Drs. WANG, Yu

Visiting address

Faculty of Archaeology 
Reuvensplaats 3, room 020 
Leiden, the Netherlands   

Postal address
Faculty of Archaeology 
Leiden University 
P.O. Box 9515 
2300 RA Leiden   

Telephone 
+31 (0) 71 527 2445        

E-mail

y.wang@arch.leidenuniv.nl

Essays on the maritime archaeology of power and conflict: the lost Dutch armed merchantmen in the Taiwan Strait, c. 1622-1661

This intensive study is a historical archaeological understanding of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipwrecks from the VOC archives resulted in discourses of three aspects: How were the Dutch ships in control and conflict on the seascape of the Taiwan Strait in the seventeenth century? Between the context, content and composition of the Dutch shipwrecks in conflicts, what had Dutch lost? Reading ship armament, particularly cannon, as source material in maritime archaeology of power and conflict, how did cannon flame the rise and fall of the Dutch colonial trade in the early history of Taiwan.

Chart of the south-east coast of China, from the atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library

(Chart of the south-east coast of China, from the atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library)

Background

WANG Yu has a MBA (1996, Leeds University, UK) and a MSocSci (2006, James Cook University, AUS) specializing in maritime archaeology and underwater cultural heritage. Her fieldwork experience involved different waters, including Micronesia on the Diving World War II Wrecks of Truk Lagoon: Investigating The Cultural and Natural Values of The Truk Lagoon World War II Underwater Sites project in 2006. In 2007, she was sent by the Taiwanese government to France for the Epave de la Natière II Excavation in St. Malo. During 2006-2009, she carried out a series of government projects, the Archaeological Investigation of Potential Shipwreck in Penghu Port Makung, Underwater Cultural Heritage Research and Conservation Training Project (9/2006 – 8/2007) and the Penghu Underwater Archaeological Investigation Project, Phase I (9/2007 – 8/2008)and Phase II (9/2008 – 12/2009) leading by Dr. TSANG, Cheng-Hwa at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Her PhD work also began at JCU in 2006 by studying the submerged archaeological sites in Penghu waters. In August 2009, she obtained the MOE Taiwan scholarship and transferred to Leiden University to continue her research with a focus on the seventeenth-century Dutch VOC ships in the Taiwan Strait supervising by promoter Prof. dr. Willem Willems, co-promoter Dr. Robert Parthesius (Centre for International Heritage Activities) and external advisor Dr. Bill Jeffery.