Shipwrecks and Storytelling

Abstract

Shipwreck stories have the potential to attract the attention of a wide public in different ways. Based on the Portuguese situation, of a country with a mythical past connected to the sea but a public policy for maritime archeology that lacks vision, purpose, or strategy and tends to exclude the public, this paper proposes a reflection on the social value of archeology and the potential it has for education and entertainment.

1. Introduction

The social value of history and archeology is commonly accepted. American historian Howard Zinn used to joke that if we did not know our past, we would have to trust our politicians. In fact, our past is tremendously important to our lives. Artifacts and places are associated with our past in different but powerful ways. The narratives that make our cultures are remembered and interpreted individually according to our personal experiences and, collectively, as narratives that shape our identity and sustain our communities. Both material culture and memories are key components of people’s identities. Oral history, as well as symbolic and cultural practices, inform our lives and our convictions, influence our sense of belonging, shape the way we interact, and determine an important part of our well-being and quality of life.

The past is a social construction, and in Portugal, we know all about it. Between 1928 and 1974, Portugal lived under a fascist dictatorship that promoted a mythical version of the past, where the country was a bastion of Christianity reconquered from Islamic invaders, and it was destined to discover, colonize, and civilize the indigenous inhabitants of its empire overseas [1]. An extensive rebuilding program stripped medieval buildings of their historical mannerist and baroque additions and modifications and gave them an imaginary “original” Romanesque or Gothic look, which was more in tune with the political vision of a devout and simple country. Starting in 1935, more than 130 volumes of the Boletim dos Monumentos Nacionais document the interventions and eloquently show the government policy that proposed a coherent national narrative, in line with fascist ideals.

A military coup in 1974 instituted a parliamentary democracy, abolished censorship in the media and in academia, and triggered discussions about the concepts of citizenship in a country where different communities have different memories and histories. Paradoxically, while the myth of Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese discoveries is being reanalyzed in light of anti-imperialist historical narratives, the importance of the archeological remains of the ships of the 15th and 16th centuries is getting some attention for the first time.

The story of the Portuguese and their underwater cultural heritage is a typical case study, made of advances and periods of bad management and a lack of vision, strategy, or direction in a climate almost absent of a theory of archeology. Old habits die slowly, and all the consecutive cultural agencies created after the 1974 democratic revolution suffered from an authoritarian complex that endures to this day.

Portugal, therefore, has a poor record when it comes to the treatment of its cultural heritage. In the 19th century, intellectuals like Almeida Garrett (1799–1854), Eça de Queirós (1845–1900), and Ramalho Ortigão (1836–1915) decried the lack of interest of the Portuguese population and government in the country’s history and cultural heritage. More than a century after the publication of Ortigão’s devastating description of the destruction of the country’s cultural heritage in the 19th century, in O Culto da Arte em Portugal [2], the country is still struggling to accept the role of public administration in promoting the public interest and not serving as a gatekeeper that assists the interests of small groups of friends and engages in personal politics.

2. Recent History

Before 1974, salvage was part of a natural recycling process. As in many different countries, there were companies that salvaged bronze from shipwrecks. Propellors, guns, and bells were brought up and melted to make faucets and other artifacts. A small percentage of these finds were sold to museums and particulars and survive today, but until the 1980s, there was no archeology of shipwrecks.

A famous American treasure hunter named Robert Marx visited Portugal, and with the help of local friends, he may have looted several sites. A little over a decade ago, in conversation with him, we became convinced that the Roman ship destroyed in the 1980s during dredging operations at the Arade River was an extraordinarily well-preserved vessel that Marx looted in the 1970s, upstream from the commercial kay on the river’s right bank. According to Marx, the looted amphorae were sun-dried on a terrace at Portimão and sold to tourists. But the bad news in this conversation was that the Phoenician ship that Marx famously claimed to have found in the Arade River is probably a 19th-century site, referenced as Arade 13 [3].

The first organized treasure-hunting venture in Portugal happened in 1974–1975 when a Dutch ship named Slot ter Hooge—lost at Porto Santo Island in the Madeira Archipelago in 1724—was the object of an authorized treasure-hunting operation carried out by a Belgian diver named Robert Sténuit [4]. It is said that a group of Portuguese divers tried to steal some of the silver bars found at this site but eventually returned most of them to the treasure hunter, who had a permit from the Portuguese government to retrieve the ship’s treasure.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Francisco Reiner and Miguel Lacerda organized a small group of divers that became interested in the country’s submerged cultural heritage, and they started an inventory of the known sites and contacted the National Museum of Archeology in Lisbon. With the help of Jean-Yves and Maria Luisa Blot, Francisco Alves, the museum director, implemented a maritime archeology project at the museum with the help of prestigious scholar Octávio Lixa Filgueiras, and both started fighting for the protection of the country’s underwater heritage. It was not an easy cause to defend. Compounded with the traditional secrecy of the profession, which in Portugal was a hobby of the upper classes until the 1970s, the lack of interest of the population in an archeology that could not be seen was almost absolute, both in the government and parliament.

The situation worsened in the 1990s. Despite the pioneering work of the National Museum of Archaeology, in the early 1990s, Portugal legalized treasure-hunting. Without any explanation or consultation with the archeological community, and acting blatantly against international scientific practices, a neoliberal government of technocrats issued a decree—D.L. 298/93 of August 21—that evaluated the underwater heritage by the market value of the removed artifacts and proposed their destruction and sale in partnerships with private companies.

There were documents suggesting that the law was written by American treasure hunters’ lobbyists, and the alleged promiscuity between cultural service officials and treasure-hunting companies was exposed in the media. The scandal eventually led to the replacement of the law after a change in government, and cultural heritage interests prevailed for a short period. With the invaluable support of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition (EXPO’98) Commissary Simonetta Luz Afonso and Culture Minister Manuel Maria Carrilho (1995–2000), the government created the now defunct Portuguese Institute of Archaeology (IPA), which included a National Centre for Nautical and Underwater Archaeology (CNANS) endowed with means and a strategy for the study and safeguarding of underwater cultural heritage—Decree-Law No. 117/97 of 14 May.

The period that followed, 1995–2000, constituted a short golden age for Portuguese underwater archeology, which saw the excavation and publication of several remains of ships from the 15th to 17th centuries; the musealization of the remains of the Indiaman nau Nossa Senhora dos Mártires in the Portuguese Pavilion at EXPO’98 [5], and then at Lisbon’s Navy Museum; and the organization of a meeting on Iberian shipbuilding in Lisbon that is still a reference in the discipline [6,7].

The Nossa Senhora dos Mártires project was part of a wider policy that included the excavation of the remains of a stern assembly found at Corpo Santo square (c. 1400) during construction work on the Lisbon Underground and the remains of a medium-size ship found at Ria de Aveiro and named Aveiro A (c. 1450). The remains of a ship, possibly a galley, also found during work on the Lisbon Underground at Cais do Sodré station (c. 1500), were also excavated and published despite the neglect and irresponsibility of the new cultural agency, IPAAR [8].

Starting in 2000, the excavation of the remains of a French ship, dating from the last quarter of the 16th century and exposed during 1970s dredging work on the Arade River, designated Arade 1 [9,10], was the last project before a period of decadence set in and stopped the upward trend established in the previous years.

The period of 1995–2000 proves that it is possible to implement a successful policy for the underwater cultural heritage with a small team and a small budget. A series of publications and a considerable volume of news media reports demonstrate the potential impact of stories associated with shipwrecks. Some stimulated the involvement of the population, expressed, for example, in the declaration of underwater finds that were known, up to then, only to divers and fishermen.

After 2000, the influence of CNANS diminished, and so did the number of publications pertaining to underwater archeology. Moreover, the difficulty in consulting the reports of the successive state agencies that managed Portuguese cultural heritage—IPPC (1980–1992), IPPAR (1992–2006), IGESPAR (2006–2011), and DGPC (2011–present)—made the findings and information about the sites virtually inaccessible to the public and most researchers abroad.

In 2005, Portugal signed the Council of Europe Faro Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention), promoting cultural heritage as a useful resource for human development, cultural diversity, and intercultural dialog. This convention was approved by the Portuguese parliament in 2008 (Parliamentary Resolution No. 47/2008); it encourages principles of sustainable use of cultural resources, and it asserts the right of citizens to know about and engage with the heritage of their interest and to respect the rights and freedoms of others, while also noting that they are free to participate in cultural life in accordance with the principles enshrined in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It proposes that the state “recognize the need to place people and human values at the centre of a broad, interdisciplinary concept of cultural heritage.” Moreover, in 2015, the United Nations proposed a set of Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda), emphasizing the need to keep in mind problems such as poverty, inequality, hunger, health, culture, gender equality, industry, pollution, sustainability, clean energy, and human rights when we design archeological projects.

In other words, Portugal accepted that archeology should be community driven, and all projects should be public and participatory. Archeology started in the 19th century as an occupation of the cultured upper class, and its social value was limited. Much has changed, however, in the last two centuries, and social media has given archeology considerable visibility. Sometimes accurate—but sometimes exaggerated, simplified, or invented—stories of archeological finds are commonly referred to in the media and gather the attention of a wide public. Like paleontology in the 1990s, archeology has become popular, and media stories are sometimes—as they should—published before scholarly papers or books. This is an important trend because, ideally, popular interest should inspire scholars to publish better, faster, and more clearly in their publications, letting our ignorance and research questions reach the public while scholarly publications are being prepared. In the 1990s, Dick Steffy argued for a standardization of the description of ships and boats in vain [11,12]. All shipwreck publications should have a good site plan, timber drawings and scantlings, and a sound characterization of each component and its cultural parallels [13,14]. Stories are, however, the most interesting part of shipwreck archeology.

And perhaps public engagement can change the slow publication paradigm. Journals tend to have large wait periods from submission to publication, and archeologists are often slow when it comes to publishing their sites or collections, and even slower when it comes to sharing their primary data. In his introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology [15], George Bass pointed out that perhaps only around 25% of the sites excavated get fully published. Bass’ assumption is based on several studies suggesting that, over the last 50 years, less than 25% of the materials and results of professional archeological excavations have been properly published [16], 70% of the Near East excavations have not been published [17,18], and that perhaps 80% of all Italian archeological materials remain unpublished [19]. It is difficult to argue that the situation in maritime archeology is better than those mentioned above.

Moreover, professional papers tend to be specific and technical, and journals are expensive and difficult to access. The social value of archeology depends on the impact it has on the non-professional public. How the past impacts the present—how archeological reconstructions can keep memories alive—brings back forgotten events and increases the diversity of viewpoints.

3. Shipwrecks and Stories

Shipwrecks attract the attention of a wide public, but journalists often prefer short, exciting, and simple stories—preferably with treasures or other special pegs, such as finding the oldest, largest, or deepest shipwreck. Archeologists coexist with treasure hunters in a media ecosystem where adventurers have no problem with inventing stories or exaggerating the value of the treasures they purport to salvage, especially if they are looking for investors. Unbound by any values of decency, truth, or reason, some television channels are often quick to embrace treasure hunters’ stories, sometimes mixed with encounters with sea monsters and other invented dangers.

Archeologists spend some energy implementing information filters that ensure some credibility, and this is something that turns out to be easier than it appears. In spite of the problems related to the difficulty of getting journalists’ attention, and even though scientists complain—often with very good reasons—that journalists pay undue attention to bogus stories, “some studies of media coverage of contested science suggest that most stories overwhelmingly reflect mainstream points of view” [20]. All archeologists have to do is show up in the media. Moreover, it is true that treasure stories often gather media attention, and it is difficult for archeologists to compete with that kind of visibility, but recent history suggests that Steven Spielberg’s movie Jurassic Park did more for paleontology than the best scientific papers of the 1990s.

A second problem related to the media and its traditional inclination for quick and exciting stories is the lack of follow-up news. It is frequent that newspapers talk about some amazing find and then never mention it again. For instance, the discovery of the remains of an early 17th century Portuguese Indiaman—probably the nau S. Francisco Xavier—at the mouth of the Tagus in 2017 received a lot of attention, and its abandonment to the elements by the government received none [21]. But archeologists have as much access to social media as anybody, and showing up and divulging news will help establish credibility filters.

The case for the importance of archeology is compelling. The past is a source of wisdom and meaning in most people’s lives. Roots, a sense of continuity and purpose, and the feeling that we can learn from the experiences of people that lived before us all contribute to lending social importance to archeology. Maritime archeology has a special appeal because most people are fascinated by ships. Traveling is a source of wonder and hope. Voyages confront people with different worlds and unexpected situations. Foucault famously claimed that ships were the biggest instruments of economic development and the largest reserves of imagination. “The ship is the ultimate location of heterotopia. In civilizations without ships dreams dry out, espionage replaces adventure, and the police, the pirates” [22]. For him, heterotopia is an approximation of utopia, both a physical and mental space where there are more layers of meaning than we can realize. Relationships with other places create room for unexpected and improbable events.

Maritime archeology is the study of the human adventure, connecting it to the sea and other water bodies. It is inextricably connected to philosophy and literature, with the natural world and our relationship with it as an integral part. Maritime archeology regarding historical periods comes with literature and a kaleidoscopic set of experiences and narratives that have the potential to enrich public life in countless ways, as well as to create learning environments for students of all ages.

Roland Barthes stated that the opposite object to Jules Verne Nautilus is Rimbaud’s Bateau Ivre [23]. He related our fascination with ships to a “common delight in the finite, which one also finds in children’s passion for huts and tents: to enclose oneself and to settle, such is the existential dream of childhood and of Verne”. From Verne to Rimbaud, ships and submarines let us explore the world from the coziness of a protected and closed space, or the excitement of a fantastic and mysterious world rolling before our eyes on an exposed, moving deck. This opposition lays down the tremendous range of experiences associated with ships, boats, and submarines, which go from the secret explorations of captain Nemo to the public enjoyment of a landscape that passes before the eyes of the voyager and has the potential to produce all the possible emotions described.

When archeologists describe a shipwreck of a Viking warship such as Skuldelev 2, the study of the care, knowledge, and craftsmanship required to choose the right trees and shape them into a gracious, light, and agile boat, capable of carrying 65 persons across the sea, is perhaps less exciting to the public than studying the lives of the 65 persons it carried, their beliefs, hopes, fears, ambitions, and the possibilities that each trip created. Joseph Conrad [24] called ocean-going ships “dark and wandering places of the earth”. Barthes added that:

“An inclination for ships always means the joy of perfectly enclosing oneself, of having at hand the greatest possible number of objects and having at one’s disposal an absolutely finite space. To like ships is first and foremost to like a house, a superlative one since it is unremittingly closed.”

Ships were also dangerous places. And above all, they were prisons in a universe without women. The sea was a harsh and lonely place for men. Nineteenth-century writers such as Melville or Henry Dana talked about the appeal of the sea in rather honest terms but have sometimes been quoted in romantic ways that do not translate the entire reality.

Melville’s famous passage of the crow’s nest is clear [25]. The best thing about the life of a sailor was not the contemplative peace of mind of the sensitive poet but the certainty of eating every day:

“There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner—for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed away in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.”

Richard Henry Dana [26] is equally pragmatic:

“There is a witchery in the sea, its songs and stories, and in the mere sight of a ship, and the sailor’s dress, especially to a young mind, which has done more to man navies, and fill merchantmen, than all the pressgangs of Europe. (…) No sooner, however, has the young sailor begun his new life in earnest, than all this fine drapery falls off, and he learns that it is but work and hardship, after all.”

There are many ways to share our shipwreck stories with the public. We can propose a multitude of approaches to the study of ships and crews, voyages, landscapes, maps, and experiences, but we must make space for public interests. These can be unexpected and are dependent on many cultural and socioeconomic factors.

In 2021, the director of Valparaiso’s Unidad de Patrimonio Histórico y Museográfico, in Chile, Fernando Vergara Benítez, asked the population of the historical center of Valparaiso what were the most cherished spaces to them, and the majority preferred little gardens with trees and tables to the churches, palaces, and statues (Vergara Benitez pers. comm.). Archeologists must be good listeners before becoming storytellers.

As the planet becomes more literate, there will be more narratives for the same events, and this circumstance alone is already making archeology exciting and an important tool to help us cope with diversity and find better ways to live together without sharing the same values. This is an important subject that perhaps deserves more attention than it gets. Diversity is good, but it is difficult. People have a natural tendency to relate to people with the same background and the same convictions, sharing cultural traits. Psychologist Gordon Allport [27] explained how prejudice may have been an evolutionary advantage in our remote past. Prejudices against snakes and spiders, or bears and sabertoothed cats, probably helped our ancestors survive. Now, we must live together and learn that diversity brings about a smarter environment with fewer blind spots. And archeology is a formidable path to the lives of different people and their interactions. There is a space for a more cosmopolitan archeology, one that celebrates difference and coexistence, peace, art, culinary skills, intellectual development, and cultural mingling. Archeologists and historians have sometimes been the guardians of hatreds and humiliations when they focus their uncritical attention on battlefields, invasions, treaties, and diplomatic history.

Finally, there is a poetic dimension to maritime archeology that should not go unmentioned. The fruition of archeological finds can provoke daydreaming. Gaston Bachelard mentions Baudelaire and the inner states where the depth of life can be entirely revealed in the spectacle, however ordinary, that we have before our eyes. We are our experiences, and there is a phenomenological direction that can be pursued, emphasizing each person’s particular feelings. The exterior spectacle of the remains of a manmade habitat, such as a ship, may help foster thoughts and dreams and excite our imagination and our relationships with the world.

4. Ships, Shipwrecks, and the World

Studies of collections of shipwrecks are also interesting. They tell stories about culture, taste, transfers of knowledge, the evolution of ship and boat types, and operation chains. Spatial studies of shipwrecks tell us about routes, modes of commerce, wars, migrations, and the spread of ideas or diseases. And maps have always fascinated people. Umberto Eco [28] transcribed the prophetic text of the fictive traveler Suárez Miranda, created by Borges [29]:

“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography achieved such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied an entire City, and the map of the Empire, an entire Province. Over time, these Exaggerated Maps did not satisfy, and the Colleges of Cartographers raised a Map of the Empire, which was the size of the Empire and coincided punctually with it.”

Today, it is possible to create and update a 1:1 map of the world [30], and one of its layers could be an inventory of shipwrecks and their stories, as well as all the versions of their stories told by all the witnesses who left accounts behind. And these stories do not have to be about the shipwrecks, but rather about the maps that guided the seafarers, teaching us how they perceived the world in their time. Finding patterns of culture and cultural change is an exciting occupation. GIS has a role in the archeological storytelling process, and we can only imagine the quality of didactic games that can be developed with augmented and virtual reality maps.

Computers are everywhere, and it is estimated that, today, more than half of the world’s population is connected to the internet, which is an exceptional tool to increase the social value of archeology. Daniel Dennett claims that certain bits of knowledge—which he calls thinking tools, or apps we upload to our “necktops”—make us think faster and better [31]. Knowledge makes us smarter, and knowledge about the past can make us savvy and functional in a world that is changing fast, where change is reported in real-time. Change is the most compelling reason why it is important to preserve the planet’s cultural heritage: Educated societies are stronger, healthier, happier, and smarter.

The social importance of archeology is hardly debatable: We exist in a temporal frame that is impossible to ignore, and we are all interested in our condition. French historian Fernand Braudel explained how cultural change happens at different paces [32], and if we want to better understand who we are, where we come from, where are we going, what can we know, and what we ought to do, studying the past is a good first step. Therefore, preserving, studying, protecting, and curating the material remains of past human activity is as important as caring for our family photo albums. The past is our story, and it changes as we learn more about it. Knowing that it will never be known can only encourage us to seek as many narratives of it as we can find.

For archeology, publications are paramount: Scientific, popular, serendipitous, carefully planned, designed by artists, related by scientists—all forms of sharing what we know about the past are relevant. The past is a source of wisdom and meaning in most people’s lives. We relate to it through stories, which is the aim of archeology.

5. A New Paradigm

Computers are the best means to capture, archive, preserve, curate, and share data about our cultural heritage. Even if there is an important discussion to be had on the duration of digital archives and the capacity to access them in the future, for the time being, around half of the world’s population access these stories mainly through the internet.

Technology and energy are now two important subjects in our relationship with the past, and these are not simple subjects. As life in society becomes more complex, and the pace of innovation accelerates, we become powerless and more dependent on the rest of society. Knowledge is segmented, and all digital objects are complex and developed by teams with a diversity of skills, where nobody knows how to develop or build all its parts. This has made society an organism where our survival depends on others. The study of the past is also an endeavor that requires the collective effort of large multidisciplinary teams, with a wide range of technical, cultural, historical, artistic, and philosophical skills. The 20th-century paradigm of the archeologist sitting at his site and hoping to publish about it one day, alone, depending on the help of a paid team of diggers, artists, conservators, and publishers, is dead. The study of a shipwreck site requires a well-coordinated, multidisciplinary team, and the publication of progress reports requires many authors, as it happens in the hard sciences. Academia, and especially arts and humanities departments, should get used to this idea.

Ships are objects that belong in the life of society as products of a particular culture that have symbolic meanings for the people that use them, interact with them, or see them. They must be studied as technological objects and cultural facts with kaleidoscopic and symbolic meanings as they travel through different cultural universes [33]. What we call maritime heritage is a complex mix of material culture, memories of communities made of oral traditions, history, and symbolic cultural practices. As cultural heritage is a basis for social interaction and an important component of everybody’s identity, sense of belonging, well-being, and feeling of uniqueness, as well as a provider of quality of life, it must receive more attention in society. The social value of our narratives and the objects that connect us to the past is part of the social glue of each community [34]. People incorporate artifacts and places associated with remembered or imagined pasts into the narratives that shape their identity and sustain them as communities.

6. Archeology for Whom?

Maritime archeology can create learning environments that foster a cosmopolitan attitude toward the present and the future. For the better part of the 20th century, many historians researched nation-states’ histories and focused on nationalism, citizenship, cultural exceptionalism, and territorial sovereignty. Including the sea in historical studies could encourage a more cosmopolitan view of the world, with stories of contact, exchange, dispersion, and the liminal nature of harbors and maritime landscapes [35]. From this viewpoint, maritime archeology should be a better part of every country’s education and receive more attention in the media.

The media has changed its tone in the last few decades. It has been privatized and politicized. Pundits interrupt the interviewee to give opinions, and emotions became more important than information. The attention of the viewers is paramount for profit margins, as viewers are the product the media sells to advertisers. Shipwreck stories tend to attract the attention of a wide public in different ways. Although journalists tend to prefer short, exciting, and simple stories with treasures or special features such as finding the oldest shipwreck, or the largest, or the deepest, maritime archeologists should be eager to collaborate, even if they may sometimes have ambivalent feelings toward big media.

It is true that there is no incentive in big media to promote quiet reflection or an in-depth understanding of any subject. This is a challenge for the scholarly world, but nobody can deny that there is an impressive amount of reliable information in social media, printed media, and television. Social media is the most powerful set of communication tools in the present stage of digital evolution. It is possible to envision a situation in which datamining corporations use their data to promote science, tolerance, creativity, or the social importance of maritime archeology. It is not wise to dismiss the potential of mass media, no matter how shallow and lazy it sometimes seems to be.

Perhaps as much as half of the planet is connected to the internet; most kids are in school around the world; the level of literacy on the planet is unprecedented; and, although inequality has grown to indecent levels in the western world, poverty is diminishing globally, and in Asia, there is a growing middle class. The diversity of viewpoints is growing globally, and it is the most important cultural characteristic of the modern world. As mentioned above, it is understood by most people that diversity does not necessarily generate the most comfortable environments, but it certainly generates the most creative ones.

An important problem when we think about target audiences is that we need a peer review system. We know that reviewers can take extravagant amounts of time to read a paper, sometimes making petty or stupid comments, and that gatekeepers can be a major impediment to the advancement of a discipline. But we need high-end publications. Journals should encourage the publication of progress reports and the collection of opinions—as can already be done at academia.edu. The reviewer problem is easily solved by formally imposing the Rapoport Rules on peer-reviewed publications [31]:

• The reviewer should attempt to re-express her target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that her target would say: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
• The reviewer should list any points of agreement, especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement.
• The reviewer should mention anything she has learned from the target.
• Only then is the reviewer permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

When we propose that archeologists should publish progress reports and incorporate peer input as projects unveil, we are thinking about archeologists who are slow when it comes to publishing reports on their sites or collections and even slower when it comes to sharing their primary data. Moreover, as professional papers tend to be specific and technical, and journals are expensive and difficult to access, we propose that archeologists also publish on social media and magazines with wide public readerships and try to reveal the process and social aspects of their research. The social value of archeology depends on the impact it has on the non-professional public. How the past impacts the present and how archeological reconstructions can keep memories alive, correct amnesias, or encourage a diversity of viewpoints of traditional narratives.

In publishing for a larger public, archeologists should keep in mind that science stories—like all journalistic accounts—tend to be episodic in nature. Journalistic stories are often “slice of life” stories and do not provide a full context and understanding of the issues at hand. The rapid pace of most media production processes requires short stories that are not presented to foster a serious discussion of processes. Thematic stories are usually more complex and require more time and effort to produce. They also tend to be less popular with readers. Traditionally, journalists try to peg their stories to characteristics such as timeliness, conflict, or novelty. Not surprisingly, analyses of science stories find few descriptions of the research methods employed [20]. As the media’s traditional inclination for short stories makes it difficult for archeologists to get follow-up news published, social media appears as a good alternative. The Nautical Archaeology Digital Library, as well as other websites like it, has been a source of information and community where scholars can exchange data and ideas for over a decade. Its stated objective is to create a community of scholars who share and produce knowledge outside academic hierarchies.

Much has been written about the degradation of the media ecosystem by American politics and the invention of “alternative facts”, as well as the vast number of people who have embraced—and acted upon—senseless conspiracy theories, cheering the rise of authoritarian politicians and simplistic populist narratives. This is a fact, and it is not new. Decades ago, oil companies and the American tobacco industry used disinformation techniques to postpone the inevitable realization that their products were dangerous to people and the environment. We want to argue that these are not obstacles to the popularization of serious and ethical maritime archeology. Archeologists have the power to propose and lay down the basic tenets of ethical and cosmopolitan archeology and propose interesting stories that entice the public and explain that reality is frequently more interesting than fictional stories of greed and lack of understanding of the importance of the past [36].

An archeology for the people and by the people must be our goal [37]. Community understanding, appreciation, support, and a sense of communitarian custodianship are vital to protect maritime heritage, as was shown at Belinho, Esposende [38]. Involving local communities and powers—in Portugal, at the municipal level—and recognizing the contributions of community members is a strategy that guarantees the creation of opportunities for local community members to interact with research teams, from basic engagement—such as collecting data or monitoring the condition of sites—to more genuine and in-depth involvement with the research processes, using local multidisciplinary skills—such as critical appreciation and decisions on research directions and questions. At least in Portugal, formal education programs in archeology generally lack training in community archeology, mediation skills, and other soft skills.

Communication requires strong narrative skills, as well as visual aids. Multimedia is important as a means of creating multisensory and multi-communication environments that are capable of attracting, captivating, and stimulating the public. It is important to awaken public interest, hold public attention, foster curiosity, and mobilize cognition.

All means utilized must contribute to realizing the objectives of research communication. It is not so much about displaying stabilized knowledge but promoting an archeology “in the making” and sharing research processes. Knowledge is socially produced. Archeologists should stimulate the public to think, respond, and discuss the importance of the past and its role in society. The process of deciding what should be kept and at what cost should be democratic. We should fight for an archeology that creates meaning and tries to explain the world, contributing to the creation of shared identities and dreams of a better environment. In the post-electronic world, media plays a newly significant role, as it can create anchoring points for the imagination. The media has unleashed and democratized imagination, breaking down the barriers between the spaces where it is commonly found, such as in art, myth, and ritual, and entered into the logic of ordinary life in a way that it had not been able to before. Today, imagination is a powerful tool for action and change, relevant as a property of collectives.

In sum, archeology communication should contribute to a more informed and open discussion about archeology in society at all levels and involving all concerned actors. It should address matters of concern to society, politics, and research through networks and interactions among all concerned actors, including communities, laypeople, experts, policymakers, and journalists. Community archeology aims at knowledge production as an embodied cultural practice.

The use of ontologies can enable the exchange and integration of information from heterogeneous sources for the reconstruction and interpretation of the past on a human scale, based on all kinds of material evidence, including texts, audiovisual material, and oral tradition.

Mapping the presence of archeology in public discourse (including social media) may be useful to understanding how society talks about archeology. The early 21st century has been haunted by war, plague, famine, inequality, and catastrophic events related to global warming, which are intensifying every year that passes. But while middle classes are squeezed in the west, Asia has witnessed the rise of a diverse and international middle class that reads, travels, and otherwise consumes cultural products. At the same time, international meetings are increasingly showing the participation of a diverse international body of archeologists. This circumstance is changing the basic tenets of traditional western archeology, partly framed by a colonial mentality, which characterized the 19th and 20th centuries. New and diverse narratives are starting to include communities that traditionally did not have a voice [39]. Archeology was largely a European invention, and the growing geographical and cultural diversity in the field promises to offer different points of view, different narratives, and different interpretations of archeological data. This trend is increasing the social value of archeology, making it public, participatory, and incomparably richer than it has ever been.

It is paramount that archeologists become more militant and more active in defense of the cause of underwater maritime heritage.

7. A Portuguese Case Study: The Indiaman São Francisco Xavier

The story of the São Francisco Xavier shipwreck is an emblematic case study that argues for the more militant and active involvement of the community in the protection of the submerged cultural heritage.

The nau São Francisco Xavier sank near Bugio, Lisbon, Portugal, in 1625 at the end of a long trip to India and back. The remains of this site were known to divers and fishermen for a long time and were referred to one of the authors by historian Patrick Lizé in 1999, during the excavation of the remains of another Indiaman, lost under similar circumstances nearby in 1606, believed to be the Nossa Senhora dos Mártires. On 18 October 2017, two professional fishermen from Setúbal, Pedro Patacas and Sandro Pinto, located two shipwrecks in the Tagus River estuary. Both sites were coherent archeological contexts and were designated by them as the Tejo A and Tejo B shipwrecks. The finders reported the discoveries to the authorities on October 20 with a letter delivered by hand to the Portuguese cultural agency Direção Geral do Património Cultural (DGPC).

Alexandre Monteiro, a nautical archeologist, accompanied the finders and alerted the authorities to the importance of these two shipwrecks. Under Portuguese law, the DGPC should file a declaration, start an inventory process, and acknowledge the finders’ communication within 60 days of their declaration. Following the divers’ official declaration of these sites, Alexandre Monteiro also informed the then-director of the Project of Underwater Archaeological Chart of Cascais Project (ProCASC) and invited him to dive at the site, near Bugio, a low island that is also known as the shallows of São Lourenço da Cabeça Seca.

On October 28, Alexandre Monteiro and the finders organized a dive at the two sites and invited a group of colleagues including archeologists, historians, biologists, and photographers. The Tejo A site was partially covered by sediment and could not be properly assessed. Site Tejo B was photographed and filmed, and a preliminary site plan was put together by Texas A&M University Ph.D. student Marijo Gauthier-Bérubé. The results of this survey were published soon after in the archeology magazine Almadan [40].

A preliminary assessment suggested that Tejo B was a late-19th or early-20th-century transport ship carrying barrels. Tejo A seemed to be a 17th- or 18th-century site, which was an exciting prospect because São Francisco Xavier was lost in that area on 23 October 1625, an event that is rather well documented [41].

On November 4th, a few days after the October 28th dive, a photographer for National Geographic Portugal tried to document the finds, but the weather prevented any diving. An article came out in that magazine on 30th November, describing the 2017 finds [42] and mentioning a previous situation involving the discovery of another shipwreck—designated Tróia 1—by the same finders six years before. The article recounted how the lack of reaction from the DGPC staff after the declaration of this site led to its looting and partial destruction.

At the time of the National Geographic article publication, six years after their 2011 declaration of discovery of the Tróia 1 site, the finders had not been officially contacted by the DGPC. In the days following the National Geographic article, the potential importance of the Tejo A site as a 17th-century shipwreck was emphasized in the media by journalist Filomena Naves [43] and received some attention on national television.

In January and February of 2018, the participants of the 28 October dive invited one of the authors to co-organize a summer school with them and start the recording and assessment of the Tejo A and B sites, starting with Tejo B. In March, however, the finders reported the presence of divers at the Tejo A site, probably looting. Again, the DGPC staff did not reply to this information. In April, Representative Ana Mesquita filed a question in the Portuguese parliament concerning the vulnerability of sites Tejo A and Tejo B. There was no answer from the DGPC.

During the ten months following the declaration of the finding of the Tejo A and B shipwrecks, the DGPC did not contact the finders, Pedro Patacas and Sandro Pinto, and it did not acknowledge the declaration or give any information about the possibility of any ongoing looting at the site.

On 22 September 2018, Pedro Patacas and Sandro Pinto learned from the media that a ProCASC team had discovered an India Route shipwreck near the Fort of S. Lourenço da Cabeça Seca (Bugio), dated most probably between 1575 and 1625 [44].

The discovery of this shipwreck—referenced by the DGPC as Bugio 3 and allegedly situated around 200 m from the Tejo A site—was widely announced in the following weeks, both in the national and international media, including CNN, and triggered the interest of the Tejo A finders.

On September 28, with bad weather and low visibility, Pedro Patacas and Sandro Pinto dived at the Tejo A site, which had not yet been closed to diving activity, and saw two bronze guns exposed, which were similar to those featured in the pictures of the Bugio 3 shipwreck published in the media. These guns are rare, dating to the late 16th century—from the reign of King Sebastião (1557–1578)—and were lying in a position similar to the Bugio 3 guns shown in media pictures. During the dive, which was recorded on video, the finders saw several loose objects at risk of being looted and raised an ivory statuette—a Madonna with a baby—and a stone mortar, which they deposited in a laboratory at Universidade Nova, from where they were sent to DGPC the next day. Following the law, Pedro Patacas and Sandro Pinto sent a declaration of the finding of these artifacts to the DGPC by email on September 30.

On October 4th, almost a year after the declaration of the finding, the navy issued a notice of interdiction of diving in the Tejo A/Bugio 3 area.

As we write these lines in October 2022, the DGPC has not notified the finders of any development in the last five years. The condition of shipwrecks Tejo A and B is unknown to the public, and there has been no information regarding the identity of the Bugio 3 shipwreck. At this point, we have almost no published data from the Bugio 3 site [45], and for the purpose of this paper, it is irrelevant to discuss if those two sites correspond to a single event, as the similarities between the pictures of both shipwreck sites suggest.

An India Route ship sunk anonymously at the Tagus mouth is improbable, and even more improbable is the existence of Indiamen 200 m apart The bad judgment of the team that proposed that Bugio 3 was a different shipwreck from Tejo A can be explained by the bad conditions of the dive on 28 October 2017. However, the inaction and contempt displayed by the Portuguese cultural agency toward the finders of the Tejo A site are disgraceful and show a level of incompetence that is difficult to justify.

It is shameful that the Portuguese Ministry of Culture has chosen to ignore the finders and refuses to inform the public about the state of the Tejo A/Bugio 3 shipwreck. Only pressure from the national and international archeological community can make this story known, interest the population and the scholarly community, and help improve the Portuguese situation.

Old habits die slowly, and the Portuguese cultural agency (DGPC) has been a small-minded institution, busy with petty fights between groups of archeologists and petty power games. After almost half a century of democracy, culture remains largely a hobby of the upper class, and the Portuguese cultural agency lags behind the rest of the Portuguese public administration when it comes to understanding the role of government in a democratic society. Managing, organizing, informing, coordinating, facilitating, and encouraging public participation in the study and protection of cultural heritage; promoting a permanent, calm, and plural discussion on the role of the past in the present; facilitating and encouraging a democratic decision process in which the populations get to say what is important for them and why are all concepts foreign to the DGPC. There seems to be no clear mission, no vision, and no strategy for Portugal’s cultural heritage. And, above all, there is no ambition or belief in the capacity of the public to engage and contribute.

8. Conclusions

In spite of the present situation in Portugal, there is a lot of space for optimism when we think about the future of maritime archeology. Technology is making the generation of information cheaper and its sharing easier. It is still important to continue the trend of making maritime archeology even more multidisciplinary at its core, mostly when it comes to communications, transfer of information, and generating trust.

In the last two centuries, much has changed in the information industry, and social media gave archeology considerable visibility. True, exaggerated, simplified, or invented stories of archeological finds are commonly referred to in the media and gather the attention of a wide public. Social media is an excellent vector for the diffusion of new ideas, good and bad. New ideas can, of course, be good or bad, accurate or fabricated, and enlighten us or fuel conspiracy theories. As it always happens with all forms of communication, it is up to us to build the trust of the public, make our points clearly and eloquently, and stand corrected when we find out that we were wrong on any issue.

The methodologies for surveying and excavating—especially recording and reconstructing—are evolving fast, and the costs of access to technology are diminishing. If it is true that the so-called Washington consensus has generated a tendency to diminish the role of governments in the well-being of populations, this is not a planetary trend. Middle classes are growing fast in Asia and, with them, literacy and an interest in information based on scholarly work.

Finally, we would like to emphasize that artists should be a more important part of archeological teams. Today, a universe of artistic–archeological collaborations is opening up new opportunities for intervention and change.