George Bass :: essays research papers

As I walked to the Daly Science Center from Benson Memorial with a stomach full of ludicrously expensive cheap food, I expected the lecture of Dr. low-pitched to be more than or less of a rehashing of what he spoke to our class close to earlier in the day, albeit with a few more and older people watching. My first surprise came as I opened the door of lecture dorm 206 and saw all the students sitting on the stairs. I myself was relegated to sitting at the very top of the stairs, near the door, with other students sitting on nearly either stair all the way down. As soon as I sat down I was immediately drawn into the lecture by Dr. Basss immense passion and visible love for his field of work. My second surprise came as I listened to his tales of various escapades and adventures along the Turkish coast. The most revealing part of his lecture was his comfort in not only lecturing on the intellectual context of his work, but also his willingness to share his personal experiences wi th a large group of strangers. The longer I listened to Dr. Bass speak the more honored I felt to be in the presence of a unfeigned legend of archaeology. At first I did not understand why he included the slide and story about the beach where him and his wife washed-out their honeymoon forty years ago. However, towards the end of the lecture when he brought us back to that same beach, I was amazed that it has come to be known as the beach where the Americans were. You notice I say brought us because that is exactly what Dr. Bass did Monday evening. He brought us as an audience with him on his trips to the get along East and down to the sea floor to look for amphoras and scarabs in shipwrecks, which before his work nobody knew existed. When he showed the slide of Queen Nefertitis scarab I though no other find he has made could top it. However, upon further reflection I believe his discovery of the oldest book, and glass were more historically significant items. In my humble opinio n, Dr. Basss most extraordinary finding was his work outside of the dive sites. His theories regarding contact and trade surrounded by Egypt and the Near East, Greece, and the Middle East in the Bronze Age have gone from mere speculation to widely accepted academic fact as a direct result of his research and writing.