Ancient Treasures from the Sea: Two Bronze Age Shipwrecks

• Event Date: Saturday, February 22, 2003
• Time: 4:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

• Talk

A presentation by underwater archaeologist Dr. George Bass

George F. Bass is founder of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology based at Texas A&M University, where he is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor. He has conducted shipwreck excavations and underwater surveys off the Turkish coast since 1960. The excavations of two shipwrecks off the Turkish coast, at Cape Gelidonya and Uluburun, have rewritten much of Bronze Age history by providing new insights into subjects as varied as Homeric studies and Egyptology, and the histories of literacy, metallurgy, glass, religion, art, music, metrology, weaponry, seafaring, trade, and international relations at the time of King Tut. In fact, one of the excavations—of the world’s oldest known shipwreck — has been called “one of the ten most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.”

The lecture will discuss these excavations as well as provide video of the two-person submersible the Institute of Nautical Archaeology is using to search for other Bronze Age wrecks that may further expand our knowledge three millennia into the past.

This program is sponsored by the Dr. Allan C. Campbell. Family Distinguished Speaker Series.