'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.

Publications

10 25 50
 
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