Alok Tripathi

There are a good number of ships represented in ancient Indian art, which are valuable evidence, capable of throwing light on ancient Indian shipping and shipbuilding technology. Some of these representations were referred to by scholars here and there, but no complete and systematic study of these ships was carried out. As the first underwater archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India I realised the need and decided to document this valuable archaeological evidence and carry out their systematic study to understand ancient shipping and shipbuilding technology in a better perspective. The award helped me to collect firsthand information of great importance for nautical archaeology. The grant provided the opportunity to visit several archaeological monuments and study ancient ships. The knowledge acquired was used and disseminated through a number of research papers presented in national and international seminars and lecctures on nautical archaeology and maritime history.