Reader subscriptions sustain the editorial work that keeps the field reports open and free to read. The annual transfer keeps administrative overhead light and keeps payment details with the reader's bank rather than with us. We do not auto-renew under any circumstances.
€20 / year
For the curious non-specialist or the student following the field reports for the first time.
€72 / year
For working maritime archaeologists, university researchers and serious dive-history readers.
€195 / year
For university libraries, maritime-archaeology research centres and museum coin/seal sections.
Once a subscription is placed through the contact form, Heba Ramadan confirms within two working days, with the subscription identifier, the bank-transfer instructions (account at Banque du Caire, Mansoura branch) or PayPal option, and the welcome email. The subscription becomes active the day the payment clears. The monthly bulletin arrives on the first Sunday of every month from that point. Three weeks before the end of the subscription year, Heba sends a single courtesy reminder. There is no automatic renewal under any circumstances. There is no marketing follow-up after a lapsed subscription.
A formal editorial consultation is available to subscribers and non-subscribers as a separate paid service. The standard rate is one hundred and twenty euros per hour for a written consultation on a specific submerged-site or dive-coordination question. Field-station subscribers receive a twenty percent discount; Institutional subscribers receive a forty percent discount and three free consultations per year as part of their subscription. The consultation involves the relevant editor working through the question, consulting the journal's archive, and providing a written response. Typical consultations involve site-history questions, dive-planning advice for visiting university teams, or coordination questions for journalists writing on the institutional expeditions.
No. The seven public field files — Heracleion, Pharos, Canopus, eastern harbour, 2025 season summary, dive-team equipment and conservation protocols — are all free to read without a subscription. The subscription pays for the monthly bulletin (which carries the new dives), the raw-logbook excerpt pack (Field-station and above), the editorial consultation time and the in-person archive access (Field-station and Institutional). The editorial position is that the documentary record must remain open.
Because monthly billing requires the retention of payment instruments, and the cooperative has deliberately chosen not to retain them. Annual transfer keeps the administrative workload tractable for our small team.
Yes. PhD and Masters students working in maritime archaeology, classical archaeology or related fields may subscribe at the Surface tier for €10 (half price) on production of a current student identifier. Mark "student" in the contact form.
Yes, at a custom price. Write to the desk with the proposed reader count; we will quote within five working days. The Centre d'Études Alexandrines holds an extended licence at twenty-two named readers and the University of Southampton's maritime-archaeology programme holds an extended licence at sixteen.
The bulletin is digital only. The optional Institutional-tier printed annual digest is the only printed output — three hundred pages consolidating the year's twelve bulletins, the season summary, the corrections log and the transparency note.
Yes. Mark topic "Gift subscription" on the contact form with the recipient's name, address and the date the welcome should go out. We hold the gift until the requested date and send the welcome under your name unless you ask us not to.
Write to Heba; she refunds the un-elapsed months pro rata to the nearest whole month, by reverse transfer or PayPal at your preference, within ten working days.
The journal is a digital publication supplied from Egypt. We do not charge EU VAT at point of sale; we are not registered for EU VAT and do not exceed the digital-services supply threshold. Egyptian VAT is included in the displayed price.
The Surface tier has been €20 since launch in 2017. The Field-station tier has been €72 since launch. The Institutional tier was added in 2019 at €195 and has not changed. We do not raise prices for existing subscribers within their paid year.
For the curious or sceptical subscriber, the journal publishes an annual breakdown of how subscription revenue is allocated. Approximately fifty-two percent goes to editor salaries (the four editors and the administrator); fifteen percent to the boat-charter agreement (the journal's biggest single operational cost); twelve percent to dive equipment maintenance and replacement; eight percent to underwater photography rig maintenance and replacement; six percent to the Mansoura office's running costs; four percent to technology infrastructure (encrypted servers in Mansoura and Cairo, the mail-server contract); and three percent to occasional travel costs when an editor attends a relevant maritime-archaeology conference or visits a partner institution. The breakdown is published in detail in the December transparency note each year.
The journal's documentary independence depends on its funding transparency. Readers, journalists and academic peers can evaluate whether the journal's editorial choices are influenced by its funding sources only if the funding sources are openly known. The Behaira Marine Heritage Foundation grant is the journal's largest single non-subscription revenue source and is publicly documented in the grant agreement we hold. Tarek's two consultancy contracts are publicly named in the December transparency note. The cooperative does not accept anonymous donations beyond fifty euros and does not accept donations conditional on editorial outcomes. Three donations have been refused since 2017 — two from advocacy organisations whose interests conflicted with our documentary stance, one from a private collector who proposed to fund a specific publication; all three refusals are documented in the relevant year's transparency note.
Subscription questions through the contact form. Editorial-consultation enquiries through the same form with the appropriate topic mark.