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Nautical Archaeology in Portugal
Positioned in the nexus of the Baltic and North Atlantic, and the Mediterranean worlds, the
Portuguese coast has a rich and abundant submerged cultural heritage, although largely unknown, and waiting to
be studied in a systematic and professional manner.
Following the pioneer efforts of the municipal Museu do Mar, in Cascais, in the 1970s, a
number of attempts have been made to establish a consistent policy for the study, assessment, protection, and divulgation
of the country's nautical cultural heritage.
Texas A&M University, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, or the ShipLab have been
party or fully involved in some of the projects implemented since 1998.
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These projects were possible through the generous support of Dr. and
Mrs. Peter Amaral, the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, the Câmara Municipal de Lagos, and CMAC.
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Lagos - 2006/2007
The Nautical Archaeology Program has organized a Summer School in Lagos, Portugal,
during the month of June of 2006, with the support of the City of Lagos, a city with a long seafaring tradition
and the place where Prince Henry the Navigator lived and planned the first effective steps of the Portuguese expansion
overseas, which lead to the discovery of a maritime route to India.
The 2006 summer school was the first step of a series of actions to be developed
at Lagos by Texas A&M University, in a cooperative plan expressed by a Memorandum of Agreement signed this
year between the Municipality of Lagos and Texas A&M University.
Halted by bureaucratic problems, in 2007 the Lagos Project became nevertheless
the core of a wider project, which has gathered the support of some of the most important centers and institutions
dedicated to the study of Portuguese seafaring and Portuguese history of shipbuilding.
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Although the ShipLab eventually gave up trying do field work in Portugal due
to the bureaucratic complications and difficulties raised by the country's authorities, several scientific events
have been organized around Lagos' Centro de Estudos Gil Eanes, and more events are planned to take place in the
coming years.
The objective of the Lagos Project is now the study, protection and publication
of the maritime history of Lagos region from an historical, rather than archaeological viewpoint. A wider cooperation
between several universities and institutions aims at the study of the Portuguese maritime history.
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Peniche
Conquered from the Umayyad rulers during the 12th century the stretch of coast
that extends from the old Baía da Pederneira, near the city of Alcobaça, to the small harbor of Porto
Novo has a rich past with plenty of maritime activity.
This long-term project intends to reconstruct region's maritime history for
the general public, a guide to its many shipwrecks, coastal monuments, and the ways of living of its population,
which stretch between the exploitation of both its fertile soils and once rich seas.
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Azores
While living in the Azores through the 1990s Paulo Monteiro studied the region's
incredible maritime history and shipwrecks.
Most of his work - reports, memos, short articles in the local press - has
not been published, but its relevance justified the creation of this space.
Although the ShipLab has never worked in the Azorean archipelago the interest
of its maritime cultural heritage is obvious, namely in what pertains to the study of Iberian shipbuilding.
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Arade 1 Shipwreck - 2002
The Arade 1 shipwreck was located by a team from the extinct Centro Nacional
de Aqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (CNANS) during the summer of 2001. After an agreement was secured
with the local municipality and archaeological museum for a long-term project of survey, excavation, study and
preservation of the Arade River shipwrecks, excavations started. Part of the Arade 1 shipwreck was excavated and
recorded by a team from CNANS during the summer of 2001.
In the summer of 2002 a team from Texas A&M University's Nautical Archaeology
Program, in the Anthropology Department, was invited to excavate this shipwreck. Our cooperation lasted only one
season, however, after which CNANS took over the excavation again.
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Cais do Sodré Ship
Timbers - 2001/2002
The Cais do Sodré ship was exposed in 1995, during the excavation works
for the construction of a subway station at Cais do Sodré Square in Lisbon, Portugal.
Presumably a derelict, this hull was preserved to the turn of the bilge along 24 m of a flat keel. The walls of
the subway hall had cut the stem and sternposts, and with the exception of part of a whipstaff no loose artifacts
were found in any of the layers above and below the ship remains. Two wooden samples were taken for radiocarbon
dating and yielded dates around the end of the fifteenth century.
The ShipLab helped recording the ship's timbers in the summers of 2001 and
2002.
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Oeiras Guns - 2000
A group of five iron guns was found on the path of a jetty planned to be built during the
summer of 2000. Heavily concreted to the rocks they were removed with jack hammers. Since there were almost no
sediments in the area no other artifacts were found.
Nearby, a number of artifacts have been recovered by diver Paulo Pimentel, clearly indicating
the existence of a shipwreck in this area.
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