Würzburg

The anniversary meeting 2025 of the DEGUWA - German Society for the Promotion of Underwater Archaeology e.V. IN POSEIDON'S REALM XXX with the topic Shipping | Images from April 08. to 13. 2025 in Würzburg will be organized in close cooperation with the Martin von Wagner Museum and the Chair of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at the Julius-Maximilian University of Würzburg, Germany.
IPR XXX aims to build a bridge between nautical / limnic archaeology and visual studies. Likewise, the conference will take account of the current research interest in the various aspects of maritime and fluminal transportation systems. In spatial terms, it concentrates on the Mediterranean region and its inland waters while the period to be examined ranges from early history to late antiquity.
In particular, the focus will be on the following three topics:
1. Ancient depictions of ships or shipping / works of art on ships and ship models
2. The transportation of works of art, as illuminated above all by wreck finds (e.g. Mahdia/Tunisia and Antikythera/Greece)
3. (Digital) images and reconstructions of pre-modern ships, shipping routes and transportation logistics
4. Ancient and modern models and replicas of watercrafts
Against this background, we would like to receive proposals for presentations dealing with the following issues:
- What images were produced of ships in early and ancient societies and what social significance can be derived from them? In which contexts do such images appear and which layers of meaning do they contain?
- What role did ships play as media of images? What was the significance and function of figural representations on ships?
- How did the transportation of sculptures and other artworks by ship function? What significance did the 'long-distance transport' of works of art have as an exchange between societies? How did the transportation of marble and other stones for the production of sculptures and similar works of art take place?
- How do we imagine and visualize today early and ancient ships and shipping? How has this image changed in recent years as a result of new research questions and digital methods? What knowledge potential lies in the digital reconstruction of ship routes and transportation on seas and rivers?

All papers will be published in SKYLLIS - Journal of Maritime and Limnetic Archaeology and Cultural History. Explanations of the scientific and an extensive social program, venues, accommodation, etc. will be provided in November 2024.
Current information here