Author(s): Mensun Bound, Mark Frary

History

An awe-inspiring deep-dive into the treasures found on the sea floor and what they reveal about our past. In Wonders in the Deep Mensun Bound, the renowned archaeologist who was Director of Exploration on the team that discovered Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, argues that the history of the world is as much about maritime exploration and trade as it is about what happens on land. Using the many treasures Bound has discovered at the bottom of the sea and working with journalist Mark Frary, he sets out to write a maritime history of the world from 3000 BC to the present by way of the Ancient Romans and Egyptians, the Vikings and the Chinese, the Portuguese and Spanish and Dutch, through to the US Navy. The objects include skeletons and sewing pins; cannonballs and peacocks; all preserved in shipwrecks hundreds – sometimes thousands – of years old. From Phoenician fertility statues to Corinthian helmets, a Chinese porcelain dish to a Nazi Eagle, the stories of these treasures tell us as much about these amazing objects as the people who used them, shining a light on how and why they found themselves at the bottom of the sea. Interwoven throughout with beautiful photographs, Wonders in the Deep is a riveting story of human ambition, defeat and ingenuity.