Filipe Castro
Texas A&M University
Nautical Archaeology Program
Department of Anthropology
College Station, Texas 77843-4352
Phone: 979.845.6220
fvcastro@tamu.edu
Filipe Castro is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas A&M University. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on nautical archaeology. He is the recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation and the Luso-American Foundation. Trained as a civil engineer, he worked for the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Sea in Portugal. He is currently working on a book about sixteenth-century Iberian ships.
Presentation
Reconstructing a Seventeenth-Century Portuguese Indiaman
The reconstruction of a Portuguese Indiaman found at the mouth of the Tagus River, near Lisbon, Portugal, in 1993, has brought to life an amazing page of the period of the European expansion overseas. The Pepper Wreck, which was identified as the Portuguese ship Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, lost on its return voyage from Cochin, India, on September 14, 1606, is the only India nau known that has not been destroyed by treasure hunters and presents an incredible opportunity to reconstruct the lives of the ship’s crew and passengers, the performance of the ship at sea, and the causes of its loss, in sight of Lisbon, after a trip that lasted for eight months.