Overview: Project Leaders and Institutions

In July, 1999 a group of researchers from several institutions collaborated on a remote sensing project in the Black Sea. The 1999 season was headed by Chief Scientist Dr. Robert Ballard of the Institute For Exploration. The project was a continuation of archaeological work carried out on land over the past several years by a team led by Fredrik Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and built directly on an underwater remote sensing survey conducted in 1998 by a team led by Professor David Mindell of MIT. The combined land and underwater surveys comprise the Black Sea Trade Project, an integrative broad-area archaeological study.

The 1999 season saw an interdisciplinary mix of archaeologists, geologists, historians, engineers, and technologists united in their efforts to explore the Sinop region's past. The underwater investigations were conducted by individuals representing various institutions, including: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute For Exploration, University of Pennsylvania, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and guest observers from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

These pages were intended to acquaint the students from MIT and Texas A&M / INA with each other's background and research interests and serve as a reference source for general information about Sinop and Turkey.