Ralph K. Pedersen

Ralph K. Pedersen is a nautical archaeologist from Levittown (Island Trees) New York, United States. He was the DAAD Gastdozent für Nautische Archäologie at Philipps-Universität Marburg 2010-2013, and has been Distinguished Visiting Professor in Anthropology and Knapp Chair in Liberal Arts at the University of San Diego, and the Whittlesey Chair Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the American University of Beirut.

Research

Pedersen holds a doctorate from the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University. His dissertation entitled "The Boatbuilding Sequence in the Gilgamesh Epic and the Sewn Boat Relation" examines and reinterprets the construction of the Ark of the Deluge in light of archaeological and ethnographic evidence in Arabia, Africa, and India. The focus of this work is that the ark as depicted in the epic was of sewn construction, a determination that pushes back the technology to the 13th century B.C. A popular article on this was the cover feature for Biblical Archaeology Review in 2005.

Pedersen is currently the principal investigator for nautical archaeology projects in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. He has been a team member of the excavation of the Bronze Age shipwreck at Uluburun, Turkey; served as daily field director for the 1991 excavation of a 17th-century wreck at Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic under USD Anthropology Associate Professor Jerome Lynn Hall; surveyed underwater in Bahrain in 1993; excavated a 1500-year-old shipwreck at Black Assarca Island, Eritrea; surveyed shipwrecks off New York's Long Island, and served as an Associate Director of India's Kadakkarapally Boat Project, which involved a thousand-year-old ship found under a coconut grove in Kerala. In 2004 he conducted an underwater survey at Tell el-Burak in Lebanon, and in 2007 in the waters off the early Bronze Age tell at Fadous-Kfarabida for the American University of Beirut. Pedersen has been a research associate with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, based at Texas A&M University, since 1992.

In 2012, Pedersen along with colleagues from Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany began a multi-year archaeological survey Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast to locate and document shipwrecks and ancient harbors. Also in the same year he conducted a re-assessment of the archaeological site in Beirut, Lebanon known as the "Venus Towers Site," which was claimed by a local activist group to be a Phoenician port. Pedersen’s study refuted that determination as no evidence was found to support the maritime interpretation of the site, and that specific features within the site demonstrated the impossibility of the use of the place for ships.

In 2014, Pedersen founded the Red Sea Institute for Anthropological Research. http://www.redseainstitute.org/

In addition to his doctorate, Pedersen holds a BA in Anthropology and Linguistics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and an MA in Anthropology/Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University.

References

The Red Sea Institute for Anthropological Research. http://www.redseainstitute.org/

Interview: by Carsten Bergmann of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Schätze auf dem Meeresboden. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 December 2010.

Interview: by Ulrich Thimm from Hessischer Rundfunk for the radio program "Mensch un Klima: Wetter im Wandel." Broadcast date, Spring 2011.

Interview: Auf der Suche nach alten Schiffswracks. Oberhessiche Presse, 13 Oct. 2010.

Interview: In The Hindu. May 2003.

Bossone, A. "Roman Building Mistaken for Phoenician Port." Nature Middle East, 16 August 2012.

Blue, L. "The Red Sea." In The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology. Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 495–512.

Institute of Nautical Archaeology Research Associates

Pedersen, R. "Harboring History: How the Phoenicians Tamed the Sea and Created an Empire." Gateway. American University of Beirut. Winter 2011.

Pedersen, R. "A Clench-Fastened Boat in Kerala, India." The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 39.1 (2010): 110-115.

Pedersen, R. "Seeking Early Bronze Age Mariners: Undersea at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, Lebanon." The INA Annual, (2008), Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

Pedersen, R. "The Underwater Survey at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, Lebanon." Bulletin d’archéologie et architecture Libanaises (BAAL) 11 (2007): 17-23.

Pedersen, R. "The Byzantine-Aksumite Period Shipwreck at Black Assarca Island, Eritrea." Azania (2008)XLIII: 77-94.

Pedersen, R. "Was Noah’s Ark a Sewn Boat?" Biblical Archaeology Review 31.3, May/June (2005): 18-56.

Pedersen, R. "Shipwreck in a Coconut Grove: The Kadakkarapally Boat." The INA Quarterly 31.2 (2004): 3-9. Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

Pedersen, R. "Traditional Arabian Watercraft and The Ark of the Gilgamesh Epic: Interpretations and Realizations." Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 34 (2004): 231-238.

Pedersen, R. "Under the Erythraean Sea: An Ancient Shipwreck in Eritrea." INA Quarterly 27. 2/3 (2000): 3-12. Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquites. "SCTA signs three agreements with German scientific organizations in the antiquities area."

Wolter, S. Wracks künden von versunkenen Kulturen Thuringisch Landeszeitung. 14 August 2012.

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