Dor Project - a volunteer's view

Brian Albert joined the NAS in 1999. He volunteered to work on the Dor project, but before that his only experience was on an NAS Part I course which he completed four months before travelling to Israel.

In September I joined a group of NAS volunteers, part of an international team of divers working on two wrecks in the ancient harbour of Dor in Israel; a site that contains archaeology from the Late Bronze Age to the 1990s.

We left a rainy Gatwick to land at 3am in Tel Aviv with instructions that we should be attending our first dive briefing at 7am! Here we learnt about the wrecks we were to work on, a 3rd century Byzantine site and a 17th century Ottoman wreck. Both of which were within 40m of the shore in only 3.5m of warm, clear water.

A lot of sand had to be cleared from both sites using large water dredges before they could be seen and recorded. The Byzantine site consisted of a mass of ballast stones covering the remains of the ship's hull interspersed with pottery shards. The Ottoman site was more visually impressive, if not as archaeologically important. A considerable amount of her hull survived, pinned to the seabed by a cargo of stone. Other parts of her cargo consisted of glassware, still in its original straw packing and the possible remains of a consignment of tobacco. These finds provided the more accurate date for the wreck of the late 19th century, not as impressive as Byzantine but still an enjoyable experience.

The thrill and excitement I felt when I found my first piece of broken pottery is something I find difficult to put into words. This feeling of anticipation stayed with me for the whole two weeks and I hope is something that I never lose.

Brian Albert