Fiddler’s Green
courtesy institute of nautical archaeology, college station, texas
A
George Fletcher Bass (1932–2021)
rchaeologist George Bass has left a broad legacy in maritime history and archaeology. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, he grew up there, and later in Annapolis, Maryland, after his father secured a teaching position at the US Naval Academy. His father was an English literature professor and his mother edited poetry publications. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1955 and joined the US Army in 1957, where he commanded a communications unit in Korea. After he was honorably discharged, he entered graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on classical archaeology. When Turkish sponge divers discovered a Bronze Age shipwreck off the coast of Turkey, Bass—then still a graduate student—was turned on to the idea of pursuing archaeology underwater, and he soon engaged in three life-changing pursuits: learning to scuba dive, marrying Ann Singletary, and taking modern archaeology techniques underwater for the first time. These were just the first steps. Bass was driven. He wanted to unlock many mysteries of the ancient world, and to do so he gathered a team of like-minded young scholars to study ancient shipwrecks. While still in the field and for the years that followed, the team analyzed this first site, then interpreted and shared their findings to add to our knowledge and understanding of the ancient world. Their enthusiasm whetted by this successful effort, Bass’s team spread out to lead more shipwreck excavations in the Aegean. As their work became better-known through lectures and publications, other archaeologists around the world recognized the potential information locked in shipwrecks, including more modern sites. It was no surprise to these first underwater archaeologists that they were learning more about ancient people’s lives and culture on land than about their seafaring life aboard the ships. It was landsmen who created hardware, weapons, supplies, cargoes, and, of course, the vessels themselves. Through publications, lectures, interviews, and teaching back at the University of Pennsylvania, and later at Texas A & M, Bass pushed for terrestrial archaeologists and historians to work synergistically with maritime archaeologists to better interpret the past. Some of his students and others in his summer field schools eventually became leading maritime archaeologists and historians working in many countries. As an individual, Bass was a warm, kind, and understanding gentleman. As a goal-oriented scientist, he demanded perfection. As a teacher, with “carrots and sticks” he pulled and pushed his students farther than they thought they could go. He made it clear that he wanted only the best people to stay in the field; he didn’t feel people should be conducting archaeology excavations unless they were properly trained, skilled, and motivated. In archaeological field work, one ultimately destroys a site, layer by layer. He taught his students and colleagues that one should anticipate all the current questions to ask of the wreck site, document it perfectly using a variety of techniques, then analyze, interpret, and publish one’s findings about it. Excavating a shipwreck site without all of those tasks worked out is unethical. Bass enjoyed the camaraderie of people working together to solve puzzles in the field, laboratory, or archives. He especially enjoyed interpreting a site, discussing with other scholars and students how they thought information from a shipwreck helped our understanding of the past. He showed by example the importance of being fair in scholarship. He listened to and worked with others, sharing or giving them authorship when appropriate, and publicly acknowledging everyone who helped. A driving force in the new and emerging field of maritime archaeology, George Bass and some of his core team created the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) in 1973; it quickly established associations with other academic and scientific institutions. In the 1970s INA also co-sponsored investigations of more modern shipwreck sites, including an American Revolutionary War supply ship in Virginia and a privateering vessel in Maine. When INA moved to Texas A&M University in 1976, George and Ann Bass moved with their two sons, Gordon and Alan, to College Station. There he founded the university’s Nautical Archaeology Program, which has since graduated many notable archaeologists and historians. He and Ann also had a home in Bodrum, Turkey, and established a research center there. A National Maritime Historical Society advisor, Bass received many professional honors in his life, including the American Philosophical Society membership, the American Institute of Archaeology’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement, National Geographic’s Centennial Award, and the National Medal of Science. But he once said, at a lunch table at MIT with Marty Klein and Bob Ballard, that his greatest honor was Ann Singletary agreeing to marry him. Fair Winds George — Warren Riess Warren Riess is Research Professor Emeritus with the University of Maine. An internationally respected historian and maritime archaeologist, his first experience in this field was as a student under George Bass investigating the site off Yassi Ada, Turkey, in 1969. 10
SEA HISTORY 175, SUMMER 2021