Conference Presentations by Nicolas Bigourdan
Papers by Nicolas Bigourdan
Review(s) of: Almost a French Australia: French-British rivalry in the southern oceans, by Bloomf... more Review(s) of: Almost a French Australia: French-British rivalry in the southern oceans, by Bloomfield, N., Halstead Press, Braddon, 2012, 190 pages, hardcover, illustrated, charts, ISBN 978-1-920831-95-0.
Museum Worlds, 2016
ABSTRACTSince 1985 the shipwreck site and related artifacts from the steamship SS Xantho (1872) h... more ABSTRACTSince 1985 the shipwreck site and related artifacts from the steamship SS Xantho (1872) have been key elements in the Western Australian Museum Maritime Archaeology Department’s research, exhibition, and outreach programs. This article describes a continually evolving, often intuitive, synergy between archaeological fieldwork and analyses, as well as museum interpretations and public engagement that have characterized the Steamships to Suffragettes exhibit conducted as part of a museum in vivo situation. This project has centered on themes locating the SS Xantho within a network of temporal, social, and biographical linkages, including associations between the ship’s engine and a visionary engineer (John Penn), a controversial entrepreneur (Charles Broadhurst), a feminist (Eliza Broadhurst), and a suffragette (Kitty Broadhust), as well as to Aboriginal and “Malay” divers and artists. Achieved with few funds, the project may be a valuable case study at a time when funds alloc...
Review(s) of: Almost a French Australia: French-British rivalry in the southern oceans, by Bloomf... more Review(s) of: Almost a French Australia: French-British rivalry in the southern oceans, by Bloomfield, N., Halstead Press, Braddon, 2012, 190 pages, hardcover, illustrated, charts, ISBN 978-1-920831-95-0.
Archaeological and historic relationships regarding the World War II era in Northern Australia ma... more Archaeological and historic relationships regarding the World War II era in Northern Australia maintain a tenuous relationship that is rapidly changing with the declassification of military documents, the passing of World War II veterans, and the consistent 'discovery' of lost WWII remnants throughout the country. Interest in World War II sites is increasing as a new generation of archaeologists and historians are beginning to classify these places as components of material culture requiring protection and ongoing management. Townsville, Queensland is a unique area where the emotional ties to World War II military remains are strongly evident, possibly due to the continued heavy presence of military personnel in the city.
The Maritime Archaeology Association of Western Australia (MAAWA), in collaboration with Tempus A... more The Maritime Archaeology Association of Western Australia (MAAWA), in collaboration with Tempus Archaeology (TA) and with the support of the Maritime Archaeology Department of the Western Australian Museum (MADWAM), recently initiated the 3D Maritime Archaeological Project - Perth Region (3DMAPPR). Intended primarily as a community-oriented capacity-building exercise, the overall objectives of the initial stage of the project were twofold: (i) to assess the viability of employing a low-cost underwater 3D photogrammetry package to document maritime archaeological sites; and, (ii) to provide MAAWA members with a set of operational guidelines, training, and experience in underwater 3D photogrammetric recording and data processing techniques. It was intended that avocational 'citizen scientists' would then be able to help address current management priorities by making meaningful contributions to the ongoing documentation and monitoring of maritime archaeological sites in the Pe...
This paper is partly based on a research topic from a thesis conducted by the author as part of t... more This paper is partly based on a research topic from a thesis conducted by the author as part of the requirement for the fulfillment of an Honours Degree in Archaeology (Bigourdan 2003) and submitted at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne in 2003 (Paris, France). The focus of the original study was the naval architecture of boats and watercraft from Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf (see Fig. 1) from 5000 BC to CE.
A shipwreck was discovered at Pointe aux Feuilles in the Grand Port Bay on the east coast of Maur... more A shipwreck was discovered at Pointe aux Feuilles in the Grand Port Bay on the east coast of Mauritius (Fig. 1a) on 10 October 2004 by Armiyo Vurdapa Naiken, head diver of the Fish Farm of Mahebourg. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) was immediately informed by the Mauritius Marine Conservation Society (MMCS), followed by the Mauritius Museums Council and the National Heritage Fund. With the support of the PMO two underwater archaeologists were requested to inspect the newly discovered wreck. Since Mauritius has been populated exclusively by migrants coming from the sea, this wreck holds a particular potential to uncover and understand part of the unknown maritime past of this island. According to some preliminary archival researches, only two known local ships wrecked in the vicinity of the one recently found, namely le Coureur and l'Actif. It will be shown that all evidences gathered tend to endorse the opinion that the wreck at Pointe aux Feuilles is the slave trader le C...
This article reflects the key aspects of research undertaken as part of the requirements for the ... more This article reflects the key aspects of research undertaken as part of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Maritime Archaeology at James Cook University. Submitted in December 2005, the thesis focused on the place, role and meaning of canoes for the old Asmat society of south-western Irian Jaya (Indonesia). The aims of this research were to document two types of Asmat ethnographical canoes (dug-out canoes and soul canoes) acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) Darwin in 1993, to demonstrate the strong maritime and/or nautical identity of Asmat communities, and to look at the degree of adaptation of the Asmat population in an environment dominated by mangroves, rivers and swamps, and where the effects of tides transform the land in a floodplain.
This paper is a pr cis of a report examining Aboriginal depictions of watercraft in Western Austr... more This paper is a pr cis of a report examining Aboriginal depictions of watercraft in Western Australia (Bigourdan, 2006). It builds on an earlier project, The Australian Contact Shipwreck Program that had the purpose of better understanding the attitude of coastal Indigenous people when confronted with unexpected shipwrecked visitors (Silvester, 1998). Both research programmes were conceived and supervised by M. McCarthy and were effected during the course of post-graduate internships in the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Museum. This study also attempts to build on from C. Dortch's (2002) work 'An underwater survey for rock engravings and other seafloor sites in the Dampier Archipelago, Pilbara region, Western Australia'.
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Conference Presentations by Nicolas Bigourdan
Papers by Nicolas Bigourdan