putting pieces together

Reflecting on visiting Malta 7 times over the last 8 years, I feel as if I am just now being able to put some of the pieces of the history of this complex country together.  Malta is a cross roads and even as I have parroted those words to students when describing our project, this year more then before I feel I am able to see some of the history of the intersections crossing East and West over this strategically located island with deep large harbors.

When we first started coming to Malta, I will admit to being mostly drawn to trying to understand their role in WW2, as trying to understand this global conflict always resonated with my desire to try to understand current world oscillations.  And Malta's role was so key and dynamic that this recent history always loomed large in my mind when thinking of Malta and its history.  This year, I feel like I have been able to see further back.  In part due to some of the great lectures organized by our local contact, Dr. Timmy Gambin and in part due to the inclusion of the brilliant Dr. Ambereen Dadabhoy, whose academic focus on the Mediterranean in the 1600s yet articulate vision of the present has helped some of the further past come more clearly into view as relevant and worth understanding.

In terms of lectures, for example, the excellent and entertaining presentation about Maltese Corsairs by Liam Gauci brought to life the legal pirating conducted in the 1600s by Maltese against the Ottoman Turks.  The tit for tat robbery and slave taking between the Maltese and Ottoman Turk corsairs all legal and often in the name of religion was somehow shocking to my modern sense of fairness.  And then last night, we heard another great lecture from Dr. Mark Aloisio, Senior Lecturer at the University of Malta, about the Mediterranean and the Crusades. This talk further echoed the long history of complex conflict and resource back and forth between the west and eastern sections of the Mediterranean.  Coupled with a personal visit to Malta National War Museum, I felt like I could finally put some pieces into place in terms of the history of Malta and its central position as a cultural crossroads.

It is thinking about this history that I read the news about the US supreme court's decision to uphold the travel ban/restrictions to the US of immigrants from 7 mostly Muslim countries.  Without being too political on a trip focused on computer engineering, one of our missions in ICEX is to increase global citizenship, thus it is difficult to not hear this news as a tragic continuation of the East/West historical tensions.  Learning about Maltese history has helped me see the blame on both sides of history.  I cannot help but hope that like the Maltese language itself and the beautiful bougainvilea flowers against Maltese stone walls, that more fruitful outcomes can rise in the intersections between east and west then the recent US supreme court ruling.

Coding Day 6/25

The plan at the start of the day was to deploy with both the Gavia and the IVER3 at the Schnellboot, HMS Southwold, and SS Polynesian in order to get multi-beam data for the Southwold and Polynesian while getting camera data from the Schnellboot. Unfortunately, the sea was too rough and the deployment was deemed too risky. The multi-beam data would have served as the basis for a series of camera runs on the "new" wrecks while the existing side scan sonar data collected during our large survey would have been used for the Schnellboot. The Gavia is a new AUV acquired by Professor Gambin which is rated for deeper work and is able to gather both side scan and multi beam sonar data, allowing it to get both high definition scans of wrecks when operating close to the bottom but also capable of conducting wide surveys from a higher altitude.

Teledyne Gavia AUV

Nandeeka and I worked on marking the 2017 data for wrecks that were more compatible with the current neural network. Some of the previous wrecks that were marked were more probable wrecks, and thus didn't serve as good training data. Sam and Russell planned missions for Tuesday that would implement the path finding algorithm developed by the previous years team. Bonita and Mitchell worked on obtaining a camera calibration for the GoPro Hero4 so that it's camera footage could be used with the Hero we brought from Mudd. Finally Cole worked on improving the computer model of the Maori so that he could give recommendations to the path planning teams of what sections of the Maori should be focused on in future missions.

The team hard at work

We went to dinner at a very nice restaurant with some refreshing smoothies and great pasta, all in all a great end to a productive day.

Pasta and smoothies!

- Makoto

Gozo trip 6/23

This morning we began our day with a long bus ride to Ċirkewwa to catch the ferry to Gozo. As a group we hiked up to a tradition Maltese restaurant with an absolutely beautiful view of the islands. When we arrived an extremely kind Maltese man offered to show us how to play boċċi. It is apparently a very popular and traditional game in Malta and Gozo so much so you can almost find a club in every city.

View from the restaurant 

The group watching Kole about to play his turn in boċċi 

Coming into the dock from the ferry

Hike up to the restaurant

After our meal we ventured to the Citadel. Which was the center of Gozo's  administrative work as well as its military and religious life. The fortress featured a beautiful Cathedral, courts, the Bishop’s Palace, a prison, multiple museums and an amazing view of the island and ocean.

Th groupl planning their next adventures in Gozo

View from the top of the Citadel

Playing cards waiting for the bus

Trying to see how many ICEX members can fit in an ancient prison cell

Maltese Food Interview

A few days ago, we traveled to Gozo for our cultural outing, and during at lunch at the Maltese restaurant, Xerri Il-Bukkett, I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview one of the restaurant workers on their beliefs and opinions on Maltese cuisine.  Unfortunately, I forgot to write down his name, but overall, he had a lot of interesting opinions about food on the islands.

He explained to me how Malta's food had been influenced by several other cultures over the years: French, Italian, and especially English, due to Malta's long period of colonization.  However despite such strong influences of other cultures, he said that he felt the Maltese people still very much considered their food to be rather unique and their own. I asked him about what first came to mind when he thought of Maltese food in general, and he said Pastizzi and rabbit were the ones that stuck out in his head. In addition to these foods, he emphasized the prominence of pasta in Maltese cooking, with Maltese pasta (penne with Maltese sausage, cream, and Gozo cheese) being his favorite. 

Finally, we talked about the differences between food on Malta and Gozo, and overall, he felt they were very similar, except for the fact that Gozo has a much stronger emphasis on cheese.  He explained that this is because Gozo has many more farms that the larger island, so naturally, they have more animals and produce more cheese and dairy products here.  He stated that Ġbejniet, fresh Gozo cheese, was definitely an important part of Maltese cuisine but especially so on Gozo.

Overall, I really enjoyed learning about the subtle differences between food on Gozo and Malta, and I am glad I got to learn about Maltese food from a local perspective.

More Maori

Today the team revisited the HMS Maori once again. As always our goal was to try and get more footage and better footage of the wreck. What made today different were some new approaches to mission planning. First we re-ran prior missions created using Sam and Russel's planning software, but using a new rough bathymetry map which allowed us to plan for the AUV to reach greater depths. This allowed us to get a closer look at the Maori and capture previously unseen angles. Afterwards we tried Mitchell's new prototype planner which attempts to best enable photogrammetry by working out AUV paths by approximating the shape of regions of interest. Additionally we tried mounting one camera right facing in the hopes of capturing better data of the sides of the ship, which have previously been difficult to make out due to poor visibility and the higher depth AUV paths.

Russel and Dr. Wood deploying the IVER

Sam and Russel's plans worked excellently, and the added depth allowed us to see portions of the ship in wonderful detail. Likewise, Mitchell's alternative planner also performed very well, and it resulted in several clips that show the Moari from previously un-captured perspectives. It's too early to tell exactly how this will change the final reconstruction, but the results are very encouraging. Unfortunately it seems that none of today's missions went deep enough for the right facing camera to get good footage, however I think with a little tweaking we can capture some great data, and fill in a lot of blanks on the reconstruction.

June 22

The Fluid Mediterranean

About a month before I traveled to Malta, I received proofs of an article on an Early Modern English play called The Knight of Malta. The timing was quite fortuitous, reminding me not only of my research interests in the construction of racial difference via ideologies of religious difference, but also of my interest in Mediterranean piracy, which like the sea offered fluid opportunities for enterprising individuals to raise their social status and sometimes border-cross between religious communities.

While in Malta, I’ve been able to go to the National Library of Malta to do some research on the privateering or corsairing, as it was commonly referred to from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Most of the work I had done previously on corsairs was from either the English or the Ottoman perspective, so it was quite eye-opening to get a perspective on this activity from Malta because the island and its inhabitants have long been positioned by English writers as being the bulwark of protection against the Ottoman onslaught in the western Mediterranean. The island and the Order of St. John gained particular fame after successfully repulsing the Ottoman attack of 1565, known throughout Europe as “The Great Siege of Malta.”

What drew my interest to Maltese corsairs was the reputation they had in some English contexts as being indiscriminate in their attacks on Christian and Muslim ships in the Mediterranean, and that they would engage in enslaving both Muslims and Christians. I emphasize religion here because that’s what often got emphasized in early modern texts, that the conflict in the Mediterranean was rooted in religious antipathy and an extension of the crusades. This framing unfortunately obscures the very many ways in which peoples from different religions, such as Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived, worked, and cooperated with each other in the Mediterranean in the early modern period and beyond. In addition, by focusing on religious conflict as the reason why these activities took place, we also ignore how a career on the high seas could allow men from lower stations in life to rise in rank. Finally, we also deny the region the kind of cosmopolitanism it had vis-a-vis religious toleration and cooperation that it had for many centuries. To be sure there were wars, but most often they were about territory, money, and imperial ambition, with the veneer of religion applied on later for good measure.

During my time in Malta, I’ve remembered what animated my research in this time period and particularly in this geography. The Mediterranean has a long and rich history and it is connected to the history of the world. Columbus sailed west because the route to the Mediterranean were already controlled by the Ottomans and Venetians and because the Portuguese had managed to secure a route around Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. That voyage,introduced Europeans to new land and peoples, and policies that were de rigueur in the Mediterranean, like slavery, took on new forms when they crossed the Atlantic. What I hope will come from my research in Malta this summer is a better understanding of the connections between the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds in this time period.

Images courtesy of Liam Gauci

June 21th

Today the ICEX team had a break from all the hard work and got the opportunity to explore Malta on our own. Makoto went out in hopes of finding someone to interview for the cultural project Professor Dadabhoy is helping us with. He went to explore some of the war museum in Valetta and ended up interviewing one of the reenactment employees at the Upper Barrakka Gardens.  Kole went out to explore the shoreline and went snorkeling around the point. He also got the chance to look at some tidepools and view some of Maltas marine life.

Marine life off the coast of Malta

Sam and Nandeeka left early in the morning in search of something active to do such as rock climbing or hiking.

Bonita, Russell, and Mitchell went to tour the streets of Valletta and explore some of the cuisine that Malta has to offer. They were also able to witness the firing of the canon at the Upper Barrakka Gardens.

Later in the evening, everyone returned to the apartment for a very interesting lecture. As a Historian, Liam Gauci has been studying history from the 1800's. He believes that history is best told through human stories. He presented a lecture on the Corsairs from Malta and the culture and history of it all. Overall, it was a very insightful and entertaining lecture on some of Malta's past.