This talk will give an insider’s perspective, reflections and prospects on decades of projects crossing maritime archeology and history, including the know-how of a life-long sailing experience around the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and other oceans. It will touch on matters such as practical astronomy and nautical terminology in Arabic and other Asian languages.

Eric Staples is Associate Professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. He is an interdisciplinary maritime historian interested in Indian Ocean shipbuilding, seafaring and navigation. Eric has been actively involved in a variety of maritime and experimental archaeology projects. He was the documentation manager and navigator for the Jewel of Muscat Project, a joint Omani-Singapore government initiative that built and sailed a reconstruction of a ninth-century sewn ship from Oman to Singapore. From 2010 to 2016, he was the director of a variety of different maritime heritage projects in Oman and India. Since 2018, he has been co-director of the Bronze Age Boat Reconstruction Project in Abu Dhabi.