Professor Timmy Gambin
Professor Gambin is an Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology in the Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Malta, from where he obtained a B.A. in History. Following his undergraduate studies, he went on to attain an M.A. in Maritime Archaeology and History at the University of Bristol in the UK where he continued his postgraduate studies by reading for a doctorate in Maritime Archaeology. In 2001, Professor Gambin joined the Department as a visiting lecturer and took up a full-time post as Senior Lecturer in spring of 2012.
Over the past years, Professor Gambin has been involved in numerous collaborative research projects. The PaleoMed Project with the CNRS (Aix en Provence) is aimed at the reconstruction of ancient coastal landscapes and environments of the Maltese Islands. The multidisciplinary approach sees archaeologists working together with geomorphologists and palynologists. The Ancient Cisterns Project with CalPoly (USA) explores underground water management systems through the use of small remote operated vehicles armed with a variety of sensors. Together with a number of local partners and authorities, Professor Gambin has also directed numerous offshore underwater surveys in various parts of the Mediterranean including Spain, Italy and Croatia.
Professor Gambin has recently edited a volume of papers delivered at the First International Conference of Aviation Archaeology and Heritage.
Dr Lucy Blue
Dr Blue graduated from the University of Oxford in 1996 with a DPhil in Maritime Archaeology with a research focus of Bronze Age harbours and maritime routes of trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Since then she has extended her interest in ports and harbours research both chronologically and geographically, co-directing the investigation of the Greco-Roman harbours and lake-side settlements around the shores of Lake Mareotis, Alexandria (2004 - 2008), the Roman and later Islamic port site of Quseir al-Qadim on the Red Sea coast of Egypt (1999 - 2003), and the Roman port of Adulis, Eritrea (2004-2005). Besides an interest in ports of trade, she also has extensive experience undertaking maritime ethnographical research in the Indian sub-continent (1996 – 2007), the Arabian Gulf (UAE and Oman, 2012 – 2016), and the western Indian Ocean (Tanzania 2018 – 2020), as well as documenting boats in museum archives (2000 onwards, the ISCA collection).
In 2009, after helping to establish the Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Cultural Heritage, University of Alexandria, Egypt, Dr Blue focused her attention on maritime cultural heritage. In 2010 she established MAST, the Maritime Archaeology Stewardship Trust that promotes visibility of and capacity for, maritime archaeology and coastal heritage management in the Arab world. A primary output of this initiative, commissioned by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Sultanate of Oman, was the Maritime Archaeological Survey of Oman conducted in conjunction with Western Australia Museum (2014 – 2016). Since 2016, Dr Blue has been employed part-time as the Maritime Archaeological Director of the Honor Frost Foundation.
In her University of Southampton role, Dr Blue now co-directs with the University of Ulster, the five-year Arcadia funded, MarEA, Maritime endangered archaeology in the MENA region. She also still contributes to teaching and learning, and supervises doctoral students. For the last few years Dr Blue has directed maritime research into the ancient harbour of Dreamer’s Bay, Akrotiri, Cyprus, and in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, she conducts a co-produced, community based research project in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Dr Blue is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Society of Antiquaries, a Vice President of the Nautical Archaeology Society, she was a presenter on the BBC/Discovery co-funded eight-part ‘Oceans' series (2007-2008), and presented the 2014 BBC documentary entitled ‘Swallowed Seas’.
Dr Stella Demesticha
Stella Demesticha completed her undergraduate studies in Archaeology in 1992, at the National University of Athens, Greece, (Department of History and Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy) and continued at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Cyprus, where she got her PhD in Archaeology, in 2002. She worked for seven years (2000- 2006) at the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, in Athens, Greece (as head of the Museums Department and in 2006, as vice director of the Foundation). In 2006 she also taught Maritime Archaeology at the University of Peloponnese, Greece, and since 2007 she lectures at the University of Cyprus.
She specialises in maritime archaeology, and more particularly on shipwrecks, maritime transport containers, ancient seaborne trade routes and economy in the eastern Mediterranean. Her publications concern all these topics, with an emphasis on Cyprus. In 2011 she created the Maritime Archaeological Research Laboratory (MARELab) at the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus. She currently directs two ongoing underwater excavation projects at the Mazotos and the Nissia Shipwreck sites. She teaches both under- and post graduate courses, co-ordinates a Master’s Programme (Field Archaeology on Land and Under the Sea) and supervises PhD students.
Dr Demesticha has coordinated two funded research projects: (i) Sailing in Cyprus through the Centuries: An Interdisciplinary Approach (ΑΝΘΡΩ/0311(ΒΕ)/09): co-financed by the European Development Funds and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research Promotion Foundation (RPF), Cyprus; (ii) ΚΑΡΑΒΟΙ: The Ship Graffiti on the Medieval and Post Medieval Monuments of Cyprus: Mapping, Documentation and Digitisation: funded by the Leventis Foundation Research Committee, University of Cyprus. As the director of MARELab, she participated into a larger EU project, entitled iMARECULTURE: Advanced VR, iMmersive serious games and Augmented Reality, as tools to raise awareness and access to European underwater CULTURal heritage (Horizon 2020 - CULT-COOP-08-2016 (2016 – 2019). She is currently involved in two funded projects: ‘SAROCY: Delineating probable sea routes between Cyprus and its surrounding coastal areas at the start of the Holocene: A simulation approach’ (RESTART 2016-2020) and ‘ANDIKAT: Καταδυτικές Διαδρομές σε Θαλάσσιες Προστατευόμενες Περιοχές της Ανατολικής Μεσογείου - Ανάπτυξη Δικτύου Καταδυτικού Τουρισμού (Interreg V-A Ελλάδα- Κύπρος).
