Underwater archaeologist and sometime treasure hunter Peter Throckmorton, in a paper he wrote in 1969 as part of a Historical Archaeology Forum on E. Lee Spence’s salvage of a Civil War blockade runner, addressing the question of whether treasure hunting and archaeology are in conflict, stated:

“The foregoing discussion may seem like an attack on Mr. Spence. I do not mean this to be so. A whole new branch of archaeology, that of Mycenaean studies, was founded by Heinrich Schliemann, who also had the courage to remember his dreams … It is right to dream, and it would be the worst kind of mistake on the part of the state to discourage the big dreams of men like Mr. Spence, and to let a project requiring that sort of enterprise fall into the hands of what Mr. Spence’s friend terms ‘some bloody historical society’ which might lay the dead hand of unimaginative and stereotyped thinking on Mr. Spence’s courage and ability.”

In 1972, Spence and Throckmorton, along with three other men, were awarded the degree of Doctor of Marine Histories by the College of Marine Arts on July 16, 1972, becoming first people in the world to be awarded a doctorate for work in marine archaeology.

Letter to E. Lee Spence from Kenneth Friedman, Executive Secretary, Sea Research Society, published in Sea Research Society Papers, 1972, Spence, Volume VI, p. 159

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