NZ UNDERWATER HERITAGE GROUP INC. ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Key Note Speaker – Prof. Bridget Buxton

New Zealander Bridget Buxton received her BA and MA (distinction) from Victoria University in Wellington, won an NZ Young Achiever Award, and completed her Ph.D. in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, as a Fulbright and Regents Humanities Scholar. She taught briefly at Auckland University from 2003-2006 and is currently a Professor of History and Underwater Archaeology at the University of Rhode Island, where she is a certified AAUS scientific diver. Bridget’s research and underwater discoveries have featured in numerous documentaries and magazine publications as well as scientific journals. In 2021 she carried the flag of the International Society of Women Geographers on the first ever underwater archaeological expedition to the uninhabited islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory; she has participated in a variety of deep-sea expeditions and is the 11th woman to have dived to the wreck of RMS Titanic.
Bridget’s historical research and archaeological expeditions range across civilizations and oceans, including archaeological surveys and excavations in Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Israel, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean; her most recent 2024 fieldwork featured on an episode of Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown, “Chasing Africa’s Atlantis”. She has more than twenty years’ experience as a public lecturer and is a three-time recipient of the Archaeological Institute of America’s prestigious McCann-Taggart endowed lectureship in underwater archaeology. Bridget approaches history as a storyteller and loves to share her unique inside knowledge of the treasures of the underwater world.

Prof. Buxton presentations as follows:

NZUHG Conference -

Saturday Nov 2 nd afternoon.The Forbidden Voyage
An introduction to the methods and technologies of successful wreck-hunting, from the library to the remotest oceans. This is the story of an ongoing effort to find one of the most elusive holy grails of underwater archaeology, concluding with a consideration of how lessons learned along the way might be applied in a New Zealand context.

New Light on King Herod’s Harbour

King Herod (c. 72-4 BCE) was one of the Bible’s greatest villains, but also one of antiquity’s greatest builders, and responsible for the largest underwater construction of the Roman Empire, the famous port of Caesarea Maritima in Israel. For almost a century, archaeologists have studied Caesarea’s sunken ruins without reaching consensus on some of the biggest questions about its construction. That all began to change in 2015, when a mysterious hoard of gold coins emerged from the sand.

Sunday morning Nov 3rd 9.30 to 11.00 am

Why are we Obsessed with Titanic?

Seriously, why? New research into the cultural history of the ill-fated luxury liner has produced some surprising theories about our enduring fascination with “The Ship of Dreams”.

Conference times: Saturday 9.30 am – 4.30pm Sunday 9.30 am- 12.00 amPlease email searov@xtra.co.nz to register your intention to attend the conference to assist with seating planning and to receive the full confirmed speaker programme details and updates.

NZ Underwater Heritage Group Inc. PO Box 301416, Albany 7652. searov@xtra.co.nz
www.underwaterheritage.co.nz