In a new five-part podcast series, Dive & Dig, award-winning historian Professor Bettany Hughes and maritime archaeologist, Dr Lucy Blue, journey across the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to explore the maritime archaeology of the ancient world, from the Stone Age to the Roman period.
Each episode focuses on a key site, from submerged prehistoric settlements to ancient shipwrecks, telling the stories of how people interacted with the sea, and what the archaeological remains can reveal about our ancient past.
The sites include one of the world’s largest archaeological digs, the oldest underwater settlement in the Aegean, the world’s oldest artificial harbour and ancient shipwrecks lost beneath the waves.
The podcast has been developed by the Honor Frost Foundation, a charity that promotes and funds maritime archaeological research, with a focus on the eastern Mediterranean. The Foundation was founded with a major bequest from the late Honor Frost, a pioneer in the world of maritime archaeology and the first female underwater archaeologist.
While diving on shipwrecks in France in the very early days of SCUBA, Honor came to realise that archaeological sites could be recorded and investigated to the same standard as archaeological sites on land.
Over the next fifty years, she played a pivotal role in the development of the field of maritime archaeology, researching shipwrecks, harbour sites and landscapes now lost to the sea. The Foundation continues her legacy by supporting research, training and education in the field.
Dive & Dig II, Episode 1 – Builders of the Pyramids
Wadi El Jarf is the site of the oldest known artificial sea harbour in the world. Located on the Red Sea of Egypt in the Gulf of Suez, it was developed about 4,500 years ago. It reveals around 30 caves housing finds, including amazingly preserved dismantled wooden boats, rigging material, and a papyrus archive, consisting of the oldest known papyrus in the world, that tells the story of the site.
The site was built during the 4th Dynasty, around the time of the Pharaoh Khufu, who was believed to have built the Great Pyramid of Giza. The papyri found on the site contain daily logbooks and allow readers to hear from individual workers at Wadi El Jarf for the first time ever.
In the first episode of Dive & Dig’s second series, Professor Hughes speaks to the site director, French Egyptologist Pierre Tallet, to find out more about what has been found so far, and what this tells us about the ancient Egyptians, while Dr Blue talks to Wadi El Jar’fs lead underwater archaeologist, Ehab Fahmy, to discover more about the ancient artificial harbour.
Episode Facts:
- Oldest artificial harbour in the world, dating to the 4th Dynasty, the time of the Pharaoh Khufu.
- More than 30 caves contain preserved dismantled boats and rope from over 4,500 years ago.
- Around 100 inscribed anchors were found.
- Oldest papyrus in the world detailing everyday life and logistics. Thought to be the diary of an ancient Egyptian builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- It is likely that stone for the Great Pyramid of Giza was transported through this site.
- Much mystery still surrounds the site, it was such a huge undertaking to build the harbour, yet it was used for less than 100 years, why was it abandoned?
