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Guardians of the sunken past

Since its foundation in 1992, the Subaquatic Archaeology Center of Catalonia in Girona has catalogued over 800 underwater archaeological sites in Catalonia’s coastal waters and has led the fight against treasure hunters seeking to turn the Mediterranean’s cultural heritage into personal profit

JOSEPH WILSON | APRIL 19TH, 2011


When the phone on Gustau Vivar’s desk rings at Girona’s Subaquatic Archaeology Center of Catalonia (CASC), in a matter of hours he and his small team of fellow archaeologists are diving under the waves to see if the shifting sands of the Mediterranean Sea have revealed another archaeological treasure in need of their protection and study.

“Yes, we are like firefighters,” the 33-year-old Vivar said. “The calls come from people who think they have seen some archaeological material in the sea. These can be fishermen who find something in their nets, scuba divers or spear gun fishermen who are accustomed to seeing holes in the rocks. The sea is in constant movement. Things appear.” Sometimes it is just a worthless shard of modern ceramics, but every once and a while they discover a ship from the Napoleonic Wars full of weapons or an ancient Greek trader carrying goods to foreign markets that never reached safe harbor. Vivar’s job is to make sure that these artifacts don’t fall into the hands of looters, and instead are added to the history of the Mare Nostrum.

The roots of the CASC run back to a small program begun in 1980 by its former director, archaeologist Xavier Nieto, to study the underwater sites just off the coast of the province of Girona in northern Catalonia. In 1992, the program was expanded to all of Catalonia and the CASC was born under Nieto’s direction. Eight years ago the center started its “S.O.S.” campaign to safeguard Catalonia’s underwater heritage. All along Catalonia’s harbors and beaches are posters with a picture of an ancient ceramic with the letters “S.O.S.” printed along with a phone number that puts the caller directly through to Vivar’s office. Vivar said the phone rings around 70 times a year, and the campaign has helped the CASC both educate the public and add new sites to its register.

In the 1960s and 1970s, around 85% of Catalonia’s underwater archaeological sites were plundered

Since its creation, the center has catalogued 813 underwater archaeological sites – everything from shipwrecks and downed airplanes to lost submarines and entire villages that have been swallowed by rising water levels – in Catalonia’s coastal waters, lakes and underground natural reservoirs.  It has also overseen a long-term strategy that has turned the tide in the never-ending battle with treasure hunters seeking to turn a piece of European’s heritage into personal gain. “In the 1960s and 1970s, although it is difficult to calculate, around 85% of Catalonia’s known underwater archaeological sites were plundered,” said Vivar, who began with the CASC as an intern in 2001 and became its only full-time archaeologist under Nieto in 2004. “There were shipping containers (full of artifacts) leaving the Barcelona port. By 1980, the situation became so dire that it was decided to put into motion an effort to curtail the plundering,” Vivar said.

Vivar explained that when a new site is found, the center’s first task is to identify it, add it to the register, and then determine the best way to conserve it. By international law, any object more than a hundred years is considered an artifact and must be left where it was found, unless it is in danger of being damaged or looted due to its proximity to a popular beach or diving spot. While Vivar did not want to divulge the CASC’s exact techniques so as to avoid giving away any clues to potential looters, he said they use natural elements so that the marine environment itself provides camouflage for the site. Once secured, the archaeologists add it to the long list of sites they are making in-depth studies of.

Nieto, who ran the CASC from its humble beginnings 30 years ago until taking over as the director of Spain’s National Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Murcia late last year, said that, even though it is difficult to measure to what degree, plundering has diminished. “The mentality of people has changed,” he said by telephone from Cartagena. “Before, a scuba diver would find an old amphora and consider it his to keep. Now, people understand that that would represent the destruction of our national patrimony.”

SMALL TIME CROOKS
Even though looting has gone down, Nieto said “the plundering of sites in both Spanish and international waters is the most serious problem that we have to fight against.” The main threat, according to both archaeologists, does not come from the professional treasure hunting outfits like the American company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which in March 2007 recovered more than 500,000 gold and silver coins from a ship wreck off Spain’s southern coast (a U.S. court has since ordered the company to return the coins to Spain), but rather the low-level operators and individuals who still do not know any better. “In Catalonia, we only have small-time looters, and as time goes by there are less of these because now people don’t want an amphora on display at home, they want it to be in a museum,” Vivar said.

We cannot separate the history of the land from the history of the sea

Catalonia is particularly immune to these large treasure hunting companies since it was never on the Spanish imperial route to the Indies and therefore lacks sunken galleons laden with bullion. It is also fortunate enough to have the best weapon in all of Spain to carry out this fight: its very own boat. The 22-meter Thetis spends six months at sea each year. The CASC uses it to research underwater sites and to run a Master’s program in Subaquatic Archaeology that draws archaeologists from all over the world to put theory into practice.

The only downside to the Thetis is that there are some treasure hunters who try and take advantage of the CASC’s work. “Certain people know our boat and have gone to the sites where we are working and marked the position on GPS and then returned later (to plunder them). This has happened, but less now than before,” Vivar said. The CASC always works in conjunction with the coast guard units of Spain’s Guardia Civil and Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra. If the police catch someone with an artifact removed from the sea, they can confiscate not only the artifact but the entire boat.

TRAGIC ENDINGS
While the number of new sites found has decreased over the years, new ones always appear. Besides, the center has a backlog of work to do documenting each site on its register that will keep Vivar and those who follow in his footsteps busy for many lifetimes. Of the 813 sites, less than 20 have been fully studied by the center.

For Nieto, it is important to protect and research these sites because the sea contains remnants of the links once held between peoples of the past. “We know the history of humanity on firm ground very well, but the sea was the nexus of distant cultures and nations, and its study lets us better understand the role the sea had in connecting these peoples,” he said. “We cannot separate the history of the land from the history of the sea.”

The CASC’s storerooms are full of rows and rows of artifacts; everything from canons to coins, from ancient Greek pick axes to Roman transport vases the size of person’s upper body. It was here where Vivar explained what makes underwater archaeology different; how each underwater site represents a journey that came to an abrupt, often tragic end, locked in time at the bottom of the sea. “Underwater sites were not slowly abandoned over time like most terrestrial ones. The human presence is much more palpable underwater,” Vivar said while holding up an ancient jug and pointing to a crude X scored over its simple brown decorative pattern. “Look at this,” he said. “This was probably the water jug or a sailor, of a sailor who perhaps didn’t make it to shore.”

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