Down to the seas again: Maritime explorer shares history’s top shipwrecks

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    Jim Delgado and a shipwreck. Photo by Marc Pike.

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Deep-sea explorer and author Jim Delgado will discuss history’s most significant shipwrecks around the world from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age during a Sept. 21 talk at the University of Louisville.

    The archaeologist has spent four decades studying more than 100 shipwrecks from the Titanic to the Monitor.

    His free, public lecture on “The Great Museum of the Sea” will begin at 4 p.m. in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library. The event is sponsored by the Liberal Studies Project in the College of Arts and Sciences.

    Delgado will span three millennia in his presentation focusing on the wrecks and what archaeology reveals about them and the people who built and worked on the ships. He also will discuss the evolution of underwater archaeology, including more recent work involving new technologies, approaches and perspectives.

                  This year Delgado became senior vice president of SEARCH Inc., an archaeological consulting and monitoring company, after a seven-year stint as director of the Maritime Heritage Program for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. He is a former executive director and president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, former executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum and founding director of the National Park Service’s maritime preservation program.

                The archaeologist was host of the popular television show “The Sea Hunters” for five years and has been a TV host for Discovery, History, A&E and National Geographic. Delgado’s fieldwork has included the wrecks of the USS Monitor, USS Arizona, a Civil War submarine, lost fleet of Kublai Khan and the atomic-bombed warships at Bikini Atoll. He also served as chief scientist for the first full mapping of the Titanic site. He has written or edited more than 30 books on history and archaeology.

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    Judy Hughes
    Judy Hughes is a senior communications and marketing coordinator for UofL’s Office of Communications and Marketing and associate editor of UofL Magazine. She previously worked in news as a writer and editor for a daily newspaper and The Associated Press.