day event will focus on subjects such as: maritime networks, seafaring, navigation and ports; boat-building traditions and technologies; marine ecology and their human exploitation and pilgrimage. Previous conferences have been held at the British Museum and the University of Southampton. After a focus at the 2008 conference on the Red Sea's terrestrial hinterlands, Red Sea V brings the conference back to the sea itself, and to the theme of life lived on and from the marine environment in all periods. The MARES project is a three-year, multi-disciplinary, multi-period project focusing on the maritime traditions of the peoples of the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf. Drawing on ethnography, archaeology, history and linguistics, it seeks to understand how people have inhabited and navigated these seascapes in late antiquity and the medieval period, and how they do so today. The MARES Project team is based at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter in southwest England. Dhows are any of various types of sailing vessels used by Arabs on the east African, Arabian, and Indian coasts, generally lateen-rigged on two or three masts.
