Built in 1964 by Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, Asherah was the first privately built research submersible and played a major role in underwater archaeology. Commissioned by archaeologist George F. Bass, a leader in maritime archaeology, the two-person submarine was purchased by the University of Pennsylvania for his research on Mediterranean shipwrecks. Intended to help search for unknown wrecks and to let an excavation director remain above a site while workers dived from the surface, it also helped Bass and his colleagues pioneer methods for mapping shipwrecks directly from a submersible. Named for a Phoenician goddess, Asherah later became too expensive to continue using, but it demonstrated the potential of submersibles for research, inspired later submersibles, and was donated to Mystic Seaport Museum in 2023 for preservation.