National Geographic commemorates the excavation of the Uluburun

National Geographic blog News Watch recently published a fantastic photo essay commemorating the fifty-year anniversary of the beginning of George Bass' excavation of the Uluburun, a bronze-age shipwreck off the coast of Turkey, which brought with it the professionalization of the field of underwater archaeology. Artifacts from the Uluburun are now housed in the Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Bodrum, Turkey, one of the world's foremost archaeological museums.

More on protecting Gulf Coast underwater cultural heritage

As a follow-up to the previous post on archaeologist Doug Wilson's efforts to manage underwater cultural heritage on the Gulf Coast, Vancouver, Washington newspaper The Columbian included a brief mention of this work earlier this week, along with a photo showing a newly-discovered anchor, which will be left in a (relatively) anaerobic underwater environment to protect it from oxygen, which can accelerate corrosion in waterlogged metal artifacts.

Safeguarding cultural resources on the Gulf Coast

In this video, National Park Service archaeologist Doug Wilson discusses his efforts to protect cultural resources during the oil spill clean up on the Gulf Coast. His work includes protecting underwater cultural resources affected by the spill, like shipwreck sites and a newly-discovered Civil War-era anchor.

Creating a preservationist community: Underwater cultural heritage and the Barnes collection

I recently saw the 2009 documentary film The Art of the Steal, which chronicles the legal and ethical controversies surrounding the Barnes Foundation collection of art. Though the Barnes collection contains no artifacts of underwater cultural heritage, its story raises issues relevant to many cultural heritage disputes.

The Barnes collection was created by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a pharmaceutical tycoon who amassed a collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, including works by Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, and Vincent van Gogh. Barnes’ will stipulated that the collection could not be sold, loaned, or moved, and that it could only be viewed by the public two days per week at Barnes’ home and gallery in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. During the rest of the week, the collection was only to be made accessible to students of art. In the 1980s, following the death of Barnes’ only appointed President of the Foundation, Richard Glanton assumed control of the organization and launched an initiative to raise funds to repair the collection’s storage and exhibit facilities. Glanton first proposed deaccessioning and selling some of the collection’s objects to raise funds for these repairs, a plan that was discarded following widespread outcry from the museum and arts communities. In 1992, Glanton instead launched a worldwide tour of the collection, which proved to be wildly popular and profitable, though it defied Barnes’ wishes. In the 2000s, a plan was launched to move the collection from its historic building in Lower Merion to a new building in Philadelphia. Critics of this plan have accused the custodians of the Barnes collection of disregarding Barnes’ wishes and the public trust in favor of a scheme to attract tourist dollars to Philadelphia. The film’s commentators connect this move to a commercialization of the Barnes collection that began with its 1992 world tour. One interviewee calls the planned move an effort to create a “McBarnes” collection. Another calls the new Barnes museum a “Disneyland of paintings.”

At the core of this debate over the Barnes collection is the push-and-pull relationship between the desire to make collections democratic, allowing the public to learn from them, and the fear of “selling out” and losing authenticity. For underwater cultural heritage sites and their associated artifacts, this debate can be seen in the arguments between salvors and archaeologists over what should be done with underwater cultural heritage sites and artifacts. Salvors accuse archaeologists and museums of hoarding artifacts and keeping them from public view while they (salvors) bring salvaged collections to the public through blockbuster exhibitions and artifact sales. Archaeologists accuse salvors of commercializing and undermining the historic value of cultural heritage sites, creating a public that assigns economic value to artifacts instead of cultural value, but not-for-profit archaeologists often don’t have the financial resources to create traveling exhibitions and bring collections to the public in the way that salvors do.

On both sides of the Barnes debate and the underwater cultural heritage debate, the stakes – financial, legal, ethical, and emotional – are high, and the likelihood of finding a single, mutually satisfying solution is slim. However, those who support the preservation of cultural heritage, whether it be a Renoir painting or a ballast stone, can only benefit by seeing analogous controversies and crossing genre lines to find sympathetic communities. In other words, opponents of salvage and opponents of dividing art museum collections can find their larger arguments strengthened by recognizing each other as part of a larger campaign to preserve culture. To put it even more succinctly, neither debate exists in a vacuum.

However, the proponents of moving the Barnes collection to Philadelphia and supporters of commercial salvage make a valuable point in their desire to see collections accessible to the public, though the ways in which they attempt to execute this desire may be ethically or legally flawed. It is my opinion that preservationists can most effectively counter commercialization by banding together and by incorporating democratization of heritage in their efforts to preserve it. Doing this while finding a balance between democratization and commercialization, however, is where the real challenge lies.

Image from The Art of the Steal.

New Titanic Expedition brings a change of heart for Delgado

The excavation of the shipwreck site of the RMS Titanic by the commercial salvage company RMS Titanic, Inc. has often been controversial. RMS Titanic, Inc. (RMST) has removed thousands of artifacts from the site, all of which are currently in storage or included in Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, a traveling exhibit that tells the story of the Titanic and RMST’s excavations. The only items from the wreck site sold by RMST are coal fragments, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared should not be considered artifacts based on the limited archaeological or historic data that can be gleaned from them (it should be noted that not all archaeologists share this opinion of coal artifacts).

Though RMST, unlike other commercial salvors, has never sold artifacts, the company has been accused by some in the archaeological community of mismanaging the site. Robert Ballard of the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and one of the original finders of the Titanic wreck site, has accused the company of contributing to the deterioration of the site by allowing submersibles to land on its deck, by accidental collisions between the ship’s hull and submersibles, and by leaving modern debris at the site.

James Delgado, President of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M has leveled his own accusations against the company. In a 2001 article for Archaeology magazine that coincided with a trip to the wreck site, Delgado wrote that RMST’s lack of interest in adhering to archaeological standards had resulted in the degradation of the site’s integrity. He wrote:

Despite claims by [RMST] that their work is archaeologically based, it becomes obvious that they have been highly selective in what they retrieve. We see unmarked and third-class ceramics, and a few broken or badly chipped second-class pieces – no first class china. We see scoop marks that show where selected pieces have been plucked from clusters of artifacts – no grids, no scientific sampling – simply for their display or monetary value. What is happening here, two and one-half miles down and out of sight of much of the world, is not archaeology.

In this passage, Delgado essentially argues that RMST’s profit-driven motives have had an influence on the types of artifacts they target for removal from the site and that this, in itself, is antithetical to archaeological standards.

In late August, Delgado returned to Titanic, along with scientists and archaeologists from WHOI, NOAA, and the National Park Service. On an INA-sponsored blog, Delgado wrote of his recent change of heart regarding RMST’s management of Titanic:

A detailed forensic audit of their activities proved to many of us that they have mapped their recoveries, conserved their finds, and that the artifacts ware not to be sold but kept in publicly accessible museums. RMST’s President, Christopher Davino, and his company made a compelling argument to all of the partners that they wish to focus on the longterm preservation of the site and to see it properly and scientifically studied, mapped, and for discussions to begin on the future of the site based on hard science, not profit. So all of the partners, particularly with this being a scientific mission with no recovery of artifacts, agreed to participate.

In my research for my thesis, Exhibiting Salvage: Examining the Relationships Between Commercial Salvors and American Museums, I researched RMST’s history at the site, the criticism its excavations have faced, and I also visited Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition to determine the ways in which RMST presents its operations in museum exhibits. Like Delgado, I found the fact that RMST has not sold artifacts (other than coal fragments) to be encouraging. RMST also runs a state-of-the-art conservation lab to preserve the artifacts it recovers. However, the evidence suggesting a history of mismanagement of the site is compelling and undeniable. Additionally, RMST must continue to recover artifacts from the site in perpetuity in order to retain its salvor-in-possession rights. So, while Delgado takes care to note that no artifacts will be removed during this expedition, RMST will undoubtedly continue to recover artifacts from the site. This dichotomy between good practices and bad ones is a large part of what makes RMST controversial and hard to either fully support or fully condemn.

It seems to me that Delgado’s change of opinion between 2001 and 2010 is likely related to internal changes in the way RMST is run. In 2000, not long before Delgado’s trip to the site and the publication of his article in Archaeology, RMST’s then-president Arnie Geller released a proposed plan to “target high-profile and valuable artifacts” at the site and to cut into the ship’s hull to locate a rumored shipment of diamonds said to have sunk with the ship. This plan inspired outrage among the archaeological community and RMST was barred by a federal court in Virginia from cutting into the ship and from selling recovered artifacts. Since then, it appears, RMST has found a new president and, perhaps, a new approach towards the Titanic wreck site. Hopefully, this scientific expedition to the site will herald a new age of collaboration between archaeologists and RMST. This type of collaboration, in which scientific data is collected, no artifacts are sold, and recovered artifacts are only used to tell the story of the Titanic to the public, could be a wonderful model for the reformation of other commercial salvage companies.

The current expedition to the Titanic has been delayed due to storms, but the INA's Titanic Blog can be read here.



Delgado, James. “Diving on the Titanic.” Archaeology 54, No. 1 (January/February
2001).

Elia, Ricardo J. “Diving for Diamonds.” Archaeology, Online Features.
September 20, 2000. http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/titanic/index.htm.

Image from Premier Exhibitions, Inc., taken in late August 2010.

"Shipwrecked Ceramics" at the V&A

I recently discovered this short, but interesting feature on shipwrecked ceramics on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum (which, as museum websites go, is a fantastic resource). The V&A has in its collection ceramic artifacts from three southeast Asian shipwrecks. Provenience for these artifacts is not detailed in the feature, but the article does include this interesting tidbit concerning one shipwreck:

In 1998 fishermen uncovered the wreck of a Chinese junk near Ca Mau in southern Vietnam...About 130,000 ceramics from this wreck were salvaged from the seabed.

Based on this quote alone, it is difficult to tell exactly how the artifacts were "salvaged" or who raised them from the seabed, but it doesn't seem to indicate that it was done by archaeological excavation.

Shipwreck sites in the waters surrounding southeast Asia have become notorious for their ceramics and for the salvage operations they attract. One of the most famous of these commercial operations came in 1986, when a British salvor discovered the remains of the eighteenth-century Dutch merchant ship Geldermalsen off the coast of Indonesia. Despite protests from the museum community, including the official opposition of the International Congress of Maritime Museums, artifacts removed from the site, which included gold bars and 160,000 ceramic artifacts, were auctioned in Amsterdam and the site was destroyed.

More recently, in 1999, a private commercial salvage company removed 300,000 ceramic artifacts from the wreck of the Tek Sing in the South China Sea. The Tek Sing, one of the last Chinese junk ships, sank in 1822, killing almost 1,500 passengers and has been called the "Titanic of the East." Salvors removed the wreck's cargo and auctioned it in Stuttgart, Germany.

The V&A is one of the most respected museums in the world and a great favorite of mine. I am not personally inclined to believe that they would knowingly acquire unethically excavated artifacts, but, unfortunately, the prevelance of commercial salvage and the notoriety of salvage operations in this region can cast this shadow of doubt.

Image from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Delgado comments on shipwreck salvage and Odyssey Marine in Naval History

In the August 2010 issue of Naval History, maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado offers his comments on the ongoing saga of Odyssey Marine Exploration’s excavation of the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. Delgado’s insights are particularly valuable due to the fact that he was among the team of researchers who identified the wreck site, code named “Black Swan” and cloaked in secrecy by Odyssey Marine, as the Mercedes. The Mercedes, a warship of Spain, is protected under the rules of sovereign immunity, but was nonetheless excavated by Odyssey. This in itself is slightly unusual, since Odyssey’s website declares that the company principally targets ships that will not be protected by sovereign immunity and it is in their best interest to avoid ships owned by sovereign governments at the time of their sinking. In the court case brought against Spain, Odyssey argued that the Mercedes, despite being a Spanish warship, was conducting non-governmental operations and should thus not be immune to salvage. Delgado corroborates the fact that the Mercedes was carrying goods owned by Spanish civilians, but argues that this does not undermine the ship’s military status. It seems that in pursuing the Mercedes, which Odyssey appears to have done, Odyssey either believed its argument that the ship would not be immune or believed they could more effectively defend this point in court.

Delgado goes on to discuss the sale of artifacts, especially coins, by commercial salvage companies like Odyssey, who argue that recovered coins are mass-produced and thus not likely to yield significant scientific information. Delgado describes DNA testing done on amphorae recovered from underwater sites that have revealed fascinating details about the vessels’ former contents.

I both agree and disagree with Delgado’s assertions here. Coins made before the industrial period may, as Delgado writes, reveal important information under analysis and the sale of these coins damages the archaeological and historical record. However, when dealing with coins minted after the advent of industrialization, the issue becomes more complicated. George Bass, founder of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, has written, “Society must decide if it is worth the cost of curating thousands upon thousands of lead bullets or glass bottles made in the same molds. Should we keep every plastic ashtray manufactured today since each will in time be an antique?” When exhibits created by Odyssey Marine are hosted by museums, coins from the SS Republic, a Civil War-era steamship, are sold in museum gift shops. Thus, the museums that have hosted these exhibits have found no insurmountable ethical issue with selling post-industrial coins. It would be interesting to investigate, however, museums’ positions if they were to be charged with selling pre-industrial coins like those recovered from the Mercedes on Odyssey’s behalf.

A final interesting point made by Delgado is his remark on the fact that Odyssey advertises itself as a salvage company with an unusual and commendable interest in performing archaeology. He writes,

Odyssey Marine…maintains that it works with qualified archaeologists and employs high-tech equipment and a careful approach to its undersea efforts. However, the objection that I and my colleagues have is akin to a debate in medical circles: Does the competence of a surgeon, even a brilliant, ground-breaking one, justify harvesting organs from living patients to be sold to the highest bidder?

In other words, the quality of Odyssey’s work does not justify its commercial interests. American and international museums interested in working with Odyssey on the creation of exhibits would do well to keep these arguments in mind.

Bass, George. “The Ethics of Shipwreck Archaeology.” In Ethical Issues in Archaeology. Eds. Larry J. Zimmerman, Karen D. Vitelli, Julia J. Hollowell Zimmer. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira, 2003, 58-59.

Delgado, James P. “The Trouble with Treasure.” Naval History 24, No. 4 (August 2010): 18-25.

Italy ratifies the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage

In some slightly belated news, on January 8th, Italy became the 30th, and most recent, ratifying State of UNESCO's Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. Italy's cultural heritage and patrimony concerns are well documented and it comes as little surprise that a country with a long coastline and an even longer seafaring past would lend its support to the protection of its underwater cultural heritage.

The "Fano Athlete" and the importance of underwater cultural heritage

While this story does not specifically deal with the activities of commercial salvors, Jason Felch of the Los Angeles Times reports that new documents have come to light concerning a unique piece of underwater cultural heritage: the "Getty Bronze" or "Fano athlete," an ancient Greek bronze statue often attributed to Alexander the Great's court sculptor, Lysippos. It is likely that the statue was lost when a ship transporting it from Greece to Rome sank. In 1964, the statue was recovered by a fisherman working in international waters in the Adriatic Sea. It was brought to shore in Fano, Italy, but was not reported to customs officials. The statue was instead smuggled out of the country and was purchased by the Getty Trust in 1977. The Getty Bronze is an excellent example of what kinds of artifacts have come to rest on the sea floor as a result of centuries of shipwrecks, as well as an example of the wide variety of artifacts encompassed by the term "underwater cultural heritage."

At the conclusion of the article, Felch refers to the importance of the bronze to the local community of Fano, and also mentions an Italian judge's declaration that the statue is "a part of Italy's cultural patrimony, despite the short time it spent in that country." According to a recent New York Times article on the statue, Stefano Aguzzi, Fano's mayor, has stated, "The statue and its discovery has become part of our culture and folklore." Aguzzi, in addition to numerous Italian authorities, has requested the return of the statue to Italy. As a part of their enthusiasm for the sculpture, residents of Fano have named businesses, a newspaper, and a local sailing race after Lysippos. A replica of the bronze sits at the entrance to the city's port. The Getty Museum, however, insists that no real connection exists between the Greek statue and the Italian town.

While claims that the statue is an intrinsic part of Fano's cultural heritage may seem tenuous due to the fact that it is unlikely that the statue ever resided there in ancient times, the affection for the statue expressed by the residents of Fano illustrates how underwater cultural heritage can be adopted by local communities as a part of their identity. This capacity for communities to sense connections to underwater cultural heritage provides strong evidence for its ongoing protection.

Jason Felch, A twist in Getty Museum's Italian court saga, Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2010

Elisabetta Povoledo, Italy Presses Its Fight for a Statue at the Getty, New York Times, January 15, 2010

Getty Museum, Victorious Youth

Image from the Los Angeles Times

The Queen Anne's Revenge and non-salvor interpretation of shipwreck history

Last week, I visited the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort to see their exhibit on the Queen Anne's Revenge, formerly the French ship Concorde, which was later converted to a merchant ship, then to a slave ship, and finally into the flagship of the famed pirate Blackbeard. The Queen Anne's Revenge wrecked in June 1718, when it was stranded in the shallow waters of the Beaufort Inlet and was abandoned by Blackbeard and his crew, who took with them any commercially valuable items (plunder) as they evacuated.

The wreck site was found under 20 feet of water by Intersal, Inc. in 1996. Intersal subsequently turned over their rights to the wreck to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, which, in conjunction with the North Carolina Maritime Museum, has headed the excavation of the site since 1997.

The museum's exhibit is small, encompassing one corner of the museum and another nearby section of wall. The first section of the exhibit contains wall panels interpreting the discovery of the wreck, its sinking and its identification as the Queen Anne's Revenge. Below these panels are exhibit cases containing a variety of recovered artifacts, including bullets, personal artifacts, navigational tools, and a small amount of gold. Cases to the left of this display contain more recovered artifacts, including plates, cannonballs, and a ship's bell.

To the left of these sections is the exhibit's most unique display. Below a television screen playing a video about the ship's excavation is a concretion containing a number of artifacts submerged in a saltwater tank. An x-ray image shows the visitor what artifacts are contained within the fused mass.

The aforementioned nearby section of wall contains labels about the history of Blackbeard's life and exploits aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge and beyond.

Though I had wished the exhibit was larger (it obviously had neither the space nor the budget of Odyssey Marine's SHIPWRECK! Pirates and Treasure), it was informative nonetheless. It also included information about artifact conservation and the wreck's discovery without losing focus on the wreck's history. The emphasis on technology seen in SHIPWRECK! was significantly subdued in the Queen Anne's Revenge exhibit.

Additionally, while Odyssey's labels often restricted their information to the name of the wreck from which the artifact was recovered, the depth at which it was recovered (emphasizing Odyssey's ability to reach great depths), and the type of ship on which it was found, the North Carolina Maritime Museum's labels contained more information about the nature of the artifact and some labels even included information about the artifact's context within the wreck site. For example, a label for a piece of large lead shot mentioned that large amounts of this type of shot had been "found either loose on the bottom or embedded in concretions" and had mainly been recovered from the stern area of the wreck. Tatiana Villegas Zamora has written that salvor-created exhibits "provide no mention of the relationship of the objects to the structure in which they were found, or traces of serious archaeological surveys of the ship's construction." Since anti-salvage commentators like Zamora often charge commercial salvage groups with losing the context of recovered artifacts, Odyssey's lack of this type of information in its labels seems to only reinforce this accusation.

Interestingly, the museum had agreed to allow some of the Queen Anne's Revenge artifacts to be loaned to Discovery Place to augment SHIPWRECK!, but the loan was stopped by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Shipwreck uncovered on Washaway Beach

As reported by the Seattle Times and other news outlets, erosion on Washaway Beach in Washington has revealed the remains of what might be the Canadian Exporter, a lumber ship wrecked in 1921. Ownership rights over the wreck site, which may be on state-owned land, are now being determined. Until the wreck's ownership is determined, neither the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation nor the local Westport Maritime Museum will be able to perform an excavation.

The Seattle Times reports that the wreck is already being salvaged by local residents attempting to sell the remains of the ship's cargo:

Strange, the former fisherman, wasn't waiting. "I'm sure the Westport shipyard would like some of these beams," he said, adding that he'd already salvaged some of the metal rods.

"It should be saved for history," said a disgusted passer-by.

Saving it would be nice, Strange nodded. "But a guy's gotta make a paycheck somehow."

It will be interesting to see what becomes of this wreck site. If it is, in fact, the Canadian Exporter, a relatively recent wreck, will it be something legitimately interesting to archaeologists and historians? Would it serve the community better by being salvaged? Alternatively, if the site is on state land, it could be protected and serve as a tourist attraction along the lines of other Northwest Coast shipwrecks, like the Peter Iredale wreck on the Oregon Coast in Fort Stevens State Park, or the George L. Olsen, a Coos Bay, Oregon wreck whose salvage created deep ties to the cultural heritage of the local community and is now protected by it's location on federal land, or even the disappearing and reappearing Helen E., a WWII-era shipwreck also located on Oregon Coastal federal land that made its most recent appearance only a few days ago.

It seems clear that, as coastal erosion continues to occur, shipwrecks previously hidden by protective layers of sand will be exposed to both natural and human elements; a situation that may be best helped by communities thinking deeply about what benefits they might want to receive from these historic sites. Hopefully, local governmental or museological institutions can encourage effective historical stewardship with the active participation of these communities.

Image from the Seattle Times.

Odyssey Marine and Discovery Place

Earlier this week, I visited Odyssey Marine Exploration's exhibit, SHIPWRECK! Pirates and Treasure at the AAM-accredited Discovery Place in Charlotte, North Carolina. The next day, I visited the North Carolina Maritime Museum, a member of the Council of American Maritime Museums, in Beaufort to see their exhibit on the excavation of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the former flagship of the notorious pirate Blackbeard.

SHIPWRECK! is a relatively recently created exhibit and has toured museums in Oklahoma City, Tampa, and Detroit. It contains artifacts from Odyssey's excavations of the SS Republic, the "Blue China" wreck, and an unnamed wreck found near Tortugas. The exhibit opens with a number of artifacts from the above mentioned wrecks on display, followed by a series of interactive video screens on which visitors can watch short films about a variety of shipwreck excavations. In these videos, information about the shipwrecks excavated by Odyssey and other commercial salvage groups is interspersed with sites excavated by archaeological groups, like the wreck of the Uluburun wreck, which was excavated by George Bass and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in the 1980s and now forms the basis of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Turkey. One video screen is dedicated to the HMS Sussex, and emphasizes the need to recover Sussex's cargo of "money" and the agreement between Odyssey and Great Britain.

After this section, the visitor moves into a theater in which a video about Odyssey's excavation of the Republic is played. The video describes Odyssey's process of researching, targeting, and excavating wrecks. Near the end of the video, Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm reveals that, while the most rare or valuable artifacts are kept in Odyssey's collection, the rest will be sold to the public.

The next gallery is a large space dedicated to the technology used by Odyssey on their excavations; a large model of Odyssey's ROV dominates the center of the rooms, and the walls are lined with a number of interactive games based on operating ROVs, magnetometers, side-scan sonars, and the challenges presented by weather. Commercial salvors' focus on technology was an issue raised by archaeologist Tatiana Villegas Zamora in a 2008 article in Museum International. Zamora observed that the technology required for deep-ocean exploration and excavation has developed more quickly than the public's appreciation of underwater cultural heritage and that, "as a result, the public is far more aware of technological developments than of the importance of the sites themselves." Though a part of this gallery was used to tell the story of the Republic, and the adjacent gallery was filled with artifacts recovered from the wreck site, the overwhelming emphasis was on the technological prowess of Odyssey.

Leaving this gallery, the visitor then travels into a smaller, square gallery. Along the walls of this gallery are cases containing personal artifacts from the Republic, including glass bottles and other personal artifacts. In a rather innovative approach, each of these cases is paired with an interactive video screen on which visitors can choose to listen to audio-labels for the artifacts in the cases. In the center of this gallery is an exhibit on the coins raised from the Republic. The coins are displayed in plastic coin display cases of the type used by coin collectors. The choice to display them in these cases puts them in the context of commercial collector's items, not artifacts.

The final portion of the exhibit is a gallery focused on the history of pirates and piracy. Most of the components of this exhibit are interactive activities based on learning about pirate flags, ships, and other aspect of pirate life. The walls are painted with cartoon-like renderings of swashbucklers and seems aimed toward a younger audience. On the day of my visit, it was the most popular gallery in the exhibit, possibly due to the fact that Discovery Place is a science center popular with younger audiences and family groups.

At the end of the exhibit, as with the end of many exhibits, the visitor finds themselves in the museum's gift shop. Here they are offered the opportunity to purchase artifacts raised from the Republic, including coins (in the same collector's cases as the coins on display), bottles, and jewelry crafted from recovered glass shards, all paired with certificates of authenticity.

Overall, it was not hard to see why the exhibit could be popular with visitors and museums. The interactive games were engaging and were fairly effective in demonstrating the educational points Odyssey was trying to make. The final, pirate gallery was hokey, but appeared to be well-liked. Nonetheless, the obvious focus was on technology first, with plenty of mentions of Odyssey's interest in archaeology, and on "treasure." The commercial aspect of Odyssey's operations was made especially apparent by the artifact sales in the museum store.

Look for a comparison of this exhibit to the approach taken by the North Carolina Maritime Museum soon...

Federal Court rules against Odyssey Marine

As other news outlets and cultural heritage blogs have reported, Odyssey Marine Exploration was denied salvor-in-possession rights over the wreck site of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes by a Federal District Court in Tampa, FL. Judge Steven Merryday wrote that "ineffable truth of this case is that the Mercedes is a naval vessel of Spain and that the wreck of this naval vessel, the vessel's cargo, and any human remains are the natural and legal patrimony of Spain," but directed that the return of the recovered artifacts to Spain be stayed until the completion of the appeals process. Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm plans to take the case to the Court of Appeals, where he says the case would have gone regardless of the District Court ruling and where he believes the law will be more favorable to the salvors' interests.

As Derek Fincham of Illicit Cultural Property writes, the Mercedes' value extends beyond the commercial value of its cargo - the ship, and its destruction and sinking by the British Royal Navy in 1804, played an important role in the formation of the alliance between Napoleonic France and Spain, and in Spain's declaration of war against Great Britain. The Mercedes history suggests that, while it may technically be the "natural and legal patrimony of Spain," it is also a cultural heritage site tied to an event that carried implications not only for Spain, but for the European continent and the rest of the world. More than national patrimony, the Mercedes and any artifacts recovered from her are pieces of international cultural heritage.

This ruling against Odyssey Marine throws into relief the questionability of their "deep-ocean shipwreck exploration" operations. Whether or not museums hosting, or considering hosting, Odyssey's SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure will consider this ruling while making decisions on cooperation with the company remains to be seen.

$500 Million in Sunken Treasure Returning to Spain. FOXNews.com, December 23, 2009.

Richard Mullins, Sunken treasure case headed to federal appeals court. Tampa Tribune, December 23, 2009.

James Thorner, Odyssey Marine's treasure tangle with Spain moves to appeals court. St. Petersburg Times, December 24, 2009.

Image from FOXNews.com