'Unpath'd Waters': Marine and Maritime Collections in the UK
Lead Research Organisation:
Historic Bldgs & Mnts Commis for England
Department Name: Research Group
Abstract
The UK Marine Area extends over some 867,400 km2, an area equivalent to around 3.5 times the UK terrestrial extent. The UK's marine heritage is extraordinarily rich and exciting. Wrecks on the sea bed range in date from the Bronze Age to the World Wars and bear testimony to Britain as an island nation, a destination for trade and conquest, and in past times, the heart of a global empire. Communities along the coast have been shaped by their maritime heritage and monuments and stories recall losses and heroes. Much further back in time, before the Bronze Age, a great deal of what is now the North Sea was dry land, peopled by prehistoric communities who lived in lowland landscapes, some on very different coastlines. The British Isles would have been distant uplands above hills and plains and rivers.
This arc of heritage, stretching over 23,000 years, is represented by an abundance of collections. Charts and maps, documents, images, film, oral histories, sonar surveys, seismic data, bathymetry, archaeological investigations, artefacts and objects, artworks and palaeoenvironmental cores all tell us different things about our marine legacy. But they can't
easily be brought together. They are dispersed, held in archives, unconnected and inaccessible.
This matters because it is clear that the story of our seas is of huge interest to the UK public. In 2019 alone, there were 2.9m visits to Royal Museums Greenwich, home of the National Maritime Museum; 1.1m visits to National Museum Royal Navy; 837,000 visits to Merseyside Maritime Museum, and 327,000 visits to HMS Belfast. It is also clear that our exploitation of our seas is increasing dramatically. Windfarms, mining, dredging for aggregates, port expansions, leisure and fishing are all placing tensions on the survival of our heritage. If we are to unlock new stories and manage our past effectively and sustainably, we need to join up all our marine collections and get the most of them.
UNPATH will bring together first class universities, heritage agencies, museums, charitable trusts and marine experts to work out how to join these collections up. It will use Artificial Intelligence to devise new ways of searching across newly linked collections, simulations to help visualise the wrecks and landscapes, and science to help identify wrecks and find out more about the artefacts and objects from them. It will deliver integrated management tools to help protect our most significant heritage. And it will invite the public to help co-design new ways of interacting with the collections and to help enhance them from their own private collections. The methods, code and resources created will be published openly so they can used to shape the future of UK marine heritage.
This arc of heritage, stretching over 23,000 years, is represented by an abundance of collections. Charts and maps, documents, images, film, oral histories, sonar surveys, seismic data, bathymetry, archaeological investigations, artefacts and objects, artworks and palaeoenvironmental cores all tell us different things about our marine legacy. But they can't
easily be brought together. They are dispersed, held in archives, unconnected and inaccessible.
This matters because it is clear that the story of our seas is of huge interest to the UK public. In 2019 alone, there were 2.9m visits to Royal Museums Greenwich, home of the National Maritime Museum; 1.1m visits to National Museum Royal Navy; 837,000 visits to Merseyside Maritime Museum, and 327,000 visits to HMS Belfast. It is also clear that our exploitation of our seas is increasing dramatically. Windfarms, mining, dredging for aggregates, port expansions, leisure and fishing are all placing tensions on the survival of our heritage. If we are to unlock new stories and manage our past effectively and sustainably, we need to join up all our marine collections and get the most of them.
UNPATH will bring together first class universities, heritage agencies, museums, charitable trusts and marine experts to work out how to join these collections up. It will use Artificial Intelligence to devise new ways of searching across newly linked collections, simulations to help visualise the wrecks and landscapes, and science to help identify wrecks and find out more about the artefacts and objects from them. It will deliver integrated management tools to help protect our most significant heritage. And it will invite the public to help co-design new ways of interacting with the collections and to help enhance them from their own private collections. The methods, code and resources created will be published openly so they can used to shape the future of UK marine heritage.
Publications
Adam Kilgour
(2022)
Opening Access to Our Rich Maritime Heritage
Newton A
(2024)
Glacial seismic geomorphology and Plio-Pleistocene ice sheet history offshore NW Europe
in Geological Society, London, Special Publications
Description | Influence on marine heritage inventory design |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | Presentation to PGS Petroleum Geoservices executives |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | SUBNORDICA: Beyond Submerged Landscapes - Defining Human Response to Postglacial Sea-level Rise and Climate Change |
Amount | € 13,221,969 (EUR) |
Funding ID | SUBNORDICA - 101119164 - GAP-101119164 |
Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 03/2024 |
End | 04/2030 |
Title | UO-CAT ontology |
Description | To be able to search the wide range of digital collections as part of Work Package 1, Julian Richards and his team at Archaeology Data Service have developed an agreed way of describing all the different digital resources, or 'ontology'. This builds on work done by ADS and their involvement in ARIADNE, which makes it possible to search over 3 million archaeological data resources from over 20 countries. The Unpath ontology is a further step creating their own 'ontology'. |
Type Of Material | Data handling & control |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This has already allowed the import of metadata about Unpath'd Waters resources into the catalogue. We want anyone with the right skillset to be able to build websites and interfaces to investigate any aspect of the UNPATH catalogue they are interested in. They should also be able to link it to other datasets, such as information about the natural environment. To allow this, the catalogue is held as Linked Open Data in an RDF triplestore. The catalogued data will be shared to existing online portals, including ARIADNE and MEDIN. This includes creating a version of the ARIADNE portal which gives a UK-only view of marine data for Unpath'd Waters. It's already clear that it will allow researchers to ask an entirely new set of research questions and give the public more access to the UK's rich maritime heritage. |
URL | https://unpathdwaters.org.uk/data-catalogue-launched/ |
Description | British Geological Survey partnership |
Organisation | British Geological Survey |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | The work we are doing (via University of Bradford) on creating a dynamic model of the southern north sea from various data collections will be of considerable interest to the BGS |
Collaborator Contribution | BGS are providing additional collections to the Unpath'd Waters project to help make the digital map of Doggerland's prehistoric land surfaces more accurate. These include borehole data. This is being provided gratis. |
Impact | None yet |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Corporation of Lloyd's of London |
Organisation | Lloyd's of London Ltd |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Unpath'd Waters will work with data held by Lloyd's of London, alongside its charitable arm the Lloyd's Register Foundation, to test ways of connecting Loss Book entries (missing vessels) with discovered, surveyed but unidentified wrecks in the Irish sea to see if we can make the identification process more effective. |
Collaborator Contribution | The Corporation of Lloyd's of London have kindly digitised and made available to us a significant amount of data at no cost to the project to help with the research work. |
Impact | Output: Datasets derived from Loss Books held by Lloyd's of London |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Ocean Decade contributing project |
Organisation | Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO |
Country | France |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | UNPATH has been accepted as a contributing project to the Ocean Decade initiative led by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission |
Collaborator Contribution | UNPATH has shared details of the project, its aims and its contribution to the wider aims of Ocean Decade |
Impact | No outputs or outcomes yet |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | UK Hydrographic Office Archive |
Organisation | United Kingdom Hydrographic Office |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | UNPATH is helping to widen awareness of the UKHO Archive |
Collaborator Contribution | UKHO Archive is helping to support data provision and providing advice and contributions to project workshops |
Impact | No outputs or outcomes yet |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | AI workshop Southampton |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A talk was given on AI resources for data mining and linking to a workshop on the future of data. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Archaeology of Wales presentation 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | As part of Work Package 3.2 Science & the Sea, presentations were offered by M Roberts (Bangor University) and Julian Whitewright (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments (Wales) to inform the Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales mini-conference. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://m.facebook.com/ArchReFWales/events/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0 |
Description | Doggerland - Megalithomania - Glastonbury |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Talk on palaeolandscapes to a group deealing with liminal archaeology studies |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Doggerland Keil International landscape Conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk on the results of study in Nortth Sea |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Host and invited speaker at Culture24's Digitally literate leadership in heritage: What senior leaders & trustees need to know about digital maturity |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | On 31 October, MOLA hosted senior leaders and trustees from two dozen different cultural organisations around the UK for Culture24's Digitally literate leadership in heritage: What senior leaders & trustees need to know about digital maturity. Sara Perry was an invited speaker at the event, presenting a talk on 'Digital influence from the sidelines', where Unpath'd Waters' values-related work was featured as a case study. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-digitally-literate-leadership-in-heritage-london-south-east-... |
Description | Invited panel at the ICOMOS-UK Digital Technology National Committee's online event Digital Technologies for Visitor Engagement with Cultural Heritage |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited panelist at the ICOMOS-UK Digital Technology National Committee's online event Digital Technologies for Visitor Engagement with Cultural Heritage on 29 November 2022 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://worldheritageuk.org/articles/icomos-uk/digital-technologies-for-visitor-engagement-with-cult... |
Description | Naval Dockyards Society Conference 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | As part of Work Package 3.1 People & the Sea, a presentation by Antony Firth (Historic England): 'Placing Warships: Reconnecting vessels and dockyards', at Naval Dockyards Society Conference, National Museum of the Royal Navy Portsmouth. The objective was to link vessels (and thus sometimes their wrecks) to their places of construction or berthing. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjCyoSCocT6AhVholwKHcdGCEYQ... |
Description | North Sea Archaeology - Patents Office |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Lecture to Civil Servants on linkages through archaeology and speciifcally the North Sea |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Pilot student hackathon |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Led by Tarek Teba and the University of Portsmouth Team as part of Work Package 3.1 (People and the Sea), the task was to visualise biological research data, creating a visual immersive/interactive using genetic data from the Mary Rose |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Presentation of UNPATH at a Council for Science and Technology event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | UNPATH was used as an example of Towards a National Collection ambition in relation to creative industries policy in the UK, and was presented to UK Govt Chief Science Advisor, Chair of Creative Industries Panel and a number of other key influential decision-makers, as part of a wider presentation of creative industry capability in the UK. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Presentation to MSc Renewable Energy Students at University of Manchester - Titled What has archaeology got to do with the energy transition |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Presentation to MSc Renewable Energy Students at University of Manchester - Titled What has archaeology got to do with the energy transition |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Public lecture U3A |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | WP3.2 Science & the Sea (University of Bangor): public lecture by M Roberts at a Bangor U3A group meeting |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Submerged Landscapes University of Vienna |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | In person and online lecture on palaeolandscapes |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | University of Southampton Seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A talk to researchers in Arts & Humanities at the University of Southampton on the Unpath'd Water's project use of artificial intelligence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Unpath'd Waters project values presentation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | Led by Sara Perry of MOLA, a presentation to other researchers in the Towards a National Collection projects of the living values developed for Unpath'd Waters to support audience engagement (ensuring equity; connecting with people on their own terms; empowering through collaboration; being reliable and sustainable; being constructive; and being adventurous). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://unpathdwaters.org.uk/about/ |
Description | Workshop on approaches to the Analogue/Digital divide |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | A workshop organised by Dr Ann Coats at University of Portsmouth to bring researchers and archive practitioners together to explore the qualitative differences between analogue archive research and online/digital research into maritime collections, and to test whether a set of principles could be developed to help prioritise digitisation. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |