JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

US university to look for sunken ships in Tobago

by

20120622

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has grant­ed ap­proval for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut in the USA to con­duct ar­chae­o­log­i­cal sur­veys and ex­ca­va­tion works near the Scar­bor­ough Har­bour to lo­cate the re­mains of 16 ship­wrecks. The ves­sels were sunk dur­ing the fierce wars the Dutch and the French fought in the 17th cen­tu­ry for con­trol of the is­land.

A 30-mem­ber team is ex­pect­ed to un­der­take the sci­en­tif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the her­itage project. It is head­ed by Dr Kroum Batch­varov, pro­fes­sor of mar­itime ar­chae­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, as­sist­ed by Ja­son Pa­ter­ni­ti, di­rec­tor of op­er­a­tions at the G-eos Foun­da­tion.

Speak­ing at the post-ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Batch­varov said the ini­tia­tive was the most im­por­tant project of its kind in the Caribbean in 12 years. He said the project will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for lo­cal schol­ars to par­tic­i­pate in the ex­cit­ing work of deep-sea map­ping and ex­plo­ration.

"This project will pro­vide unique op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal stu­dents and stu­dents abroad to in­ter­act with each oth­er to find an in­ter­est­ing as­pect of this," he said. "Ar­chae­ol­o­gy is not on­ly about ex­ca­va­tion of an ob­ject. Many dis­ci­plines of sci­ence are in­volved in this, start­ing from the study of tech­nol­o­gy back then to tech­nol­o­gy in the present day.

"We al­ways use up-to-date, high-qual­i­ty equip­ment like com­put­ers. All this is part of our op­er­a­tion, so there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for sci­ence de­vel­op­ment, there is chem­istry in­volved, there is physics in­volved and com­put­er sci­ence in­volved...and we are hop­ing to share the knowl­edge with the lo­cal stu­dents who would like to work with us."

Batch­varov said his team has been work­ing with Ed­ward Her­nan­dez, di­rec­tor of the mu­se­um at Fort King George, to de­ter­mine ways to pre­serve the items that would be re­cov­ered, to boost cul­tur­al tourism "Part of our ob­jec­tive is the es­tab­lish­ment of a good-class mar­itime ar­chae­ol­o­gy sec­tion with­in the mu­se­um," he said.

"To­ba­go has been blessed with a fan­tas­tic mu­se­um and venue for dis­play­ing To­ba­go's cul­tur­al her­itage at the Fort King George Mu­se­um. "Our hope is that this would en­hance To­ba­go's rep­u­ta­tion as a lead­ing des­ti­na­tion for cul­tur­al tourism with­in the re­gion."

He not­ed that the event would be wide­ly doc­u­ment­ed on the In­ter­net with its own Web site. So­cial net­works Face­book and Twit­ter will al­so be utilised and the world-re­spect­ed Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic mag­a­zine will al­so doc­u­ment the find­ings. Batch­varov said a book would al­so be writ­ten about the ex­plo­ration, with joint copy­right be­tween him and the THA.

He said all the arte­facts found would be the prop­er­ty of the THA. The project is be­ing spon­sored to­tal­ly by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut and is ex­pect­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$82,000 a year. Ex­ca­va­tion, record­ing, doc­u­men­ta­tion and con­ser­va­tion are ex­pect­ed to start in June 2013, and to be com­plet­ed in be­tween three and five years.

His­tor­i­cal back­ground

In 1677, a French squadron, as­sist­ed by a large de­tach­ment of troops, at­tempt­ed to wrest con­trol of To­ba­go from the Dutch West In­dies Com­pa­ny. The squadrons fought a cru­cial bat­tle in what to­day is the Scar­bor­ough Har­bour. The bat­tle was one of the largest fought out­side Eu­rope in the 1600s, and the even­tu­al loss of To­ba­go to the French marked a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in the his­to­ry of Caribbean set­tle­ment.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

Shastri Boodan

Shastri Boodan

Apsara inspires youth through culture

9 hours ago
Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne

Dr Mariama Alleyne: Global Hero of Hope supports cancer survivors

Yesterday
During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

During my consultation with Ms Brafit CEO Nicole Joseph-Chin, what was supposed to be a simple mastectomy bra fitting became something much deeper. Her thoughtful questions unlocked emotions I didn’t even realise I was holding in. She comforted, reassured, and helped me face the truth of what was coming. That bra wasn’t just clothing—it was the first real symbol of life after surgery.

Standing on business, not pity: My fight begins–Part 2

Yesterday
Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza graces the cover of the book: Minding Their Own Business: Five Female Leaders From Trinidad and Tobago authored by Trini-American Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Professor of Literacy Studies at the College of Education Health and Human Services at Kent State University.

Gillian de Souza’s American culinary journey springs from T&T roots

Yesterday