Abstract
Alan Jamieson's Out of the Depths packs millennia of global history into a few hundred pages, with the intent of highlighting the importance and significance of shipwrecks. The book commences with an introduction focused on the widespread cultural role of shipwrecks in storytelling, from Homer's Odyssey through the centuries to modern-day artistic examples in literature, visual art and cinema. Jamieson's goal is to communicate how shipwrecks are as spatially, temporally, culturally and thematically diverse as the humans connected to them. After the introductory content, the volume is divided into two major sections.
The first segment covers approximately 4,000 years of shipwreck histories from ancient times to the twenty-first century. Within this, the author orders six chapters chronologically, grouping the content geographically. The first three chapters are a ‘who's who’ of shipwreck case studies, from Uluburun, Cape Gelidonya and Kyrenia in the Mediterranean to the Belitung, Intan and Shinan shipwrecks of the Asian region, then back to northern Europe and Britain to learn about pre-1550 shipwrecks such as Blackfriars I, the Skuldelev and the Mary Rose. The second three chapters are also chronologically grouped (by century), though they are international in scope and mainly concerned with watercraft of European origin. Chapter 4 (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) emphasizes the stories of Spanish galleons and Armada vessels, the English and Dutch East Indiamen lost off the western shores of Australia, and a multitude of famous ships of the period. Chapter 5 (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) communicates the history of Spanish treasure ships of the New World (and some pirate ships) before moving on to well-known British, Dutch, Swedish and American naval vessels lost in battles from the time of the American Revolution through to the American Civil War (the list of case studies is too long to give here). The final chapter (the twentieth and twenty-first centuries) broadens thematically, examining wartime sinkings in addition to many major passenger and cargo ship peacetime losses. Warship wrecks of the major twentieth-century conflicts feature prominently, from the scuttled German warships at Scapa Flow and individual losses like the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck to the scores of ships sunk during the American nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands (Operation Crossroads). Again, the list of ships mentioned is very long, concluding with the wrecking of the liner Costa Concordia in 2012 and the ongoing scrapping of large vessels on the beaches of India.
For the author, shipwrecks are ‘time capsules’ containing the stories of human suffering as exemplified by maritime disaster. Although the historical narratives are the centrepieces, the content of the first half of the work periodically interjects how archaeologists seek to reimagine ancient trade routes and reconstruct bygone ship types. The author also peppers these shipwreck narratives with the modern-day specifics about prominent maritime scholars, or controversies surrounding projects and sites. But the role of the researcher is the focus of the second section of the book, titled ‘The Last Sixty Years’. This covers the development of maritime archaeology, the activities of treasure hunters and the potential of environmental threats from shipwrecks.
The first chapter in the second half describes the development of maritime archaeological research. Many of the previously recounted shipwreck histories emerge again, but from more explicitly research-oriented perspectives. From northern European ship finds, the narrative moves to the Mahdia wreck and Lake Nemi, and then skips to the recovery of the gunboat Philadelphia. In a veritable name-drop, a multitude of case studies spanning time and the globe are elaborated on. These chapters repeat historical details of earlier sections but refocus on the actions of researchers and shipwreck hunters, intermixed with technical innovations, such as the development of side-scan sonars, magnetometers, and remotely and autonomously operated vehicles. Other sorts of historical events are also mentioned, including the creation of university maritime archaeology programmes, national laws and international treaties. The second chapter of the section examines salvage and treasure-hunting perspectives, and includes details like the utilization of articulated diving suits and the application of Bayesian search theory for discovering sunken ships. Anecdotes about dramatic modern events are also interjected, from the controversial actions of states (for example, the salvage of K-129 by Glomar Explorer on behalf of the United States government) to the legal trials and tribulations of salvors. The final chapter of the section concerns itself with the potential effects of lost shipwreck cargoes (explosives, munitions, chemicals and oil) on present-day people due to impacts on the ecosystem and human health in the here and now. The discussions in this section cover not only the historical circumstances of the loss of certain ‘potentially polluting’ ships, but also the development of specialized ship types such as tankers, and the historical mistakes and accidents that saw designs change over time to try to reduce or remove the chances of accidents (for example, double bottoms in supertankers).
For these kinds of tertiary sources, the success or failure of a work lies in the quality of the writing, and here Jamieson has written a great prefatory text about shipwrecks, introducing nautical nomenclature and archaeological concepts in an effortless and unwieldy manner. This is an introductory text for individuals without much background in shipwreck history. Alternatively, this is a book that is intended for a popular audience, backed by good scholarship (as exemplified by an extensive bibliography). It is not a work for academic use outside of an introductory reader for a freshman course focused on shipwrecks. Out of the Depths seems to represent many of the same intentions as Jean-Yves Blot's Underwater Archaeology or Ben Ford, Jessi J. Halligan and Alexis Catsambis’s Our Blue Planet, although it is much more focused on narrative histories and the significance of shipwrecks than the tools, techniques and technologies of maritime archaeologists. 1 In the end, it is an impressively pieced-together nautical mosaic that makes for an enjoyable read.
