So what we're going to do this morning is just to have a conversation about the foundation of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
So I'm its current director, I'm Damian Robinson,
and this is my colleague Franck Goddio from the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology, for which you're the president of.
So, Franck, could you tell us a bit about the collaboration?
How did it begin? It's now 20 years, which is a long time for this sort of thing.
You're right. 20 years already. The idea was that we were performing underwater excavation, survey, topographical work.
And what is important
is the study of the material and scientific publication and also teaching and training new archaeologists,
You know, to have a flow of newcomers, you know, in that field.
And we thought that, ideally, we could
have a cooperation with Oxford University and the School of Archaeology in order to perform all those tasks.
And so how did that happen then? Did you just get in touch with the university or...
Yes, with a friend of mine,
she's now working in Germany, she had studied in Oxford University.
And she told me, ideally, Oxford could, I would say, fill all the gaps
we had and we got in touch with the Oxford University and it all started like that.
So I know that you talked to my colleagues, Sir Barry Cunliffe, and Bert Smith and Andrew Wilson about this,
and then the collaboration came together, I think quite quickly after that, with the help of the Hilti Foundation.
Yes, with Barry, Bert, Andrew
collaboration really started at once.
As a matter of fact, we had a short discussion, 1 or 2 days, and then we defined the line of what could be a perfect cooperation and we,
managed to finalise all paperwork within a month and we established the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
And now it's over 20 years later since those initial meetings.
So your aim for this collaboration then,
was to help to train the next generation of maritime archaeologists or at least introduce people to the subject,
and then also to think about publications, conferences, fieldwork, those sorts of things.
How do you think that has gone?
I have to say that it went better that even I thought at the beginning,
because my idea was also to have a kind of a reservoir of expertise in order to study all artefact, and all data that we were gathering on site.
But I thought most probably we will not fill all the gaps.
But it so happened that, yes! Everything, from weaponry from the 4th century B.C. to Hellenistic architecture.
There is everything there. You know, which is a kind of dream, and also the cooperation,
teaching and training new student students and performing symposia, conferences, went very, very well.
And it's very active. And I love that.
I certainly think that's one of the great things that we've done is
to kind of broaden out what the research is about and to bring in lots of Oxford scholars into it.
So last night we were talking to one of our colleagues who studies the coins from your excavations,
which is giving us really interesting new insights into the kind of the use of coinage in Egypt at that time.
Yes. Each subject can be studied in depth.
And, what is very important also is our scientific publications.
And this the key thing in archaeology and on that field, we have performed quite well.
I think during the past 20 years with monography, symposia, renderings.
Yes, absolutely. I think we're up to our 10th monograph.
And there's at least another ten in the works, which is a testament to the huge excavation that,
we're part of. And a lot of art and scientific articles, here and there,
in scientific magazines. Yes.
And also, what is important is, bringing this to the grand public, through books,
exhibitions, even movies, you know, and that's it's a very broad cooperation that we have developed together since then.
I think. So, certainly as an academic, the opportunity to take part in these large excavations is one thing,
but then being challenged to think about how we tell the story of that
to a larger public audience, for me has been one of the highlights of this cooperation.
Yeah. This point is very important because it attracts also new students and new
Expertise, I would say, which will come towards you and feed the cooperation.
Well, it's definitely one of the things, I've had students that have come up to me at the end of lectures that say,
I chose to come here specifically because I went to an exhibition in the British Museum or when they were in America,
and that inspired me to think about underwater archaeology.
So I think that's an absolutely fantastic testament to how we reach out to people.
Then, the thing is, the Hilti Foundation then provides funding for our students
to work on bodies of material, which then feed into your publications,
and the publications all come out of the School of Archaeology as well.
So this excavation through post excavation to publication cycle, I think is really important.
It's one of the great features of the collaboration that we've got.
I think is a key issue because, of course, is bringing knowledge,
as a result of the excavations to historians and to the grand public, but is also preparing the future
for excavations on those sites or elsewhere in the world,
thanks to new underwater archaeologists, young archaeologist coming into the field.
I think that's one of the great things for us and for our students is that the
scale of the excavations in Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus and Alexandria are so huge,
and the number of artefacts that are coming from it also pristine and important because of the catastrophic destruction
of some of the aspects of it, that we get a chance to look at material that we would never otherwise see.
So things that are unique, things that are wonderful,
So for us, it's a privilege and a challenge, which is what you go into academia for, I think.
Yeah. It's a true challenge, I have to say, because we are talking about whole cities.
You know, Thonis-Heracleion was a port of entry to Egypt was a Greek port,
a large port, and had also very important sanctuaries.
Military garrison in order to control the entrance to Egypt and all that are different aspects of ancient life, military, religious,
daily life, Navigation. In the port basins we discovered more than a hundred ancient shipwrecks that each of them could be excavated,
and studied. We have two centuries of work ahead of us and our cooperation.
So 20 years is only just the beginning, then? Yes, it's just a start.
Franck, when the collaboration between OCMA and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology and the Hilti Foundation started 20 years ago now,
you'd already found the lost city of Thonis-Heracleion, you'd already found Canopus and the royal quarters in Alexandria.
One of the things that has amazed me is, how you keep the research going on, and how you continually come up with new questions.
How would you do that? The more we work on those sites, the more we understand that we can go much deeper in the knowledge of the site.
At the beginning, you are performing topographical surveys as you have to discover the site.
Then after you have to draw the layout of those sites.
The map, I would say, of those cities with their port basin, temples, main monuments, etcetera.
Then after, you have to excavate, you know, in order to try to identify the main monuments, to identify shipwrecks and excavating it,
of course, you go deeper into the knowledge of those sites.
And to take an example, as for a temple, once you have discovered,
you have drawn the layout of that temple, you will start excavation in order to identify it.
And then when you have identified that sanctuary, you have to go even deeper
and the excavation will reveal how those sanctuary were, I would say, living,
what were the ceremonies performed in there, for example, in the temple of
Amun-Gereb, we went very deep into the knowledge of the celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris,
which was something very, very, very little known before.
And if we can go in depth into that. Thus, the questions are raised year after year, a new problematics come to you.
So that's really a testament to the long term foundation that the Hilti Foundation have enabled with continual support over this time.
So, lots of continual funding enables you to approach the site in a way that is almost unique, I think,
in archaeology with that long term view, let's start with the detailed topography, and then let's get into the more interesting questions.
because I think where we are now is, is at a stage where we're saying, okay,
we know perhaps where the main temples are, but now let's think about life in the city.
And that's one of the... it's becoming more fascinating as time goes on.
I think it's of a prime importance
this cooperation with the Hilti Foundation because it enables you to draw
historical issues to define long term work on some historical issues.
And you are not to put forward a discovery by chance or something, you know, that
you have to discover that, and then you have to go in-depth, how those temples were functioning,
what about the people praying there?
So you go very much into detail, and you even enter to the soul of the people.
You know, how they were thinking, how they were praying, what were they believing.
And certainly so if we think about, say, one of the temples that that you've worked on.
So there's the temple of Khonsu-Thot, which was a very early foundation in Thonis-Heracleion, but only has a very short lifespan.
Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Yes, it's a very strange temple, Thonis-Heracleion was a gate of Egypt, so there was a garrison controlling the entrance to Egypt,
but Military garrison was something, but not enough. For the people of that time
it was very important to have the sanctuary of the god, which is watching the gate of Egypt and protecting Egypt from invasion.
And this is why we knew most probably there would be somewhere a temple to Khonsu-Thot.
And we found it, dating back from the 7th, end of 8th to 7th and ending its
activity by the 6th century BC and most probably, that activity stopped because of change in the Nile direction.
branch direction, and most probably, that sanctuary was no longer well orientated compared to the Nile flood.
And it had to be rebuilt somewhere else.
Yeah. So one of the things that amazes me about that temple is the very careful way that it was taken apart,
piece by piece, presumably so that the temple could be recycled somewhere else in its rebuilding again.
But how then the rising sea level forced the complete abandonment of that site.
Yes. And the sealing, I would say, everything was sealed.
You know, and which was good for us, you know,
under 2 or 3 m. of sediment and the few things that they forgot to take away were very, very instructive.
We could have, on a bronze plate, the name of the god, the identity of the temple and a few artefacts,
few coffins of hawks or ibis, you know, which was, of course, confirming the identity of that temple.
It was very interesting. And it's a kind of disappearance
but we have another kind of ending
activity of temple, in Thonis-Heracleion, by earthquake and tsunami and total destruction with landslides in a fraction of a second.
You know, this was the case of the main temple of Thonis-Heracleion, the temple of Amun-Gereb.
It's a kind of a dream for underwater archaeologists,
that the temple more or less slid into a channel and filled the whole channel,
which was flooding to the south of the temple, and we are discovering here
the whole temple destroyed, of course, but it's a giant puzzle that you have to reconstruct.
Absolutely. And that's one of the great things about such a long term project is that, you can have multiple year long campaigns on
excavating and then reconstructing the destruction horizons from this point.
So this period that you're talking about is the final phase, more or less, in Thonis-Heracleion,
which is completely destroyed by earthquakes, by tsunamis.
Do you feel that destruction horizon, that catastrophe is
what archaeologists dream about finding, isn't it?
It's a terrible event, but it has an enormous potential for us to understand the life of the city at that point.
Of course, it was unfortunate for the people of that time.
But like in Pompeii, you know, we have there an underwater Pompeii, you know, which has not been
destroyed by volcano, but by Tsunamis,landslides and total submersion under the sea.
The site of Thonis-Heracleion, you've probably looked at about 2 to 5% of it?
There's so much more for hundreds more years.
Yes, I think since now ten years, I say that we have not excavated more than 5% of the site of Thonis-Heracleion, but unfortunately
every year we find out that there is even more than
what we thought and I have to decrease that percentage every year from now.
And so what really we're doing is laying the foundations for future archaeologists, both future archaeologists,
through their education, but also future archaeologists to do their Fieldwork in these amazing sites in Egypt.
You're right. We are, I think, paving the way for future archaeologists on those sites,
and this is why when we started excavation on a particular site,
we never fully excavated that site because, when you are performing an excavation,
you are doing perturbation, of course, and you are doing it with the best knowledge and the best technique of your time, you know,
but you have to understand, you have to know that within a year or century,
maybe, the techniques will be much more sophisticated, much more elaborated.
Thus, you have always to let to future archaeologists samples of
what they could work on with the new techniques and future technology.
Absolutely. I think it's very important.
I compare archaeology, it's a bit like surgery, you know, before the X-ray and the technology we have today,
surgeon had to open in order to see what was happening in that part of the body without prior knowledge.
Now you have MRI, you have Doppler, you have scanner, you have X-ray, and you have pre knowledge of what you will find.
And you will define exactly where you have to do the surgery.
Exactly the same in underwater archaeology. The more
you can have prior knowledge of the site without perturbing the site by the new technologies that we are developing,
I think the better.
And let a part of the site to future archaeologists in order that they could study with a new technique of their time.
Oh, absolutely. Yes. And that's the way that you've looked at the shipwrecks.
For example, over 100 shipwrecks have been discovered in Thonis-Heracleion.
And yet you've only looked at six of them.
So that's, that's leaving a legacy for the future.
We have a body of knowledge that we're publishing now on some very well excavated finds.
And then for the future, there's another 80, 90 wrecks.
There's a huge potential for the future. And even on some shipwrecks, we are not fully excavating the shipwreck,
and we are always leaving a small part for future studies and future technique to be applied there.
Franck, if we can now think about
technology, I think, is one of the great things that I've picked up from working alongside you is that as technology changes,
you've been very quick to kind of take the next step and to use the latest technology as it comes out,
and also to think ahead about where we can go with, with various things.
So one of the publications that we're working on now is on J3, which is the small rowing boat
from Alexandria, from the harbour there that we found.
But how did you discover it? It was a little bit of a challenge.
We have a huge quantity of sediment in Alexandria.
And when we have performed magnetometric survey with our nuclear resonance magnetometer,
everything was garbled with modern garbage everywhere.
And the result of it was quite poor.
Though we had very, extremely sophisticated nuclear resonance magnetometer.
Thus, I thought let us use another instrument, and we went to sub bottom profiler there.
Of course, after having performed the multi-beam bathymetry survey,
which, okay, gives you everything on the surface, but nothing inside the sediments.
And it so happened that the existing sub bottom profiler
were of no use, I would say, or very little use there.
Not enough accurate and not enough sensitive on that.
And thus, we came up to cooperate with a company developing a new kind of sub bottom profiler,
parametric sub bottom profiler, which gives you in 3-D what could be in the sediments.
And we performed survey in the royal quarter of Portus Magnus of Alexandria.
And there we gather billions of data, billions.
And then comes the time where we have to study those data.
And it was nearly impossible.
So much data there was.
Thus, I thought let us to try to use AI,
you know, on this. And I defined an area where I knew perfectly what was in that area of a 100 by 100 metre,
and I cut it into slices like that of 20 cm by 20 cm longitude latitude,
and ten cm levels, you know, and I made the drawings of what I could see in the data.
600 drawings latitude, 600 drawings longitude and 600 drawings in levels.
And then I knew what was there because we had excavated there.
We found a shipwreck, we found a pillar, etc. Thus, I tried to develop an algorithm which could see what I knew
was in that area and with my drawings, you know.
And, it's so happens that I reached a 67% of accuracy.
The algorithm was saying, okay, at 67%
I can see what you are telling me is there.
And I was not satisfied. Thus, I went on and they algorithm now said 100%,
but it did not work because it was for the algorithm to see exactly that and it could not work.
So I stayed at 67%. And then I fed the algorithm with all the data we have.
And you see here I can see a shipwreck and here I can see a shipwreck.
And I looked at the tiniest one. Thinking yes,
this one most probably is true. This one? Yes.
I think it's very true, and there. But this very small one in the middle
Is it true or not? And I decided
an excavation on that very little spot, 4 or 5 m. long, under 1.8 m of sediment, something strange, and it so happened that
yes, the algorithm was right. It was a small shipwreck there.
J3, that we have excavated and also are planning on that shipwreck
new technology like underwater stereo photogrammetry, 3D, etc. and we apply also, ...
we use the new unit of Wood identifications that we have created together
in Alexandria. And we will shortly publish that small shipwreck.
We will. But the idea that you can use AI now, which is really
the kind of the cutting edge of scientific research in many areas
to kind of predict where shipwrecks are probably going to be in Alexandria from the data is fascinating.
And then to demonstrate that by actually excavating the smallest of them
is great, because the result that is come from that is, that we found a very small rowing boat
that is probably a ship's boat.
So these things have never been found before in the archaeological record.
And traditionally, as an underwater archaeologist, you know, we would never have found it, would we?
Because you would swim across the bottom of the of the seabed in Alexandria.
There's nothing sticking out. It's 2 to 3m. deep into the sediment.
So actually having a technique that enables you to look deeper into the sediments and then find these things and excavate them is perfect.
So I'm very excited about J3 and the results that have come out of it.
You mentioned the work that we've done on identifying the different timbers from the ship,
which is really interesting because what it's helped to demonstrate is that this is probably,
a little boat that's been made in Italy and has come, or has been dragged across the Mediterranean,
behind a very large cargo ship, going to Alexandria.
So it really starts to think about those great trade routes
around the Mediterranean that Alexandria is that central hub of, especially in the east.
So I think J3 is a remarkable find.
But then it's only one of a whole number of remarkable finds from Alexandria.
It shows also that we are going deeper into the knowledge of the Portus Magnus because we are finding a cargo ship.
But also those small Skiff of long boat, I would say , or very small
long boat of ship and we are going deep into the activity of the port.
How that boat was transporting a
damaged anchor to be repaired.
Thus, you see okay, the boat was leaving the main Cargo boat there going to that pier.
And it's interesting to see. And it matched,
also the topography of the Portus Magnus, the different basins, piers.
And you can see the life of that port,
great port, coming up.
And that particular ship, well, small boat, it just also gives you a very human moment of when it sinks.
Because of your knowledge of how the port is laid out and where we found the ship,
well the boat, you can see that it was heavily overloaded with this extremely big anchor.
And then it kind of rode out across the mouth of one of the ports,
and it's clearly been hit by a big wave at that point and has tipped and has just sunk.
And so you get that snapshot of the disaster and the picture in your mind of,
the people kind of swimming around and trying to get back to shore.
And that's what the potential of this form of archaeology does, is it gives you that very tiny moment in from the past.
Yes. And, how was this port was functioning?
What was the life of the people there? I mean, we are finding
amphorae nearby that pier and of that period.
I also want to take you to another part not very far from J3, which is the Iseum.
So the temple of Isis, which, we've spoken about the long term nature of this, and I know you started digging the Temple of Isis
was it in the first year of your project in the Portus Magnus?
It's a very good example.
In the very first year of excavation in the Portus Magnus of Alexandria, we discovered a fabulous statue of a priest holding a Canopic vase.
Two sphinxes close by and okay, we looked around and we saw big slabs.
And thought, Okay, those statues have been left over and there is nothing around, and okay we went to another place to study.
Then thanks to this bathymetric sub bottom profiler,
after the survey, I saw that close to the site where we have found those statues,
as a matter of fact, we were not on the island, but we were at the bottom of a port.
And those statues were just remaining lying on some large slabs,
which went down to the slope during the destruction of the temple.
And it was a totally different story because I thought that in that case,
the whole temple or part of the temple might be at the bottom of a port, and we started to excavate nearby.
And yes, as a matter of fact, most of the temple went sliding into the port.
And we have there architectural elements, columns, ceramics, coins, treasury of the temple and ritual instrument.
Everything is there. And, what we thought was at the beginning
three nice statues, become now the temple to Isis.
And we know the story of the temple. We know where, when it has been founded,
who were the pharaohs who consider the temple as very important for their own cults, etc. and we are going much deeper in the story of that sanctuary.
So who was it that founded the temple?
The Foundation of the temple, I cannot say, but what I can assert is that, Ptolemy XII, father of Cleopatra VII,
restructured that temple at the beginning of the 1st century BC.
And that temple became extremely important in 76 BC when Ptolemy XII decided to Institute a Cult to his own person as the new Osiris.
And this was, as a matter of fact, his own temple, which was, of course, used after his death by
his daughter, Cleopatra VII, who considered herself as the new Isis as it was a temple of Isis and Osiris, of course.
And it was a personal temple of the Queen, as well as Antony, who considered himself of the new Dionysos,
the new Osiris, as it was a temple of prime importance for those times.
And when Augustus took over Egypt, of course, he could not destroy the temple.
He could not abandon that temple because it was so important for the clergy of Egypt, for the priests of Egypt.
So he converted that temple to the goddess Isis protecting the fleet, bringing the grains, the wheat from Egypt to Rome.
And it was Isis protecting the fleet, the yearly fleet to Rome,
and it went functioning until an earthquake destroyed it in around 52-55 AD.
So really, it's a temple that has some of the most famous people from antiquity.
It's a temple that's attached to a royal palace on the royal island of Antirhodos, that was graced by Antony, Cleopatra, Augustus.
It's a fascinating spot to be excavated, especially because it's all destroyed and then slid into the harbour.
And it's just there to be excavated. Excavated over the long term, excavated in a very careful and systematic way.
and the results of that which have come out about the changing use of the temple,
especially as Egypt goes from being a Ptolemaic kingdom to part of the Roman Empire and how the nature of the goddess changes over that time,
I think is is absolutely fascinating.
You're about to publish this. These ideas aren't you? Yes, of course,
the excavation is not finished. But I thought it would be important, and we discussed this together with OCMA,
to have a monography on that because it's so rich, we'd say in knowledge that it's important.
It's a milestone, you know, and then after we go on excavation and we will find new things and we refine our knowledge of that sanctuary.
But I think it's time to have a monograph on that subject.
Certainly, I mean, that's one of the things that we're going to do
in this mission that's coming up shortly is to use our RTI scanner.
So to scan lots of the small lead tokens, that have been found on the site so that we can try and get some more detail,
for the final publication of that. Yes, I think,
those new technologies are helping us quite efficiently, in order to study all the materials,
the thousands of artefacts that we are finding on those sites. And enables also
and make easy the study of those bulk of material.
So this use of new technology is seen in the work of one of our students, Leonie Hoff,
who's been using 3D scanners to actually look at fingerprints that are embedded within the terracotta of the statuettes that she's looking at.
And I find this a fascinating approach to, to it, because she's been able to show that,
that children have put the slabs of clay into the initial mould and have pressed it in,
whereas adults have put the two moulds together and finished off the statuette.
And that gives you a really fascinating insight into how the production process works, how families may work together.
and it's a real insight, I think, into into the nature of production.
You were asking me before what surprised you?
And this is one of the surprises I had is that, study can be made on a field
I even did not know it existed before.
And this is one a good example
of that, of this, that yes,
I had no idea that we could study the fingerprint and get some very interesting information about the manufacturing of those statuettes,
how those objects were done in the antiquity, who was doing them?
What was the process of doing them, etc. Thus, we go very, very deep into the knowledge even of artefacts.
Yeah, absolutely. So we're sitting here just before the start of the next mission.
And I was wondering, what are your plans for the future in Egypt?
Yes. Every year I have a very well defined plan.
But it so happens that during excavation, each time we are coming across a new element which divert sometime
my prior planning, but, planning in Alexandria will be to resume work on the sanctuary of Isis on the island of Antirhodos,
do further work on a new shipwreck that we have discovered in the small royal port of that island.
And to further excavate also a very interesting site, called the Timonium,
which was the retreat of Antony at the end of his life with Cleopatra, standing close to the peninsula of the Poseideon,
the temple of Poseideon that we have discovered and that we have been excavating for years,
but it's a very difficult site to excavate. And making some tests maybe to identify new shipwrecks.
This is for Alexandria, Portus Magnus.
And in Thonis-Heracleion we will work on underground structures that we could identify under the main temple of Amun-Gereb,
we will start an excavation of what I suspect might be the temple of Mut.
And we go on excavating one very interesting shipwreck of the 5th century BC.
And, we will also try to identify new shipwrecks thanks to my algorithm which tells me you missed more than
50 shipwrecks, so please, look there! So that's really exciting.
And at the same time, we'll also be in the storerooms
in Alexandria studying the material that has been excavated in previous years.
So the people that are looking at the coins and the ceramics, Leonie looking at the statuettes and all of the other pieces of material culture.
So at the same time as the excavations are going on, there's also, a lot of work on the post excavation.
Yes, we have a built and organized with you a new storeroom, because storerooms,
archaeological storerooms, are very important for keeping
very well the artefacts and protecting them
once they have been restored and waiting for studies or for exhibition.
And there we have thousands of artefacts still to be studied.
Thus, we have quite a lot of work ahead of us.
Well, I'm looking forward to going to the storerooms and to work with our colleagues in Egypt and our colleagues in the institute.
And it's very interesting during those studies to have very well known professors, you know,
but students also starting from OCMA, starting doing their sometimes first study after excavation there.
And it's a kind of very interesting team that we have set up together there.
It's fascinating. Well, I look forward to seeing you on the boat, Franck.
So thank you very much. Waiting on the support vessel.