Christopher Dobbs 1 - We trained up about 500 amateur divers to work as archaeologists

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Chris graduated from university with an archaeology degree in 1979. During his studies he had become interested in marine archaeology and had worked on underwater sites. He heard about the Mary Rose excavation and wrote to the Mary Rose Trust to get involved.

Chris worked as an archaeological supervisor, training volunteer divers how to excavate underwater. He was also a member of the salvage team, and prepared the ship for lifting. Chris still works for the Mary Rose Trust.

In the clip below Chris describes his role as an archaeological supervisor.

 

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Extract Text (Duration00.38)

We trained up about 500 amateur divers to work as archaeologists, as competently as anyone, underwater. And that meant that there was this great band of new divers who had this experience and so they've been able to work on other projects, many of them. Many of them have become archaeologists, many of them have become professional divers perhaps.  So the Mary Rose produced this very large number of newly-trained people and I think that was another very important part of the Mary Rose work.