'There's a great hidden museum in the Mediterranean': Underwater archaeologist David Gibbins takes us on a journey to 12 shipwrecks around the world

In his lifelong career as an underwater archaeologist, David Gibbins has explored dozens of shipwrecks around the world. Now, in his new book, "A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks" (St. Martin's Press, 2024), Gibbins takes readers along for the journey as he visits sites from the ancient Egyptians, the Vikings and beyond. Live Science talked with Gibbins about his experience as a diver and the ways ships were the force connecting the spread of people, religion and ideas around the world. 

(This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.)

Jennifer Nalewicki: What initially sparked your interest in diving and eventually led you to write this book?

David Gibbins: As a small boy in the 1960s, I developed a fascination with diving. This was during a time of great adventure, when diving was as much a part of the great frontier due to people like Jacques Cousteau as space Travel was. I was at that critical age when you tend to develop lifelong enthusiasms, so professionally, I became an archaeologist specializing in maritime Archaeology. 

I spent time teaching as an academic before becoming a full-time writer. I began developing an idea for a book that was scholarly but also accessible. The fact that my own experiences have taken me from the Bronze Age all the way to the 20th century in terms of sites that I've dived has allowed me to pick and choose which shipwrecks to include. This book is a bit autobiographical and is a fantastic way to delve into these sites and use them as a springboard to write an idiosyncratic History of the world.

JN: How is exploring shipwrecks different from investigating land-based archaeological sites?

DG: The overwhelming difference is that while diving, you're limited [by] the amount of time you can spend at a site. Even at shallow shipwrecks, you only have enough air supply to explore for about an hour and a half. That means that the kind of reflection you can engage in at a typical land dig site, where you're spending days wandering and looking at it, you can't really do underwater. The whole experience of working underwater is very much intensified by the physical constraints of diving.