Affiliation:
1. Coastal Carolina University
Abstract
Nautical archaeologists act as architects of ruins as they rebuild ships
from wrecks. Architectural salvation from demonic depths appeals to
two aspects of the Early Modern legacy: God as Divine Architect and the
restoration of Edenic utopia from dystopia. This chapter considers the
uncanny encounters between scholar and shipwreck that must precede
archaeological resurrection. Ships are reengineered with information
negotiated from the wreckage underwater, yet submersion dulls or nullifies
each of the five senses classically used in scientific enquiry. The concept
of dystopian phenomenology explains how archaeological knowledge
of shipwrecks is acquired underwater. Recollections of ‘visitations’ to a
wrecked sixteenth-century galleon in Ribadeo, Spain inform a phantasmal
sensory approach to help unveil the elusive ontology of shipwrecks.
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press