Archaeological sites are not isolated spots in the landscape.
They can enhance perspectives on past and forgotten, sometimes contested, histories.
This is the case of shipwrecks.They are part of memories, and layers of significance embedded in their cultural landscape. Never one unique meaning can represent a site.
As archaeologists our professional role is, through our research, opening the dialogue and the reflection upon the past into the present stimulating different prospectives into context and societies.
The Eduard Bohlen II, a maritime cultural landscape
Eduard Bohlen II, wrecked in 1909 on the coast of Namibia in Africa. Launched at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg on 23 October, 1891, the vessel was purchased by the Maritime Society of Congo and later joined the African Steamship AG Woermann-Line..
Served first as a mail, cargo, and passenger steam ship.
During the German colonial war was a prison for the Herero living in Swakopmund, and those captured by troops along the railway line towards Kanbib. After use as a prison ship, Edward Bohlen II returned to passenger service combined with delivery missions of diamond mining supplies to the encampments.
The ship ran aground near Conception Bay in 1909. Not long after this
event, a diamond company set up mining operations at Conception Bay and historical documentation shows that some of the miners actually lived in the wreck remains duringthis time.
In Lords of the Lost Frontier, Lawrence Green (1952:305) writes, ‘‘At one period natives working on the diamond fields lived in the Eduard Bohlen’s fo’c’stle, while the manager occupied the Captain’s quarters. At night it was strange to see lights gleaming from the port-holes of the ship in the desert.’’
Colonial past, labour fource, slavery, these are some of the histories that a shipwreck can remember us.
Interpreting and analyzing the historical messages of archaeological
sites are a challenge for reflect on the shared and contested heritage and on its issue of management.
Read more about the Bohlen II:
Harris L. • Jones J • Schnitzer K. (2007) Monuments in the Desert: A Maritime Landscape in Namibia. J Mari Arch (2012) 7:111–140
Green L (1952) Lords of the last frontier: the story of South West Africa and its people of all races. H. B.Timmins, Cape Town
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