22350: Orenstein: discovery channel documentary on columbus in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: katie orenstein <katie@orenstein.com>


http://www.archaeology.org/curiss/reviews/columbus.html
DISCOVERY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY:
"Quest for Columbus" was reviewed in Archaeology magazine -

Television: Elusive Columbus Volume 57 Number 3, May/June 2004
by Colleen P. Popson

A shipful of weary, homesick sailors drifts toward the horizon. It's October
1492, and mutiny is in the air. The men give their admiral two days to spot
land before they force him to turn back. So begins "Quest for Columbus: The
Search for the Santa Maria," a Discovery Channel documentary premiering May
23, 9 p.m. ET, that follows two recent investigations into that maiden
voyage to the New World. We all know the story from grade school: Columbus
and his crew do finally make landfall, mix with the locals, and get into
some trouble in their quest for gold. But the film focuses on what we don't
know about that voyage, namely the final resting place of the sunken Santa
Maria and the location of Columbus' first settlement, known as La Navidad.
In northern Haiti, a team led by University of Florida archaeologist
Kathleen Deagan zeros in on the settlement. Meanwhile, several miles away
and just off the coast, notorious treasure hunter Barry Clifford searches
for the Santa Maria. The two groups make an unlikely pairing and don't have
a lot in common other than that they don't have much to work with. Columbus
had everything down to the nails of the Santa Maria salvaged after it ran
aground on a reef on Christmas Day 1492, leaving little more than ballast
and a few timbers. Similarly, the La Navidad team is lucky to find charcoal
fragments, postholes, and a few telltale European artifacts left behind
after the village was abandoned.
Given the scarcity of physical evidence, the film is surprisingly
suspenseful. And although the end may be anticlimactic, "Quest for Columbus"
breathes new life into a familiar story.