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THE FATHER OF NAUTICAL ARCHEOLOGY
George F. Bass is known to many in the archaeological world as the founding father of nautical archaeology. Dr. Bass was originally a classical archaeologist or a dry land archaeologist. Today however he is a nautical as well as classical archaeologist. Bass has excavated wrecks all over the world. Ranging from the waters of Virginia and Maine to the Mediterranean Sea. The wrecks that George Bass has excavated also span a wide range of time. He has excavated ships from the Bronze Age to the eleventh century AD. His dry land excavations have taken him to places like Turkey, Italy, and Greece. Bass also teaches a variety of courses in nautical, classical and preclassical archaeology. He currently holds the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Chair in Nautical Archaeology. He also holds the title of president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.
"Incredible historical resources lie in relatively shallow water, as well preserved and significant as that smaller percentage of ships found at greater depths. They wait for marine archaeology to become as common as archaeology on land, for it is not only in advanced technology that the future of underwater archaeology rests. The future rests in the recognition of nautical archaeology as an academic discipline and its full appreciation as an integral part of archaeology. And this, in turn, will lead to the discovery and excavation of the ships of the Minoans, pharaohs, Iron Age Greeks, Kublai Khan, the Crusaders, and Christopher Columbus, whose vessels lie waiting at the bottom of the sea. " -George Bass