Frank Pope
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Frank Pope is a maritime archaeologist and author. He was born Francis Pope in Oxford, England on 13 May, 1973.
From 1992 onwards Frank worked under the auspices of Oxford University's MARE (Maritime Archeological Research and Excavation). MARE was founded in 1982 by Mensun Bound in order to undertake the excavation of the then-oldest shipwreck ever to have been discovered, the Giglio Island shipwreck.
Graduating with a degree in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh, Frank began working with Coral Cay Conservation in Belize, Central America, but soon became absorbed by the world of shipwreck investigation. It was a fascination sparked by his father Maurice Pope, a classicist and decipherer of ancient texts, who had taken part in the first ever academic underwater investigation in 1953 off Chios (reported by Richard Garnett and John Boardman (archaeologist) in "The Annual of the British School at Athens" in 1956).
He subsequently worked on maritime archaeological projects in Uruguay, the Cape Verde Islands, Greece, Italy, Vietnam and Mozambique on wrecks including the San Salvador, Graf Spee off Montevideo and Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Agamemnon in Uruguay, Princess Louisa in Cabo Verde and the San Sebastian Wreck in Mozambique.
In 2006 he married wildlife film-maker Saba Douglas-Hamilton, and in 2007 published a book on the excavation of the Hoi An Wreck off Vietnam called Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Adventure, Archeology & Greed Off The Coast of Vietnam.
