Stella Demesticha is Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the University of Cyprus. She studied Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and received her PhD from the University of Cyprus. Since 2008 she teaches at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Cyprus. In 2011 she created the Maritime Archaeological Research Laboratory (MARELab) at the Archaeological Research Unit of the same University.Her expertise lies in the maritime archaeology Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, with a particular focus on shipwrecks, seaborne trade networks, and transport amphorae. She directs the underwater excavations at the Mazotos and Nissia shipwrecks, has carried out numerous field surveys, and has participated in international research projects on the documentation and promotion of underwater cultural heritage.She has published extensively in her field, with major contributions including Mediterranean Connections (co-authored with A.B. Knapp), and the edited volumes Per Terram, Per Mare, Maritime Transport Containers in the Bronze–Iron Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, and Under the Mediterranean I. Sara Rich is Professor of Theory and History of Art and Design at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is a citizen of the Waccamaw Indian People and a maritime archaeologist, art historian, artist, and author of speculative fiction. Her recent scholarship includes essays in Mainsheet, Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Heritage, and Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology (which she also co-edited). Her most recent books include Mushroom (in the Bloomsbury series Object Lessons) and Shipwreck Hauntography: Underwater Ruins and the Uncanny (in the Amsterdam University Press series Maritime Humanities, 1400–1800). Athena Trakadas is a maritime archaeologist focusing on ancient marine resource exploitation and coastal and riverine landscapes, as well as natural-cultural heritage management. Athena directs long-term research projects in Morocco, and has led and conducted archaeological fieldwork in Montenegro, Italy, Iran, Abu Dhabi, Egypt, Türkiye, Greece, Germany and Denmark. She is Senior Researcher at the Viking Ship Museum (Denmark), External Associate Professor in Classical Archaeology at the University of Copenhagen, and Editor of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. She co-founded and co-chairs the UN-partner Ocean Decade Heritage Network NGO. She serves on the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology’s Executive Board, and the Advisory Boards of the Koç University Mustafa V. Koç Maritime Archaeology Research Center (Türkiye) and Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology, University of California, San Diego (USA). She has a long-standing relationship with the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection on the Underwater Cultural Heritage as an expert trainer and member of its UNITWIN Network for Underwater Archaeology and Accredited NGOs, and as an Expert Consultant to its Scientific and Technical Advisory Board. Dr Lucy Blue is a leading maritime archaeologist in her field, a lecturer at the University of Southampton, Centre for Maritime Archaeology, and the Maritime Archaeological Director of the Honor Frost Foundation.Dr Blue has research interests in harbours and maritime cultural landscapes mostly focused around the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. Her research relating to contemporary boat construction, their operation and use has resulted in her conducting ethnographic enquiries in India, East Africa, Oman and Yemen.More recently Dr Blue has engaged in the challenges of building capacity with respect to maritime cultural heritage, predominantly in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), where she has been involved with the establishment of the University of Alexandria’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Cultural Heritage, she has co-directed a project to map and survey the maritime archaeology of Oman, and more recently in collaboration with the University of Ulster, direct the MarEAMENA Project (Endangered Archaeology in the MENA regional coastal and maritime zone).She has presented documentaries relating to underwater cultural heritage for the BBC, and is a Vice President of the Nautical Archaeology Society and a fellow of the Antiquaries and the Royal Geographical Society. Dr Blue’s has published over fifty volumes and articles including:McGrail, S., Blue, L., Kentley, E. & Palmer, C. 2003 Boats of South Asia. RoutledgeCurzon.Peacock, D. & Blue, L. (eds) 2006, Survey and Excavation at Myos Hormos – Quseir al Qadim 1999-2003. Volume 1: The Survey and Report on the Excavations. Oxbow.Blue, L. 2007 ‘Locating the harbour: Myos Hormos/ Quseir al-Qadim: A Roman and Islamic port on the Red Sea coast of Egypt’. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 36.2: 265-281Peacock, D.P. & Blue, L. (eds) 2007 The Eritro-British expedition to Adulis, Eritrea. Oxbow.Blue, L. Pham, C. & Palmer, C. , 2010, ‘Traditional Boats of Vietnam, an Overview’ International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 39.2: 258-277.Blue, L. (ed.) 2010, ‘Lake Mareotis: Reconstructing the Past’ Proceedings of the International Conference on the Archaeology of the Mareotic Region. University of Alexandria April 2008. Southampton Monograph Series No. 2. Oxford: Archaeopress.Blue, L., Pham, C. & Palmer, C 2010, ‘Traditional Boats of Vietnam, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 39.2: 258-277.L. Blue & E. Khalil (eds.). 2011. ‘A multidisciplinary approach to Alexandria’s economic past: The Mareotis Case Study’, Southampton Monograph Series No. 5. Oxford: Archaeopress.D. Peacock & L. Blue (eds). 2011, ‘Myos Hormos – Quseir al-Qadim Roman and Islamic port on the Red Sea coast. Volume 2: The finds from the 1999-2003 excavations’, Southampton Monograph Series No. 6. Archaeopress. Oxford‘Developing an integrated policy for the maritime and coastal heritage of the UAE: a collaborative approach’. Blue, L., Strutt, K., Sheehan, P., Jackson, P. &Beech, M. 2013, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 43: 63–76Van der Noort, R., Blue, L. et al. 2014, ‘Morgawr: a Bronze Age-type sewn-plank craft based on the Ferriby boats’ International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 43.2: 1-13Blue, L. et al, 2014, ‘Maritime footprints: examining the maritime cultural landscape of Masirah Island, Oman, past and present’ Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 44: 53-68Blue, L., Whitewright, J. & Cooper, J. 2017 The ubiquitous hūrī : maritime ethnography, archaeology and history in the western Indian Ocean. ISBSA 13Beech, M.J., Strutt, K., Blue, L., Al Kaabi, A.F., Omar, W.A., El Faki, A.A., Reddy Lingareddy, A. & Martin, J. In press Ubaid-related sites of the southern Gulf revisited: the Abu Dhabi Coastal Heritage Initiative. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 46: 9-24
