INSTITUTE OF NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

The Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) was incorporated in 1972 as an educational/research institute devoted to the study of the history of seafaring. Its early staff (George Bass, Michael Katzev, Cynthia Eiseman, Richard Steffy, Donald Frey, and Robin Piercy) had pioneered underwater excavations of ancient shipwrecks in Turkey, Cyprus, and Italy for the University of Pennsylvania Museum between 1960 and 1970. In 1976, INA affiliated with Texas A&M University, which at that time inaugurated a Nautical Archaeology Program, which now has a faculty of seven, with three emeritus professors (Bass, Steffy, and Frederick van Doorninck) remaining actively involved in INA research projects. Although its headquarters are on the Texas A&M University campus, INA is a truly international organization, with staff from the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, Portugal, and Canada, and members of its Board of Directors from the United States, France, Turkey, and Canada. It has a major research center in Bodrum, Turkey, with a small campus comprising an office building, dormitory, library, and conservation laboratory, and a fleet comprising a 20-meter vessel outfitted for diving, a two-person submersible, and a catamaran that carries, launches, and retrieves the submersible. INA has been actively involved in surveys and excavations around the world in countries that include Kenya, Egypt, Bulgaria, Jamaica, the Unites States, Italy, Israel, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Portugal (including the Azores), Spain, Turkey, Eretria, the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic, and now Japan. Forty of its past projects are described in "Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology" (Thames and Hudson, New York and London, 2005), edited by George F. Bass.

For more information about INA visit http://ina.tamu.edu/