Over the past 30 years or so there have been numerous discoveries about the ancient world, many of which cannot be explained by the traditional views of prehistory as interpreted by mainstream archaeologists. It would be impossible to keep abreast of them all, but many have major implications for our greater understanding of the cataclysmic events of antiquity which are remembered in the stories of Atlantis, the Deucalian flood, and the flood of Noah that have been passed down from generation to generation in both oral and written traditions since time immemorial …
Of course, there are so many ancient tales of flooded kingdoms, cataclysmic inundations and sunken lands from more or less every corner of the world, that it is difficult to avoid the basic question of whether or not they all refer to the same cataclysm, or a series of cataclysms that happened over several millennia from around 15,000 BC to around 1,500 BC? Many scientists now believe that there were a series of rapid sea-level changes which marked the abrupt end of the last Ice Age, especially at the time of Plato’s original date of 9,600 BC where he placed the supposed destruction of Atlantis.
The melting ice-sheets, it is believed by ‘uniformitarians’, were sufficient to account for these sea-level rises, but other scientists are looking at the possibility that supermassive quantities of water-ice were rudely delivered to the Earth by a giant comet which passed close to the Earth and the Moon at the end of the Pleistocene era – again at around 11,500 years ago. This “event” was coeval with the world’s major mountain ranges – such as the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas – attaining their present elevations, whilst many of the world’s low-lying basin areas collapsed in an abrupt series of crustal deformations caused by the gravitational effects of a celestial body in such close proximity to Earth.
Many of the world’s ‘deluge traditions’ refer to a celestial agency as having been the cause of the global floods, as well as the major rifting of Earth’s crust in numerous locations, and possibly also causing a tilt in the Earth’s rotational axis which brought about the seasons and the frigid polar regions as we now know them. The mass extinctions which marked the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the present Holocene era are also dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, as are the unconsolidated jumbles of now extinct land animals, marine lifeforms, and Pleistocene flora which comprise the many types of ‘drift deposits’ found jammed with extreme force into caves and rock fissures worldwide.
Many species from widely differing climatic zones and habitats lie side-by-side in bits and pieces evidencing the violent nature of their common demise, and careful analysis of these suggest the cause as being not the Ice Age of the uniformitarians, but the tumultuous swirling waters of mega-tsunami. Either way, the major question which cannot any longer be reasonably avoided by serious prehistorical researchers must be:
“What more evidence of ancient civilisations, and of the sea-faring peoples of world-wide
mythology, remains to be discovered beneath the waves on the
continental shelves all around our planet?”
…
Below are some video reports about the remains of ancient cities that have recently
been discovered underwater on coastal shelves around the world:
“Archaeologists have discovered the earliest known garden in the Pacific Northwest-and it was underwater.
The site, about 30 kilometers east of Vancouver, Canada, on land belonging to the Native American group Katzie First Nation, was once part of an ecologically rich wetland.
It was divided into two parts: one on dry land, where people lived and built their homes, and one that was underwater.
In the underwater section, people had arranged small stones into a tight-knit ‘pavement’ that covered more than 40 square meters of the submerged ground.
When archaeologists excavated in the pavement area, they pulled up nearly 4000 wapato tubers, a potato-like plant that grows in swampy earth submerged under freshwater.”
[It never ceases to amaze me when discoveries such as this show how inventive ancient peoples really were. This discovery shows the great knowledge they had, and their appreciation of how nature works in a wide variety of ecological niches, and how ancient peoples developed ways to modify nature to enable them to maximise important natural food resources. The original paper gives a fuller account of the excavation – Ed.]
“A now-submerged Stone Age settlement has been mapped in the Baltic Sea, revealing how its ancient inhabitants lived along what was once a lagoon on the coast of Sweden some 9,000 years ago.
The exceptionally well-preserved site was discovered about seven years ago, after divers came upon what are now considered to be the oldest stationary fish traps in northern Europe.
It turns out that those fishing traps were a part of the Haväng site, which archaeologists now believe was once a lagoon environment where Mesolithic humans lived during parts of the year.
‘These [fish trap] constructions, the oldest known in northern Europe, indicate extensive riverine and lagoonal fishing, previously not recorded during the Mesolithic in Sweden’, the researchers wrote
in their study, which was published online Aug. 30 in the journal Quaternary International.”
“Diver Jerry Wilhelmsson was out looking for a different shipwreck altogether off the south coast of the Åland islands (Finland’s autonomous Swedish-speaking islands between Stockholm and Helsinki) when he came across an incredible discovery.
Sitting in front of him at a shallow depth was an unusually well-preserved 27 metre long shipwreck, complete with anchor, figurehead and hundreds of unopened bottles.
Wilhelmsson and his diving team Baltic Underwater Explorers now have permission to take some of the bottles back up to the surface in the hope that analysis will provide an explanation for where the mysterious wreck came from.
‘It’s quite rare to find a wreck in this condition with cargo intact at a relatively shallow depth’, Magnus Melin of Baltic Underwater Explorers told The Local.”
[Another very interesting underwater find in the Baltic area which has been a marine trade route for many centuries. Well worth a visit read the full story – Ed.]
“A trove of treasures, from ancient Egyptian statues to coins and amphorae with stamped handles, has been found inside the wreck of the Mentor, one of the ships used to transport the Parthenon marbles from Piraeus to England.
Egyptian statues, coins and jewellery among treasures Lord Elgin’s brig Mentor carried when the overladen ship sank off Kythera.
The overburdened frigate sank in 1802 southwest of the island of Kythera.
Even 200 years of depredation by looters failed to find all its secrets, which are now being uncovered by marine archaeologists.
The precious marble slabs themselves were saved from the depths at the time: Lord Elgin lost no time ordering their salvage.
Now marine archaeologists from Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, headed by Dr. Dimitris Kourkoumelis, have revisited the Mentor and excavated more of the hull, which had been badly damaged by the many salvage operations, and looting, over the years.”
[An amazing story from Ha’retz! The sheer number of artifacts found is astounding. It’s well worth a visit to see the incredible images and read the full story – Ed.]
“Sometime in the 15th century, a ship caught fire off the coast of Koh Kong province and sank about 20 meters to the ocean floor.
Over 500 years later, a group of Vietnamese fishermen cast their nets about 20 km off the coast of Koh Sdech island and hauled in an unlikely catch.
They might have snagged one of thousands of pieces of Thai ceramics that sat alongside Chinese porcelain, ivory and untold other artifacts, evidence of a bustling maritime trade that stretched across Southeast Asia and beyond.
A recently completed inventory of the objects hints at surprising connections between the sea trade and centuries-old jars laden with human bones hidden high on the ridges of the Cardamom Mountains.
By the time the Koh Sdech ship sank, Cambodia already had centuries of experience trading along its coast.
Chinese records document a loosely-affiliated string of states along the Cambodian coast known as Funan that traded along a route connecting China to Southeast Asia and India, according to a paper by Geoff Wade, a researcher on historical Asian relations and a visiting fellow at Australian National University.”
[As if more evidence of extensive maritage trade in southest Asia were needed, here is another report showing just how extensive it was all over the region. Another good story and well worth a visit to see the images and read the full story – Ed.]
July 19, 2016, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
“Two monumental artefacts were recovered over the weekend by a local diving group, marking a maritime heritage milestone for Hong Kong.
A diving team from the Hong Kong Underwater Heritage Group recovered an anchor stock – the upper part of an anchor – around Basalt Island, and a cannon off the coast of High Island.
The anchor stock is believed to date back to the Song Dynasty, making it over 1,000 years old – Hong Kong’s oldest marine artefact.
‘It’s important for Hong Kong’s [maritime] history because it’s evidence to show that Hong Kong is a location worth investigating’, Dr Libby Chan Lai-pik, senior curator at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum said.
The museum is a sponsor of the Underwater Heritage Group.
‘The anchor is proof that Hong Kong was perhaps quite advanced during the Song Dynasty in terms of water transport and commercial trade.'”
[More discoveries underwater in the Far East! This is another example of just how large maritime trading was in that region and globally well before European interventions tried to dominate it. A good story and well worth a visit to see the images and full story – Ed.]
“A cluster of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea is giving up some of its deep secrets, as archaeologists have now found 45 shipwrecks there in less than a year’s time.
Back in September 2015, a team of Greek and American divers located an astonishing 22 shipwrecks over the course of a 13-day survey around Fourni, which is composed of 13 small islands, some too tiny to show up on maps.
The team went back to the eastern Aegean islands in June to expand the search.
By the time the three-and-a-half-week survey was finished, the researchers bested their first effort: They documented another 23 shipwrecks, bringing the total to 45.”
[This is a great story about new discoveries underwater off the Greek Islands. It’s well worth a visit to read the full story and you can see the many of the recently-released underwater images of the finds here – Ed.]
[Well done The Daily Mail Online for publishing this story. Rhapta, mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy’s account of the visit by Diogenes, will, if found, be one the ,most important underwater discoveries made for many years. It’s well worth a visit to read the full story and see the many amazing coastal and underwater images – Ed.]
“A fortuitous discovery before the Passover holiday by two divers in the ancient port of Caesarea has led to the revelation of a large, spectacular and beautiful ancient marine cargo of a merchant ship that sank there during the Late Roman period, about 1,600 years ago.
As soon as they emerged from the water, divers Ran Feinstein and Ofer Ra’anan of Ra’anana contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority and reported the discovery and the removal of several ancient items from the sea.
A joint dive at the site together with IAA archaeologists revealed that an extensive portion of the seabed had been cleared of sand and the remains of a ship were left uncovered on the sea bottom: iron anchors, remains of wooden anchors and items that were used in the construction and running of the sailing vessel.
Many of the artifacts are made of bronze and are in an extraordinary state of preservation: a bronze lamp depicting the image of the sun-god Sol, a figurine of the moon goddess Luna, a lamp in the image of the head of an African slave, fragments of three life-size bronze-cast statues, objects fashioned in the shape of animals: a whale, and a bronze faucet in the shape of a wild boar with a swan on its head.”
[A really interesting underwater discovery, and full marks to the divers for contacting the antiquities authorities to ensure the site wasn’t looted and get the recovery job done by the experts. Well worth a visit to read the full story and see the many amazing images – Ed.]
“A decade after temple ruins were glimpsed during the 2004 Asian Tsunami, divers have now confirmed the existence of an ancient temple and possibly much more, off the Indian coast.
The ruins are located close to the popular tourist destination and UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mamallapuram, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Just before the devastating 2004 Asian Tsunami hit, the ocean receded several hundred feet, and tourists reported glimpsing large stones and boulders in the distance.
A 10-member team from the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) surveyed the area from March 10 to 18, and have found the ruins of one of six ancient temples that are thought to have been swallowed up by the ocean as sea levels rose.
The team, comprising of divers, geologists and archaeologists found a ten meter wall, a flight of stairs and carved blocks of stone on the ocean bed in twenty seven feet of water.”
[We reported on these discoveries several times since 2001, when similar ancient urban remains were also discovered in the northwest of India submerged in the Gulf of Cambay and beyond. This latest development is well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
“Underwater excavations of the ancient city of Corinth have uncovered monumental piers and evidence that the sunken port of Lechaion functioned as a booming trading hub for over a thousand years.
Ancient sources speak of Corinth as a wealthy trading center with a mixed population of Greeks, Romans, and Jews.
According to the Greek Scriptures, it was in the Corinth synagogue that Paul the Apostle preached and sparked controversy among its members.
Now, recent underwater excavations by a team of Danish and Greek archaeologists have uncovered the infrastructure of a major harbor, and evidence of vibrant maritime activity spanning the 6th century BCE to the 6th century CE.”
[There are some amazing photos of the discoveries underwater, along with maps and diagrams to accompany the story. Well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
March 12, 2016, NASA Earth Observatory, Earth Orbit
“The planet’s oceans are littered with shipwrecks-perhaps as many as three million. Most have gone down close to shore, where hazards like rocks, reefs, other submerged objects, and vessel congestion are abundant.
While there is a romantic association between shipwrecks and buried treasure, there are more practical reasons to know the precise locations of sunken ships.
Now archaeologists and navigators have a new tool for locating shipwrecks. Structures and vessels resting on the seafloor in near-shore waters can create telltale sediment plumes on the sea surface.
Using data from the Landsat 8 satellite, researchers recently detected plumes extending as far as 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) downstream from shallow shipwreck sites.
The study has demonstrated that Landsat and Landsat-like satellites can be used to locate these watery graves.”
[Satellite imagery is proving an unexpected boon to archaeology – both on dry land and underwater. The two satellite photos of the ship wrecks are really interesting and well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
January 19, 2016, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
“Archaeologists believe they may have found a submerged seaside palace built more than 2,200 years ago by China’s first emperor, Ying Zheng, mainland media reports.
The building, thought to date back to the Qin dynasty (221-207BC), was discovered under the sea off the coast of Suizhong county, in Liaoning province, researchers from Liaoning and Beijing told the Liaoshen Evening News
The largest discovery was a 60-metre wide square, formed of large stones, which could be the foundations of a large platform for religious sacrifices or other important activities, the archaeologists said.
They also found the remains of a stone road running through the palace.”
[Makes you wonder how much more is down there waiting to be discovered. The two underwater photos of the discoveries are awesome and well worth a visit to the site – Ed.]
“The mythical land of Atlantis could be just to the west of Scilly. That’s the theory being put forward in a new book by author Philip Runggaldier.
In “Atlantis and the Biblical Flood: The Evidence at Last?” Philip discusses the evidence that an advanced society living on the dry plain that once stretched from western England to southern Ireland was wiped out by a massive flood during the last ice age.
Philip says as the earth warmed, a giant lake, known as Llyn Llion or ‘the lake of floods’, formed on what is now the Irish Sea.
And when the ice gave way, around 14,700 years ago, it produced a megaflood that swamped coastal Wales, the West Country and southeast Ireland and even reached the northern shores of Scilly.”
“More than 14,000 relics have been retrieved from an ancient cargo ship after it was salvaged from a depth of 30 meters below the surface of the South China Sea, Chinese archaeologists have said.
Most of the relics were porcelain products such as pots, bottles, bowls and plates produced by then famous kilns in places now known as Jiangxi, Fujian and Zhejiang, reported Xinhua news agency.
As of January 5, archaeologists have also excavated hundreds of gold, silver and copper relics and about 17,000 copper coins.
The well-preserved ship dates back to the early Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).”
December 23, 2015, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
“In Greece, underwater excavations of Lechaion, ancient Corinth’s partially submerged harbour town, reveal the infrastructure of more than a thousand years of flourishing maritime trade.
Researchers from the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and the University of Copenhagen are using cutting-edge methods to uncover the configuration and scale of the harbour.
Corinth ranked among the most economically and militarily powerful, and enduring, cities of the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods.
The city had an exceptional geographical advantage in the North East corner of the Peloponnese and controlled the Isthmus that facilitated land travel between Northern and Southern Greece, and travel by sea between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean.
Corinth, which lay some three kilometres from the sea, built on this natural advantage by constructing two harbour towns – the main harbour Lechaion on the Corinthian Gulf to the West, and Kenchreai on the Saronic Gulf to the East.”
“Archaeologists have discovered an ancient Roman vessel laden with 3000 jars of delicious Roman fish sauce – or garum – on the seabed off the coast of Italy.
The find was presented on Thursday by archaeologists, who spent almost two years searching for the 25-meter wreck in the deep blue waters five miles of the coast of Alassio, in the northeastern Liguria region.
‘It’s an exceptional find that dates to the first or second century AD’, Dr. Simon Luca Trigona, who led the team, told The Local.
‘It’s one of just five ‘deep sea’ Roman vessels ever to be found in the Mediterranean and the first one to be found off the coast of Liguria. We know it was carrying a large cargo of garum when it sank.’
The presence of an ancient vessel on the seabed was signalled to archaeologists in 2012, when local fisherman dredged up fragments of some clay jars that had been part of the vessel’s payload 2000 years ago.”
“A hidden, underwater treasure from Turkey will soon be revealed to the world – a Byzantine-era basilica only discovered last year by chance, during an aerial photo-shoot.
The 1,600 year old Iznik Basilica lies within Lake Iznik in the Turkish northwest.
Hailed as one of the world’s most important, most exciting discoveries, it will soon be open to world tourism.
That is because the basilica – built to honour Saint Neophytos – considered a martyr after being killed by Roman soldiers – is now to be transformed into an underwater archaeological museum.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Watch The Video – it’s great but very slow loading – Ed.]
“Underwater archaeologists have discovered 22 shipwrecks around a small Greek archipelago, revealing what may be the ancient shipwreck capital of the world.
Hailed as one of the top archaeological finds of 2015, the discovery was made by a joint Greek-American archaeological expedition in the small Fourni archipelago with an area of just 17 square miles.
This is a collection of 13 islands and islets located between the eastern Aegean islands of Samos and Icaria.
‘Surpassing all expectations, over only 13 days we added 12 percent to the total of known ancient shipwrecks in Greek territorial waters’, Peter Campbell, of the University of Southampton and co-director from US based RPM Nautical Foundation, told Discovery News.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Some amazingly clear images of marine archaeologists and the spectacular finds. It’s really well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
“Archaeologists excavating the famous ancient Greek shipwreck that yielded the Antikythera mechanism have recovered more than 50 items including a bronze armrest (possibly part of a throne), remains of a bone flute, fine glassware, luxury ceramics, a pawn from an ancient board game, and several elements of the ship itself.
The shipwreck dates to circa 65 B.C., and was discovered by Greek sponge fishermen in 1900 off the south-western Aegean island of Antikythera.
They salvaged 36 marble statues of mythological heroes and gods; a life-sized bronze statue of an athlete; pieces of several more bronze sculptures; scores of luxury items; and skeletal remains of crew and passengers.
The wreck also relinquished fragments of the world’s first computer: the Antikythera Mechanism, a geared mechanical device that encoded the movements of the planets and stars and predicted eclipses.”
“Underwater archaeological work carried out by Konya Selçuk University (SU) in the southern province of Mersin’s Silifke district has unearthed a 5,000-year-old sea route.
The SU Underwater Research Center’s Selçuk-1 Scientific Research Vessel observed the coasts of Mersin, located in the eastern Mediterranean, where traces of the world’s first maritime route and earliest harbors were found.
The work was carried out under the consultancy of the Silifke Museum with contributions by the Turkish Underwater Archaeology Foundation and the Suna-Inan Kiraç Mediterranean Civilizations Institute.
The center’s deputy director, Assistant Professor Hakan Öniz, said the work had been initiated to determine the location of archaeological wreckages.
He said they had found important cultural heritage artifacts from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman era including anchoring spots, ancient vessel wreckages and ancient shipyards.”
[Read The Full Story]
[More great images of divers. Well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
“Siberian scientists make discovery of 2,500 year old Saka settlement in up to 23 metres of water in Kyrgyzstan.
The new find at the lake is separate from the discovery in 2007 of the ruins of an ancient metropolis of roughly the same age and Scythian burial mounds under its waters.
A piece of a large ceramic pot found in the lake has a stamp on it written in Armenian and Syrian scripts, which, if confirmed, gives credence to the theory that an Armenian monastery was on this site in Medieval times, it is claimed.
‘The only populated lands on earth that have not yet been explored in any depth are those which have been lost underneath the sea’, says Professor Vince Gaffney, Anniversary Chair in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Bradford.
‘An intriguing version is that this remote lake was the last resting place of evangelist St Matthew, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, and the find may support a theory that an Armenian monastery once existed here at which his relics were supposedly buried.'”
“A lost world off the British coast which was flooded by the rising North Sea thousands of years ago, is finally to reveal its secrets.
The ancient country of Doggerland was once the home to thousands of stone age settlers and was an important land bridge between Britain and Northern Europe.
Now archaeologists at the University of Bradford have begun a huge project to reconstruct the ancient Mesolithic landscape which is now hidden beneath the waves.
Using seabed mapping data gathered by energy companies, the team is planning to produce a detailed 3D chart that will show rivers, lakes, hills and coastlines of the country.
Specialist survey ships will also take core sediment samples from selected areas of the landscape to extract millions of fragments of DNA from plants and animals which once lived on the lost world.
‘The only populated lands on earth that have not yet been explored in any depth are those which have been lost underneath the sea’, says Professor Vince Gaffney, Anniversary Chair in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Bradford.
‘Although archaeologists have known for a long time that ancient climatic change and sea level rise must mean that Doggerland holds unique and important information about early human life in Europe, until now we have lacked the tools to investigate this area properly.'”
[Read The Full Story]
[A really great story with some incredible images and diagrams. Well Done The Daily Telegraph! Well worth a visit to read the full story – Ed.]
“A wooden sea monster emerged on Tuesday from the Baltic sea after lying on the seabed off the southern Swedish town of Ronneby for more than 500 years.
Representing a ferocious looking creature with lion ears and crocodile-like mouth, the 660-pound figurehead stood at the prow of a ship.
It was carved from the top of an 11-foot-long beam.
According to experts at Blekinge Museum, which was involved in the salvage effort, the ‘monster’ was part of the Gribshunden, a 15th-century warship belonging to the Danish King Hans.”
[Read The Full Story]
“Archaeologists have discovered an underwater ‘Stonehenge-style’ monolith in the Mediterranean basin, possibly made by one of the earliest civilizations in the region.
The monolith discovery, published in the Journal of Archaeologist Science, was made in water 131 feet deep on what researchers believe is a sunken island in a channel off the coast of Sicily.
Archaeologists said they believe the monolith was made by man about 10,000 years ago, according to Discovery News.
‘The discovery of the submerged site in the Sicilian Channel may significantly expand our knowledge of the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean basin and our views on technological innovation and development achieved by the Mesolithic inhabitants’, said the researchers.
‘The monolith found, made of a single, large block, required a cutting, extraction, transportation and installation, which undoubtedly reveals important technical skills and great engineering.’
‘The belief that our ancestors lacked the knowledge, skill and technology to exploit marine resources or make sea crossings must be progressively abandoned’, they said.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Great underwater photos, and well worth a visit to the websites to read the full stories and see the images and diagrams – Ed.]
“Archaeologists have discovered a mysterious Stonehenge-style monolith in the deep sea off the coast of Sicily, shedding new light on the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean basin.
Broken in two parts, the 3.2-foot-long monolith has a rather regular shape and features three holes of similar diameter.
One, which can be found at its end, crosses it completely from part to part; the others appear at two sides of the massive stone.
Such features leave no doubt that the monolith was man-made some 10,000 years ago.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Great story and incredible underwater photos. A MUST SEE – Ed.]
“Spectacular ancient Egyptian treasures are to be exhibited for the first time having been discovered underwater in the submerged ruins of the near-legendary cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus.
A finely sculpted statuette of a pharaoh and a golden-eyed depiction of god Osiris are among antiquities to be unveiled in a major exhibition in Paris from next month.
The cities were almost erased from mankind’s memory after sinking beneath the waves in the eighth century AD following cataclysmic natural disasters including an earthquake and tidal waves.
Across a vast site in Aboukir Bay near Alexandria, the seabed has been giving up secrets from a lost world in an excavation led by Franck Goddio, a French marine archaeologist.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Great story and incredible underwater photos. Must go to Paris to see the exhibition. We highly recommend you follow the links to see the many photos – Ed.]
“Severe winter storms over the last two years are believed to have led to the recent discovery of relics from the Spanish Armada off the Irish coast.
A number of cannons from the merchant vessel La Juliana have been found in sands off Streedagh in Co Sligo since timbers from the exposed wreck began washing ashore in April.
The guns date back to 1588 but are said to be in excellent condition.
Two have been taken off the seabed with archaeologists discovering that one bears a dedication to and depiction of St Matrona, a saint particularly venerated by the people of Catalonia and Barcelona.”
[Read The Full Story]
[Makes you wonder what else is on the seabed off Ireland – Ed.]
“The wreck of a large Byzantine ship, dating from the 10th century and filled with amphorae, was discovered by divers off the coast of Sevastopol in Crimea.
The shipwreck was discovered by a Russian archaeological submarine mission in the Black Sea.
It is a long vessel, with a length greater than 100 meters and it has been in excellent condition and very likely to belong to the Byzantine period.
Archaeologists believe that this might be the largest Byzantine ship that has been discovered so far.”
[Read The Full Story]
“The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has turned up the unexpected discovery of a shipwreck on the sea floor of the southern Indian Ocean.
Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace in March last year while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, but is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean off Australia’s west coast.
Though it sank in less than 40 feet of water, the Encarnación somehow escaped major looting and is surprisingly well-preserved, with the bottom half of its hull intact thanks to burial in the seafloor.
Four vessels owned by Dutch engineering firm Fugro, equipped with sophisticated underwater drones, have already searched more than 60 per cent of the previously unmapped 60,000-square-kilometre expanse of sea floor.
Last month the search area was doubled.
This week the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said the wreck of a ship had been found about 4 kilometres below the surface and more than 1,000kms off Western Australia.”
[Read The Full Story]
[An incredible discovery with good images and well worth reading the full story – Ed.]
“Archaeologists searching for real-life pirates of the Caribbean stumbled on a mysterious shipwreck in 2011. Now after years of historical detective work, they know what they discovered.
In 1681, the Spanish merchant ship Encarnación sank during a storm near the mouth of the Chagres River on the Caribbean side of Panama. Built in Veracruz, Mexico, the cargo vessel was part of the Tierra Firme fleet, the economic lifeline of 17th-century Spain.
Though it sank in less than 40 feet of water, the Encarnación somehow escaped major looting and is surprisingly well-preserved, with the bottom half of its hull intact thanks to burial in the seafloor.
The Encarnación gives a rare glimpse of a major shift in world history during the colonial era, says Filipe Castro, a nautical archaeologist at Texas A&M University.
‘It is the rise of capitalism, imperialism, rationalism, and the middle classes that are going to buy art and consume literature.'”
[Read The Full Story]
[A good story and some great pics of the ship and finds. Well worth a visit – Ed.]
May 08, 2015, Seychelles News Agency / AFP, Seychelles
“A team of American explorers on Thursday claimed to have discovered silver treasure from the infamous 17th-century Scottish pirate William Kidd in a shipwreck off the coast of Madagascar.
Marine archaeologist Barry Clifford told reporters he had found a 50-kilogramme (110-pound) silver bar in the wreck of Kidd’s ship the ‘Adventure Gallery’, close to the small island of Sainte Marie.
But UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural body, immediately criticised Clifford’s methods and said he may have damaged a precious archeological site in his hunt for treasure.
Captain Kidd, who was born in Scotland in about 1645, was first employed by British authorities to hunt pirates, before he himself turned into a ruthless criminal of the high seas.
After looting a ship laden with valuable cargo in 1698, he was caught, imprisoned and questioned by the British parliament before being executed in Wapping, close to the River Thames, in 1701.”
[Read The Full Story]
“A team of Chinese archaeologists embarked on one of the country’s largest underwater surveys in mid-April, in the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.
The 25 underwater archaeologists are equipped with a 900-ton archaeological vessel and four auxiliary vessels.
The survey is focused on Yongle Atoll, which is located to the west of Xisha Islands.
And the crew has found a substantial amount of stone building material and carvings at the site.
These artifacts contain a wealth of historical information and valuable proof of the ancient Maritime Silk Route.”
[Read The Full Story]
“A fabulous sunken treasure may be recovered off Finland coast as archaeologist divers say they have found the wreck of a legendary 15th-century vessel.
According to historic documents, the Hanneke Wrome was one of two ships that left Luebeck, Germany, for Tallinn, Estonia, on Nov. 11, 1468.
Strong east winds, actually very rare in Finland, caught both vessels.
While the other ship managed to get to Tallinn, the Hanneke Wrome went down in the storm with more than 200 passengers and crew.
‘It was one of the major maritime casualties of the time and it wasn’t the only one to occur on that route’, team leader Rauno Koivusaari said.”
“For centuries, historians, archaeologists and scuba divers have sought – and failed over and over again – to find Atlantis, the glorious ancient metropolis that was lost beneath the waves, the New York Post reports.
But what if the wave was lost beneath the city?
That is, what if the ‘sunken’ metropolis was, in fact, only sunken briefly by a tsunami wave, which wreaked colossal destruction before receding back to the sea?
That’s the hypothesis of German computer whiz Michael Hubner.
He believed what remains of the ruins of the ancient city is, in fact, sitting in plain sight above the Atlantic on the dry, crumbly coastline of Morocco.”
[Read The Full Story]
[This story was aloso covered by Daily Mail Online, which had many interesting photos and maps of the area in near the Morocco coastline – Ed.]
“Saudi and German archaeologists have discovered two ancient shipwrecks along the Jeddah coast, in a joint project between the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) and the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany.
This was revealed recently at a lecture organized by the German Consulate in Jeddah. Michaela Reinfeld, a German archaeologist who spoke at the event, had been part of the dive team that made the find.
The Roman ship discovered is the oldest archaeologically documented shipwreck found along the Saudi Arabian coast, she said.
The other ship dates to the early Islamic era. There was also an ancient jetty found, she said.”
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“The largest collection of gold coins yet discovered in Israel was found in recent weeks on the seabed in the ancient harbor in Caesarea National Park, the Antiquities Authority said.
A group of divers from the diving club in the harbor reported the find to the Antiquities Authority whose officials then went with the divers to the location with a metal detector and uncovered almost 2,000 gold coins from the Fatimid period (11th century CE) in various denominations: dinars, half dinars and quarter dinars, of various dimensions and weight.
Kobi Sharvit, director of the Marine Archeology Unit at the Antiquities Authority, said on Tuesday there is likely a wreck near the find of an official Fatimid treasury ship that was on its way to the central government in Cairo with tax revenue.”
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“First underwater excavations on a rare shipwreck off Paralimni have revealed a small part of the side of the hull to be in a good state of preservation while several moveable finds included wooden rigging-elements, pistol bullets, ceramics, glass tableware and bricks, the antiquities department said on Wednesday.
The shipwreck, Nissia, which the department said probably dates to the late Ottoman period, is located 28 metres below sea level.
‘It is the only shipwreck of this period known in Cyprus, and one of the few that are under investigation in the eastern Mediterranean’, it said.
The excavations, which took place over a two-week period in September last year, were conducted by the Maritime Archaeological Research Laboratory (MARELab) of the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, under the direction of Dr Stella Demesticha, in collaboration with the department of antiquities.
It said the shipwreck was known among divers since the 1980s and due to its location and depth is easily accessible. However this resulted in it being transformed into ‘an uncontrolled recreation spot’, UCY said.
‘This resulted in destruction and looting, and the subsequent destruction of valuable archaeological evidence.'”
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[This story highlights the problems caused by looters, and we can only repeat our plea for divers who discover archaeological remains underwater or on land to please report the finds immediately to the relevant authorities wherever they are in the world.
In the case of Cyprus this is the Department of Antiquities, and any archaeological finds should be reported directly to them – Ed.]
“Archaeologists are excavating the vessel that served as the flagship of the pirate Blackbeard, and the medical equipment they have recovered from the shipwreck suggests the notorious buccaneer had to toil to keep his crew healthy.
Blackbeard is the most famous pirate who ever lived. His real name was Edward Teach (or possibly Thatch), and his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, was formerly a French slave vessel named La Concorde de Nantesthat Blackbeard captured in November 1717.
Blackbeard was able to capture this ship easily because much of its crew was either sick or dead due to disease.
The wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge was rediscovered in 1996 and has been under excavation by the Queen Anne’s Revenge Project.
Archaeologists have recovered many artifacts, including a number of medical instruments.
These artifacts, combined with historical records, paint a picture of a pirate captain who tried to keep his crew in fighting shape.”
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“The University of West Florida Archaeology Institute recently received a special category grant totaling more than $290,000 from the Florida Division of Historical Resources to explore a Spanish fleet associated with Tristan de Luna from the 1500s, the university announced in a news release.
The archaeological remains of the Spanish ships, located in Pensacola Bay, are the oldest documented in Florida waters.
According to the terms of the matching grant, UWF archaeologists will conduct fieldwork, laboratory analysis, artifact conservation and curation, archival research in Spain and public outreach for two years.
Dr. Gregory Cook, assistant professor of anthropology, and Dr. John Bratten, associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, will serve as principal and co-principal investigators, respectively.
‘The Emanuel Point shipwrecks represent an incredible laboratory for UWF students and archaeologists’, Bratten said.
‘More than 4,000 artifacts have been recovered from the two Spanish vessels including pottery, food remains and cooking implements. Undoubtedly, the most important artifacts are the ships’ hulls’.
‘Continued documentation of the buried timbers in the form of detailed drawings and photographs permits a detailed reconstruction of this 16th-century colonization fleet.'”
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January 10, 2015, International Business Times AU, Australia
“Underwater explorers have discovered unidentified pieces of cast metals from a shipwreck that dates back 2,600 years ago.
Italian archaeologist Sebastiano Tusa told Discovery News that the collection of 39 ingots found on the seabed is a unique find and believes that these may be the mythical metal, orichalcum.
To determine the composition of the 39 ingots, the archaeological team had the cast metals undergo x-ray fluorescence analysis.
It turns out that the metals are composed mainly of copper and zinc with small traces of iron, nickel and lead.
The discovery of these metals implies the presence of artisan workshops in the coastal town of Gela in southern Sicily, which flourished during the time of Greek colonisation in 689 B.C.”
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January 06, 2015, Discovery News, USA
“Gleaming cast metal called orichalcum, which was said by Ancient Greeks to be found in Atlantis, has been recovered from a ship that sunk 2,600 years ago off the coast of Sicily.
The lumps of metal were arriving to Gela in southern Sicily, possibly coming from Greece or Asia Minor.
The ship that was carrying them was likely caught in a storm and sunk just when it was about to enter the port.
‘The wreck dates to the first half of the sixth century’, Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily’s superintendent of the Sea Office, told Discovery News.
‘It was found about 1,000 feet from Gela’s coast at a depth of 10 feet.'”
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[A very interesting story and well worth a visit to their site – Ed.]
“The great 19th-century battle between catastrophists and uniformitarians seemed to end with the notion of global cataclysms being dismissed as a back door to the supernatural.
But the catastrophist theory has gradually become more and more plausible, so that now, less than a hundred years later, it is widely believed that mass extinctions are linked to meteor strikes.”
“Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found across our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Buddhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbian Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures?
“From Graham Hancock, bestselling author of Fingerprints of the Gods, comes a mesmerizing book that takes us on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a lost civilization that’s been hidden for thousands of years beneath the world’s oceans. While Graham Hancock is no stranger to stirring up heated controversy among scientific experts, his books and television documentaries have intrigued millions of people around the world and influenced many to rethink their views about the origins of human civilization.
Now he returns with an explosive new work of archaeological detection. In Underworld, Hancock continues his remarkable quest underwater, where, according to almost a thousand ancient myths from every part of the globe, the ruins of a lost civilization, obliterated in a universal flood, are to be found.”
Hancock’s chief thesis in “Heaven’s Mirror” is that numerous ancient sites and monuments – the pyramids of Mexico and Egypt, the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the monuments of Yonaguni in the Pacific, and the megaliths of Peru and Bolivia – are situated in such a way, geodetically, that they point towards some separate and uniform influence, some lost civilization or “invisible college” of astronomer-priests.
“A book that completetly changes the established and conventional view of prehistory by relocating the Lost Eden – the world’s 1st civilization – to S.E. Asia.
At the end of the Ice Age, SouthEast Asia formed a continent twice the size of India, which included Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo.
The South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java sea, which were all dry, formed the connecting parts of the continent.
Geologically, this half sunken continent is the Shunda shelf or Sundaland.
He produces evidence from ethnography, archaeology, oceanography, from creation stories, myths and sagas and from linguistics and DNA analysis, to argue that this founder civilization was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, caused by a rapid rise in the sea level at the end of the last ice age.”
… exclusive
…
October 2002
Morien Institute
illustrated interview with
Professor Masaaki Kimura
of the University of the Ruykyus,
Okinawa, Japan, regarding
the discovery of:
“Jeremy Green’s systematic overview of maritime archaeology offers a step-by-step description of this fast-growing field.
With new information about the use of computers and Global Positioning Systems, the second edition of this handbook shows how to extract as much information as possible from a site, how to record and document the data, and how to act ethically and responsibly with the artifacts.
Treating underwater archaeology as a discipline, the book demonstrates how archaeologists, ‘looters’, academics, and governments interact and how the market for archaeological artifacts creates obstacles and opportunities for these groups.
Well illustrated and comprehensive in its approach to the subject, this book provides an essential foundation for everybody interested in underwater environments, submerged land structures, and conditions created by sea level changes.”
“Some of the most exciting archaeological discoveries aren’t made by Indiana Jones wannabes prowling through the jungle in search of forgotten cities or by Egyptologists looking for lost passageways in the pyramids.
They are found by divers exploring shipwrecks such as the Titanic and the U.S.S. Monitor.
Every now and then they even uncover the remains of human settlements sleeping beneath the waves.
Underwater Archaeology is an inexpensive and colorful book about the people who do this work and what they sometimes bring to the surface–a great introduction to the subject.
It is another fine title in the Discoveries series of books published by Harry N. Abrams.”
“Man: 12,000 Years Under the Sea is the dramatic story of underwater archaeology.
The work looks back at Greek divers’ discovery of ancient statues in the sea, and covers the history of marine archaeology to the present, including the recovery of Ice Age Man’s 12,000-year-old remains from the bottom of Florida springs.
Burgess writes from his experience for an assured exciting read.
In Man: 12,000 Years Under the Sea Robert Burgess gives us a peak at . . . the work done by sponge divers, treasure hunters and underwater archaeologists.
The excitement and hazard of underwater exploration is so clearly described that I was tempted to get a diving suit to join them. This book is more than intriguing, it is a necessity.”
“This encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference book on the discovery and recovery of underwater archaeological remains around the world and across time.
Written by archaeologists and other scientists who have made the discoveries, it offers a wealth of authoritative and accessible information on shipwrecks, drowned cities, ritual deposits, and other relics of our submerged past.
The volume’s 450 alphabetically arranged entries cover sites from prehistory to the modern era (including Titanic), legislation and legal issues, organizations, nations and regions, research themes, and technology and techniques.
Length generally ranges from two paragraphs for reef netting and Southampton Centre for Maritime Archaeology to about four pages for Great Lakes and remote sensing.
More than 100 illustrations in color are complemented by more than 200 black-and-white drawings and photos.
Most entries append a bibliography, usually of recent books, journal articles especially from the leading journal of the discipline, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, and professional conference papers.”
“This vital book is a collection on the various ways archaeologists and resource managers have devised to make available and interpret submerged cultural resources for the public, such as underwater archaeological preserves, shipwreck trails, and land-based interpretive media and literature.
The concept of preserves, parks, and trails has proven to be an effective and popular method of public education and heritage tourism with the end result being a greater public understanding of the value of preserving and protecting shipwrecks, and other submerged cultural resources, for the future.
Within each contribution, the authors focus on: legislation; economic benefits; interpretation methods; problems and successes; future directions regarding their preserve, park, or trail programs.
Various approaches to the concept have been explored and this book is an effort to make available our experiences in the management of submerged cultural resources for the public.
This volume is an invaluable resource to underwater archaeologists, cultural and heritage resource managers, museum and heritage educators and those studying these professions.”
“From fundamental principles of photographing marine life to making a living selling underwater photographs, Successful Underwater Photography provides an unlimited wealth of practical advice, surefire strategies, and tested tips for taking extraordinary photos of elusive underwater subjects.
Written by two top photographers who specialize in marine photography, this solid, lavishly illustrated field guide provides no-nonsense information on such topics as taking available-light photographs, silhouettes, marine wildlife portraits, close-focus wide angle photographs, and extension tube photographs to name just a few.
Readers will also find proven guidance for purchasing underwater photographic equipment, taking photos of shipwrecks, and repairing and maintaining field equipment.”
“How to Solve Common Problems, Repair Images and Create Dazzling Presentations; Focusing on the aspects of digital imaging that are most important to underwater photographers, this book is a step-by-step guide for the professional and amateur alike to improve their images and presentations.
Designed to help the underwater photographer make a smooth transition to digital imaging, this book discusses how to digitally refine, correct, and enhance underwater photographs.
Detailing the equipment necessary, it also includes a discussion on the essentials of scanning.
There is also extensive information on Adobe Photoshop, and how it can be used to edit underwater pictures.”
“Readers will dive nearly 200 feet with Cemal Pulak on a royal ship that sank over 3,300 years ago off the Aegean coast of Turkey, and explore with Donny Hamilton the streets and houses of the richest English colony in the New World, the infamous pirate stronghold of Port Royal, Jamaica, swallowed by the sea in 1692.
They will accompany famed undersea explorer Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, as he and Cheryl Ward search for shipwrecks in the deep, oxygen-free waters of the Black Sea.
They will wade with archaeologist Fred Hocker through mud along the bank of a South Carolina river, and then sail through a gale with Susan Womer Katzev on a full-scale replica of the best-preserved ancient Greek ship yet raised from the depths of the Mediterranean.
The book describes the tragic loss, within sight of their loved ones, of seamen returning home to Portugal in 1606, at the end of a two-year voyage to the East on the Nossa Senhora dos Martires, and then describes the fate of the crew of another Portuguese ship, the Santo Antonio de Tanna, which sank off Mombasa, Kenya, while trying to lift the siege of Fort Jesus by Omani Arabs in 1697.”
“Do undersea relics near Okinawa offer proof of a sophisticated civilization during the last ice age? Archeologists have long believed that civilization as we define it – intelligent, tool-making, monument building, social humans – began about 5,000 years ago. But submerged beneath the waves near the Japanese island of Yonaguni is evidence that may well overturn that long-held theory.
A small but persuasive number of scholars and scientists have long thought that “advanced” societies may have existed as long as 10,000 years ago. Their theories, however well reasoned and defended, have been hamstrung by a lack of evidence. But recent discoveries of man-made artifacts on the Pacific seafloor may well prove to be the smoking gun that will propel this alternative view of civilization to prominence”.
see the evidence with ‘unique underwater footage’ of the Yonaguni structures in the new DVD of the ‘History Channel’ television programme
