November 18, 2014
On Saturday 29th November, 2014 the book Xlendi and its Ancient Shipwrecks will be launched at the Ministry for Gozo. This book, Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum’s first, is published in association with Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.
The book describes the 1961 survey of the Xlendi wrecks which was led by John Woods, at the time a physics undergraduate and President of the Underwater Club at Imperial College London. He spent the next ten summers combining science and diving for the Royal Navy in Malta. His career alternated between being a Professor of Oceanography (Southampton, Kiel & London) and a senior civil servant (UK Director of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences). He was awarded the Founder's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In 2007 he shared in the Nobel Peace Prize for Climate. The book is complemented by original colour underwater photographs taken during the survey. The links to Palazzo Falson are strong as Olof Frederick Gollcher, who owned and lived in Palazzo Falson for many years of his life, was instrumental in enabling and guiding, together with the then Malta National Museum, this pioneering underwater exploration.
