Great free on line course to consider

I agree with the concept of gaining knowledge from shipwrecks but I don't agree with the anti treasure hunting thing. I've got a lot of real life examples that prove it to me. And I'll believe my lying eyes over some magazine article. As for treasure hunting, what little I've done has been profitable. Fun too.
Also, I'm not going to get my shorts tied up in a knot about an archaeologist making anti treasure hunter arguments. They have no choice, they are archaeologists, it's their job. They are also protecting what they see as their turf.
I do like the fact that they are sharing knowledge about the field. That's nice. It may help me conserve knowledge and treasure hunt better. Just don't tell them about the treasure hunting part.
Btw, does anyone have a link to that ship that was it Throckmorton said was dynamited? The dramont wreck? I looked but couldn't find it.
 

Last edited:
I'm signed up and just starting today. Looks interesting and I'm sure I can learn alot...Thanks SADS!
 

Take some of it with a pinch of salt though ha ha......
 

Just finished, that was fun. Any ideas whether I should get the certificate or not?
 

Denarius said:
I agree with the concept of gaining knowledge from shipwrecks but I don't agree with the anti treasure hunting thing. I've got a lot of real life examples that prove it to me. And I'll believe my lying eyes over some magazine article. As for treasure hunting, what little I've done has been profitable. Fun too.
Also, I'm not going to get my shorts tied up in a knot about an archaeologist making anti treasure hunter arguments. They have no choice, they are archaeologists, it's their job. They are also protecting what they see as their turf.
I do like the fact that they are sharing knowledge about the field. That's nice. It may help me conserve knowledge and treasure hunt better. Just don't tell them about the treasure hunting part.
Btw, does anyone have a link to that ship that was it Throckmorton said was dynamited? The dramont wreck? I looked but couldn't find it.
Click to expand...

I was searching for a link and found a whole website dedicated to looting statistics and of course, anti-treasure recovery. It mentions the wreck, but not the location.

The Dramont wreck was dynamited by skin divers in 1957. A whole chapter in the history of navigation was blown to rubble by some mindless diver, perhaps hunting for nonexistent gold, destroying not from malice but stupidity, like a bored child spilling the sugar on a rainy afternoon. The glory of the world must indeed pass away, but it seems wrong to speed its passage with dynamite and sledgehammers.

...and underwater | IllicitAntiquities.com
 

Last edited:
Red_desert said:
I was searching for a link and found a whole website dedicated to looting statistics and of course, anti-treasure recovery. It mentions the wreck, but not the location.

The Dramont wreck was dynamited by skin divers in 1957. A whole chapter in the history of navigation was blown to rubble by some mindless diver, perhaps hunting for nonexistent gold, destroying not from malice but stupidity, like a bored child spilling the sugar on a rainy afternoon. The glory of the world must indeed pass away, but it seems wrong to speed its passage with dynamite and sledgehammers.

...and underwater | IllicitAntiquities.com
Click to expand...

You like all the wrecks that official navys have wire-dragged to tear them apart? How many historic wrecks have been lost to these techniques?

Besides, you can't fault earlier actions. Underwater archaeology didn't even exist in the 50s. Diving barely existed. Faulting those early divers is like blaming doctors for not washing their hands before surgery 300 years ago.
 

Last edited:
When I was in Mexico there was a site I used to go to. I'd walk through the fields and look for stuff. It was littered with pottery, obsidian, and even some jade, tho I never found some jade. Every year the stuff would get plowed up, and then the next year plowed under, presumably until destroyed. Same thing when I was in Syria. In Syria there was so much pottery lying around in places that you couldn't help walking on the stuff. In the long term that stuff is destroyed too. With the civil war I imagine the museums have been or will be looted and a lot of the sites will be destroyed. These are some of my personal experiences. I don't see why I shouldn't take a few pieces out of a field for my desk. Also fishing nets, development, oil exploration, etc destroy shipwrecks. As they said in the course even the archaeologists destroy sites, though I guess they do it properly. (my personal piss off on that one were the silk road paintings that Sir Aurel Stein sent to Germany and were destroyed in WWII cause they cemented them into the walls and couldn't get them into a safe place) Unfortunately most archaeologists have such a bug up their ash about private collections or private excavations that they would rather see it destroyed in situ than excavated by a "treasure hunter". Also there are so many sites out there that they don't have a chance in you know what to salvage anything but a small fraction of them. The archaeologists bite the bullet and cooperate with developers and oil companies but never the evil treasure hunters.
I think they hate Odyssey Marine as an example of treasure hunters. The funny thing is that Omex now seems to be pretty good about treating the sites well. The "do the archaeology and sell the surplus for profit" model seems to be not so bad. That way the archaeologists get their knowledge and the best artifacts, the investors get profit, and collectors get pieces for their collections. When I think of the black swan fiasco I always wonder how many thousands of coins do the Spanish actually need to preserve their heritage.
The only thing is that I'd like to see the best pieces in a museum rather than a private collection. The only reason being purely selfish, I want to see them. But then seeing that museums only show a small percent of what they have that probably wouldn't help anyways.
All of that said the archaeologists do have a point. If you ever get to Anchor Wat and see some of the spots where some of the carvings were taken out of the walls it is a pity. Some stuff should stay in situ.
 

If you've seen Bill Moore's amazing computerized grids of the 1715 wrecks at Mel Fisher's in Sebastian, you've see an amazing example of what I'd call archaeology. The purpose may be to track what has/hasn't been searched by treasure divers, but it yields invaluable historical, geographical, geological & other info about the wrecks that would never have been documented so well (or at all) without the contract system.

I haven't caught up on the final two weeks of the course, but I find it disappointing to learn they've inserted so much opinion in a science-based curriculum. But don't negate the science that is offered. Most of us here on this forum are probably a bit biased toward treasure diving. I'm sort of neutral on the subject, but am swayed by the decency of the people I personally know who treasure dive that the community is doing far more good than harm, & the intent is also more noble than not. Good people are doing good things out there with their diving boats. Just as good archaeologists are trying to balance out the need to preserve & study.

The two communities need each other, in the opinion of this landlubber.
 

The two communities need each other, in the opinion of this landlubber.
Click to expand...
Definitely. It's like how some environmentalists go bezerk about hunters when a lot of hunters have been very important for conservation.
 

MPH200 said:
I ordered the certificate $42.86 ... oops
Click to expand...

Yeah that pounds-to-dollars conversion is a bummer.

I think I'll order my certificate this weekend, even though that entire last week of the course was all about treasure hunter bashing. I expressed my distaste for the bias like any internet troll worth her salt would in the discussions/forum.

I'm not a treasure hunter myself, but I almost signed a contract for the 1715 wrecks in 2011, & I've attended the now defunct annual meetings both pre- & post-Queen's Jewels LLC. There was always discussion of environmental & archaeological responsibility.

I don't like to see one-sided arguments put forth without rebuttal. All the students gushing over the horrors of treasure hunting was getting sickening. But the course on the whole was highly educational & I enjoyed all those English accents. :o)
 

Anyone feel this online course was worth it? Sounds like there could have been enough good stuff, in the way of archaeological documentation methods on shipwreck sites.
 

Go for it, Red. It's free! (unless you want the certificate)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

HAS ANYONE HEARD FROM Treshuntintom?????

⬅️ Previous Thread

Diving Italy for Historic Wrecks.

Next Thread ➡️

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 3 (members: 0, guests: 3)

Latest Discussions

Back
Top