Zeeshan has spent most of his life off the coast of Goa, India watching beautiful beaches with fishing boats and fishermen involved in their activities that has greatly influenced for what he is today ā a student of maritime archaeology and ethnography. His journey towards maritime studies begins with his masterās dissertation that involved recording traditional boats of Goa whose results are published in both national and international journals.
He completed Masters in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton. His research interests since then has widen to include various scopes of maritime archaeology such as maritime cultural land/seascape, boat and shipwreck archaeology, underwater excavation and exploration, maritime ethnography, seafaring and navigation. His research is mostly focused on Erythraean sea region - Red Sea, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.
At present he is working towards his PhD; studying ancient navigational practices of Erythraean sea people. His research project entitled A VOYAGE BEYOND THE BLUE HORIZON acknowledges the necessary navigational skills of the ancient navigators and sailors particularly in the Red Sea, whose traditional ānon-instrumentalā navigational skills and detailed knowledge of the environment enabled them to connect civilisations across the blue horizon. This study takes a multidisciplinary approach to study the different traditional navigation methods and skills ancient navigators of the Erythraean Sea used to undertake distant voyages from the ports of Egypt to Oman and beyond. Seen in specific environmental context, these rarely discussed skills highlight the extraordinary cognitive mapping abilities and traditional and experiential navigational skills that arguably, paved the way for Indo-roman trade and early globalisation.
His experience in archaeology includes working at various archaeological sites both terrestrial and underwater ranging from prehistoric to historic mostly in India and UK. He have published and presented papers and posters at international conferences. Some of these are available through his social media links provided. He is an avid traveller and explorer. He is also a qualified PADI diver.
His main focus of interest is on ānon-instrumentalā navigation at sea; that is navigation without the aid of any instruments such as compass or GPS. If you share similar interest as of his why not get in touch via his social network links as he says āIt is always a pleasure to share similar ideas and collaborate that may result in an interesting research projectā.
Academia: http://soton.academia.edu/ZeeshanShaikh
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zeeshan_Shaikh2
