Ship Archaeology
I interrupt my sequence of county-based reviews in this latest column to turn temporarily to the subject of ship archaeology. This break is brought about by the sad news of the death in June 2021 of Seán McGrail, one of the key figures of this area of study since its formal emergence in the 1970s. Seán was a globally influential figure who led a fascinating life, travelling widely and publishing prodigiously. But he was little-known within either mainstream archaeology or popular culture. I take this opportunity to celebrate his life and to mourn his passing by highlighting some of the sites and projects he worked on, and individuals and teams with whom he worked and to whom he offered advice over the years.
Flying into View
By way of an introduction, I draw your attention to CA 101 (August 1986), which includes a brief biography of the man himself, including his pre-archaeological experience. Seán served for 22 years in the Royal Navy as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm and as a Master Mariner (the highest-qualified grade of seafarer), before he entered archaeology as a mature student in 1968. To this can be added details not previously mentioned in Current Archaeology: his naval career included extensive active service, including hazardous carrier duty during the Korean War, and he ended up as a professor of archaeology, first at Oxford and later at Southampton, having also put in a lengthy stint as head of archaeology at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. A quiet and unassuming man, it is easy to underestimate his impact, but Seán literally lived two lives in one.
If there is a starting point to the story, though, it is CA 65 (February 1979), which features reports on a recent revamp of the National Maritime Museum, including full-scale reconstructions of three of the most important ship-finds known in Britain at the time – the Bronze Age Ferriby Boat 1, and the Anglo-Saxon Graveney and Sutton Hoo vessels. Seán was energetically establishing an Archaeological Research Centre at the museum in this period, working in close collaboration with contemporaries abroad, most notably Ole Crumlin-Pedersen at the Danish National Museum, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. CA 65 also provides a handy guide for archaeologists of ‘boat finds on land’, written by Seán and his team, which is informed by finds made in the UK, such as the Bronze Age raft from Brigg in Lincolnshire, as well as others made abroad, including the Viking Age ships’ timbers discovered during the redevelopment of Wood Quay in central Dublin (this site is also discussed in CA 328, July 2017).
