient and historic ships. Having excavated Roman, Saxon, medieval and later ships and shipwrecks he is particularly aware of the problems and opportunities that shipwrecks have to offer. A founder of the Council for Nautical Archaeology in 1964, he was later to become a member of a Dutch ‘foundation’ to raise the eighteenth‐century Dutch East Indiaman Amsterdam, which he had investigated at its wreck site near Hastings in southern England. A former member of the British Government advisory committee which defined the Protection of Wrecks Act, 1973, by which historic shipwrecks are protected, he is now Director of the Nautical Museums Trust which was created in 1982 to take responsibility for several historic shipwrecks in Britain.

Notes

1 A senior archaeologist at the Museum of London, Peter Marsden has also become a specialist in ancient and historic ships. Having excavated Roman, Saxon, medieval and later ships and shipwrecks he is particularly aware of the problems and opportunities that shipwrecks have to offer. A founder of the Council for Nautical Archaeology in 1964, he was later to become a member of a Dutch ‘foundation’ to raise the eighteenth‐century Dutch East Indiaman Amsterdam, which he had investigated at its wreck site near Hastings in southern England. A former member of the British Government advisory committee which defined the Protection of Wrecks Act, 1973, by which historic shipwrecks are protected, he is now Director of the Nautical Museums Trust which was created in 1982 to take responsibility for several historic shipwrecks in Britain.

1 . See the article by R. F. Harrison on page 44 of this issue.—Ed.