Mensun Bound
Mensun Bound (born 4 February 1953) is a British maritime archaeologist born in Stanley, Falkland Islands. He is best known for directing the excavation of the Etruscan 6th-century BC shipwreck off Giglio Island, Italy, the oldest known shipwreck of the Archaic era, and the Hoi An Cargo which revolutionized the understanding of Ming-Vietnamese porcelain from Vietnam's art-historical Golden Age. Bound became more involved in deep-ocean archaeology. In 2014–15, he led a search for the Imperial German East Asia Squadron, sunk during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914, and since then in  AUV and ROV surveys in depths up to 6000 m. He eventually located the squadron's flagship, , in April 2019, 105 years after her sinking. He was in Antarctica as director of exploration for the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019, the main task being the study of the Larsen C Ice Shelf and second attempting to find Ernest Shackleton's ship, "Endurance", which sank under the ice in 1915. Although they succeeded in cutting through the pack to the point where the Endurance sank, the hunt had to be abandoned when the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) conducting the seabed search failed  to arrive at a programmed rendezvous point with the ship. In March 2022, Bound was part of the team aboard the research vessel "S.A. Agulhas II" that succeeded in finding the wreck of "Endurance". Discovery Channel has called Bound "the Indiana Jones of the Deep". Early life and education. Bound was born on 4 February 1953 in Stanley, Falkland Islands. He is a fifth-generation Islander whose great-great grandfather, James Biggs, arrived with the first colonists to Port Louis on the brig "Hebe" in January 1842. His great grandfather, William Biggs, was the first to raise the Union Jack  when the settlement was moved to Jackson's Harbour (now Port Stanley) in 1843–44. Bound's early education was in the Falkland Islands and Montevideo, Uruguay. After secondary school, he worked at sea on the steam ship "Darwin." In 1972, he received a scholarship from the Leopold Schepp Foundation to attend Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, from where he graduated summa cum laude in ancient history. Whilst undertaking a further degree in Classical art and archaeology at Rutgers University, also in New Jersey, he was a research assistant in Greek pottery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York . In 1976 he was awarded a Commonwealth scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford University, to study classical archaeology. In 1985, he was given a Junior Research Fellowship at St Catherine's College, Oxford University. At the same time, under the Chairmanship of Alan Bullock, he was appointed Director of Oxford University MARE, the first academic maritime archaeological unit in England. In 1994, he became the Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at St. Peter's College, Oxford. He retired from academic life in 2013 to pursue his interest in deep-ocean archaeology. Early archaeological experience. Bound's student experience as an archaeologist  was on land, where he worked on Roman villa sites outside Rome and various sites in the English Midlands. Bound's underwater archaeological career began in 1979 when he worked for George Bass of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Texas on sites off the coast of Turkey. This was followed by the "Madrague de Giens" shipwreck off the South of France and the "Mary Rose" in England. Publications. Bound has authored or edited over 100 articles and several books on archaeology ("Excavating Ships of War") (ed.)," "Lost Ships" (Simon & Schuster)", The Archaeology of Ships of War, Archeologia Sottomarina alle  Isole Eolie", (Pungitopo), "A Ship Cast Away about Alderney" with Jason Monaghan. Books about Bound's work include "Dragon Sea" by F. Pope (Penguin Books) on the South China Sea excavation; "Tarquin’s Ship" (Souvenir Press) by A McKee, on the Giglio ship excavation. Also, children's book "The Search for the Oldest Shipwrecks in the World" by D. Thornton tells the story of the Giglio ship. Other activities and awards. Bound is a trustee of the Falkland Islands Foundation, the World Ship Trust, the Council of the Nautical Archaeology Society, the Alderney Maritime Trust, the Friends of the Falklands  Museum and the Falkland Islands Maritime Heritage Trust. He has organised four international conferences on maritime archaeology (two-day conference at the National Maritime Museum on ‘The Archaeology of Ships of War’; two day conference on ‘Fresh Water Archaeology’, Univ. of Bangor; ‘Maritime Archaeology in Italy’, Inst. Archaeology, London; ‘Metals from the Sea’, Oxford). He is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, New York. He has lectured widely on maritime archaeology for the British Council, and a range of museums, universities, learned societies, archaeological organisations and cruise ships. Has edited a book series, held Visiting Fellowships (University of North Wales ), conducted coursework and been a doctoral examiner. His awards include ‘Diver of the Year, Italy’ 1985, and in 1992 he received the Colin McLeod medallion from the British Sub Aqua Club for ‘Furthering international co-operation in diving’. Documentaries. Bound's work has been the focus of many documentaries in England, Italy and the US, including an award-winning, four-part series entitled "Lost Ships" by the Discovery Channel, which covered the "Agamemnon", the Hoi An wreck, the "Graf Spee" and the Mahdia ship. The BBC has made several documentaries on Bound's work including "Queen Elizabeth's Lost Guns , about the recovery, replication and test-firing of an Elizabethan iron cannon from the Alderney wreck. Lost Ships - The Hunt for the Kaiser's Superfleet", produced by TVT Productions for Smithsonian Channel, covers Bound's search for the lost fleet from the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914.