Investigation of a possible 18th century Dutch shipwreck on Christmas Island or the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

The existence of an unidentified 18th century Dutch shipwreck emerges periodically in books, letters and conversations about Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. An investigation of these sources indicated that different ships may be responsible for these rumours, but it is equally possible that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island themselves have been confused over the centuries or that the drifting wreckage from one ship somewhere in the vicinity of these islands has been ascribed to both places. The purpose of this essay is to compile all the citings and to make a tentative identification of the wreck. A number of interpretations are offered and, finally, recommendations for further research are made.Archaeological Heritage Management - ou

Databases of the people aboard the VOC ships Batavia (1629) & Zeewijk (1727) – An analysis of the potential for finding the Dutch castaways’ human remains in Australia.

General Introduction The reefs surrounding the Houtman Abrolhos in Western Australia were a notorious hazard to shipping in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (fig. 1). The Dutch East India Company (VOC) made sure to mark this island group on its maps and skippers had strict instructions to avoid coming into contact with these reefs. Even so, the VOC is known to have lost two ships here, Batavia and Zeewijk. Some of the castaways from both of these shipwrecks, although faced by many difficult challenges, managed to reach Batavia, the headquarters of the VOC in the Indies. Their journals and stories have survived in archives. Those who died or were murdered in the Houtman Abrolhos may have left their mark in other ways. Western Australia now possibly possesses a large number of Dutch human remains from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper is presented in two sections; the first concerns Batavia and the second focuses on Zeewijk. Each of these sections can be read independently. When Batavia wrecked on Morning Reef on 4 June 1629, its castaways soon spread out over the islands of the Wallabi Group. Depending on how many of the 200 deceased were buried, the islands may have preserved a significant number of human remains from the Batavia castaways. So far, only ten of these have been discovered and tentatively identified. This paper provides an estimate of how many graves may be found, where they could be and who they might belong to. Furthermore, it also lists those people who survived and whose human remains definitely will not be found. Finally, all of this information has been compiled into three databases - of all the murdered individuals (Appendix I), of all who died in Australian territory (Appendix II) and of all named individuals involved in the Batavia tragedy (Appendix III) - excerpts of which are included as appendixes. The information provided for each individual may be useful in identifying the human remains. In 1727, Zeewijk was wrecked on Half-Moon Reef in the Pelsaert Group. A large number of survivors would eventually build a seagoing vessel and successfully reach Batavia, but many died before the rescue. These castaways have also left their marks in the Houtman Abrolhos with camp sites and burial sites. This part of the project began with the construction of a database of all men who were (meant to be) on board Zeewijk and their fates (Appendix IV). As a result it has been possible to fill a number of gaps and put names to a number of deaths that until now had been anonymous. The paper focuses specifically on assessing how many of the Zeewijk's castaways may have been buried in the Houtman Abrolhos on Gun Island and on identifying these victims. In addition, it provides accurate crew lists for each section of the voyage and establishes a framework for further research into the individuals who lived aboard Zeewijk. Significant work has already been undertaken into researching both Batavia and Zeewijk: their wreck sites, land sites and the human remains of the castaways. Henrietta Drake-Brockman's Voyage to Disaster provided the first English translation of the journal of the Batavia's journey and her analysis of this journal led to the discovery of the wreck site. The journals have been researched and translated again by Marit van Huystee. Analyses of the victims, including forensic investigations, have been made by Bernadine Hunneybun, Juliette Pasveer, Daniel Franklin, Alistair Paterson, Len Freedman and others. Finally, the staff of the Western Australian Museum has compiled a large number of reports based on their investigations of Batavia and the associated sites over the years. Zeewijk has also been the focus of in depth research by the Western Australian Museum, most notably by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. Translations of (segments of) the Zeewijk journals and documents have been made by Willem Timmers, Louis Zuiderbaan and Cornelis de Heer. Some of these projects have focused on the castaways and victims, creating lists or databases. However, all of these databases and lists were made using translations or transcripts as their sources. As such, errors (often based on the difficulty of reading the original handwriting or because of the lack of a uniform spelling) have crept in which have been taken over from list to list. Additionally, information that was - accidentally - omitted from these translations and transcripts is equally absent from these lists. To avoid falling into the same pitfalls, this work and the databases (which can be found in the appendixes) are based on the original documents. Studying the documents on microfilm or in high resolution photographs, the author was able to find new information, sort out mistakes and fill in a number of gaps.Archaeological Heritage Managemen

“From the Stone Age to the Information Age”: History and Heritage in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

Video games are one of today's quintessential media and cultural forms, but they also have a surprising and many-sided relation with the past (Morgan 2016). This certainly holds true for Sid Meier's Civilization (MicroProse & Firaxis Games 1991–2016), which is a series of turn-based, strategy video games in which you lead a historic civilization "from the Stone Age to the Information Age" (Civilization ca. 2016). Sid Meier's Civilization VI, the newest iteration of the series developed by Firaxis and released on October 21, 2016, allows players to step into the shoes of idealized political figures such as Gilgamesh, Montezuma, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gandhi. Via these and other leaders, you aim to achieve supremacy over all other civilizations. This is done through founding cities, creating infrastructure, building armies, conducting diplomacy, spreading culture and religion, and choosing "technologies" and "civics"—philosophical or ideological breakthroughs—for your civilization to focus on.FdA – Publicaties niet-programma gebondenDigital Archaeolog

A Twisted Truth - The VOC Ship Batavia: comparing history & archaeology (BA Thesis)

Historians and archaeologists often work on related problems but rarely cooperate. The aim of this thesis is to research whether it is necessary to combine archaeological and historical data when both are available. The case study consists of an isolated event: the Batavia incident. The Batavia, a ship of the Dutch East India Company, was stranded off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. A small group took the boat and went for help while the rest of the people were left on the islands. While they waited for the rescue ship to arrive, a massacre broke out and over a hundred people were murdered. Information from written sources (e.g. a ship‟s journal and letters) is combined with archaeological evidence. Although many issues were confirmed by both types of sources, sometimes the records were contradictory and a great deal of information was exclusive to one of the types of data. To assemble a complete picture of the Batavia incident, it was essential to consult both historical and archaeological sources. Keywords: Archaeology – History – Batavia – VOC – Dutch East India Company – Australia –Wallabi Group – Houtman Abrolhos– Material remains – Documents – Mutiny – Massacre</p

The Social Museum in the Caribbean: Grassroots Heritage Initiatives and Community Engagement - Appendix: Caribbean Museums Database

This publication is designed to accompany the PhD dissertation The Social Museum in the Caribbean (published open access in 2018 by Csilla E. Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke with Sidestone Press; available open access via: http://hdl.handle.net/1887/65998) as an additional, separate appendix. Although this book can be read independently, its main function is to present the data which was analyzed in that dissertation. The dissertation, available online as open access publication, aimed to answer how Caribbean museums are realigning their societal role in relation to contemporary Caribbean communities. This was achieved through two complementary studies. First, on a macro level, a regional museum survey of 195 museums in 25 different islands and countries throughout the Caribbean and their participatory practices. Secondly, on a micro level, by conducting two in depth case studies into community engagement processes, one in Dominica and the other in Barbados. This publication presents the data collected October 2013–October 2016 during the regional museum survey in the form of 195 database entries.</p

Visiting the Amsterdam Museum: Studying Visitors' Responses to Decolonial Practices

This report was developed within the Horizon2020 project ECHOES: European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities as part of its work package 3 on ‘City Museums and Multiple Colonial Pasts.’ This work package conducts in-depth, qualitative, comparative analyses of three city museums, each representing distinct positions within colonial history. The Amsterdam Museum forms one of these three case studies. The aim of this third report on the Amsterdam Museum is to assess visitors’ responses to a selection of the museum’s decolonial practices. In part, practicing decoloniality is dealing with direct colonial heritages and objects. However, decoloniality as a whole is “a process and a mode of through that goes deeper into untangling the current-day colonial hooks from the museum” (Ariese & Wróblewska Forthcoming: 1). Thus, as the core of this report will show, there are many ways in which the Amsterdam Museum can practice decoloniality, not always necessarily directly related to ‘colonial’ objects