Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom
Thursday, September 28, 2006
RESEARCHERS STREAM VIDEO FROM WRECK OF USS MACON OFF BIG SUR COAST
_________________________________________________________________
By Ken McLaughlin
September 28, 2006
Northern California scientists on Wednesday released the first high-definition images of the wreckage of the USS Macon, the monstrous Navy dirigible that crashed off the Big Sur coast 71 years ago.
In more than 40 hours of surveys with a deep-diving submersible, researchers spotted everything from biplanes to aluminum chairs to dining tables and a stove -- all part of a wreck considered California's own ``Titanic'' and a time capsule from a bygone era.
Once called the ``eyes of the Pacific fleet,'' the Macon crashed in severe weather south of Point Sur on Feb. 12, 1935, on a routine flight from the Channel Islands to its home base at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View.
In a five-day archaeological investigation, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explored the site with the help of the ROV Tiburon, the institute's remotely operated vehicle. The 7,000-pound Tiburon -- which looks like a metallic octopus -- recorded high-definition videotape and made haunting still images that were combined to create an initial photo-mosaic of the Macon's two debris fields.
Although the wreckage was covered with a heavy layer of sediment, scientists were able to make out the airship's hangar bay, which contained four Sparrowhawk biplanes; five of the Macon's eight German-built Maybach 12-cylinder gasoline engines; two sections of the aluminum stove from the ship's galley; and even the enlisted men's dining table and bench.
A second debris field contained the Macon's bow section and aluminum chairs and desks that may have been in the office of a port side officer or meteorologist.
``Visiting the site again was like visiting an old friend that you haven't seen in years,'' said Chris Grech, the research institute's deputy director for marine operations.
Grech got his first peek at the Macon in the early '90s when he was involved in a less sophisticated mission sponsored by the institute and the Navy shortly after the Macon was found.
The site is too deep for human divers, so the scientists guided the Tiburon close to the Macon from a research vessel on the surface. Real-time images were beamed back to the Web via a series of relay stations -- including one at Big Sur's famed Nepenthe restaurant.
More than 10,000 people from five continents viewed the live streaming videos, said Robert Schwemmer, West Coast maritime heritage coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program.
The scientists found that the wreckage had done little to damage the marine environment. If anything, it was just the opposite: The doomed airship has created a sort of artificial reef teeming with fish more than 1,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific.
``We were overwhelmed by the amount of fish,'' Grech said.
In fact, about a third of the time there were so many schools of fish that they made it hard for scientists to see, he said.
NOAA has not released the exact location of the wreckage, saying it doesn't want ``treasure hunters'' at the site.
The scientists said Wednesday that they weren't sure if anyone else had been poking around the Macon.
Grech said it was ``kind of strange'' that a few large objects -- such as a fire extinguisher and a bundle of rope -- were no longer there.
``I'm not sure why they moved,'' he said, adding that the forces of nature could have been to blame.
Scientists said they aren't sure when they will return to the Macon. But they would like to use the results of the new underwater survey to place it on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places.
The Macon is about four times longer than the ``blimps'' often seen today hovering above sporting events, flashing the names of tire companies. In fact, the 785-foot ship was only 97 feet shorter than the Titanic.
In its heyday, the Macon was a familiar sight in the Bay Area. Throngs would turn out to get a look at the ``flying aircraft carrier.''
Before its demise, the Macon was garaged at Moffett's Hangar One, a gigantic relic that is now targeted for demolition.
In its exploration of the site, the Tiburon was controlled by new software developed at Stanford University by Steve Rock, professor of aeronautics and astronautics. The software allows the submersible to maneuver with more precision than human operators could achieve alone. The mission was an important proving ground for software that might one day be used for planetary exploration, scientists at the institute said.
The Macon was only two years old when it crashed. All but two of the crew of 83 survived; the bodies of the dead were never found.
``This is a grave site of Navy personnel,'' said Bruce Terrell, senior archaeologist at the National Marine Sanctuary Program. ``We treated it with respect.''
September 28, 2006
Northern California scientists on Wednesday released the first high-definition images of the wreckage of the USS Macon, the monstrous Navy dirigible that crashed off the Big Sur coast 71 years ago.
In more than 40 hours of surveys with a deep-diving submersible, researchers spotted everything from biplanes to aluminum chairs to dining tables and a stove -- all part of a wreck considered California's own ``Titanic'' and a time capsule from a bygone era.
Once called the ``eyes of the Pacific fleet,'' the Macon crashed in severe weather south of Point Sur on Feb. 12, 1935, on a routine flight from the Channel Islands to its home base at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View.
In a five-day archaeological investigation, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explored the site with the help of the ROV Tiburon, the institute's remotely operated vehicle. The 7,000-pound Tiburon -- which looks like a metallic octopus -- recorded high-definition videotape and made haunting still images that were combined to create an initial photo-mosaic of the Macon's two debris fields.
Although the wreckage was covered with a heavy layer of sediment, scientists were able to make out the airship's hangar bay, which contained four Sparrowhawk biplanes; five of the Macon's eight German-built Maybach 12-cylinder gasoline engines; two sections of the aluminum stove from the ship's galley; and even the enlisted men's dining table and bench.
A second debris field contained the Macon's bow section and aluminum chairs and desks that may have been in the office of a port side officer or meteorologist.
``Visiting the site again was like visiting an old friend that you haven't seen in years,'' said Chris Grech, the research institute's deputy director for marine operations.
Grech got his first peek at the Macon in the early '90s when he was involved in a less sophisticated mission sponsored by the institute and the Navy shortly after the Macon was found.
The site is too deep for human divers, so the scientists guided the Tiburon close to the Macon from a research vessel on the surface. Real-time images were beamed back to the Web via a series of relay stations -- including one at Big Sur's famed Nepenthe restaurant.
More than 10,000 people from five continents viewed the live streaming videos, said Robert Schwemmer, West Coast maritime heritage coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program.
The scientists found that the wreckage had done little to damage the marine environment. If anything, it was just the opposite: The doomed airship has created a sort of artificial reef teeming with fish more than 1,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific.
``We were overwhelmed by the amount of fish,'' Grech said.
In fact, about a third of the time there were so many schools of fish that they made it hard for scientists to see, he said.
NOAA has not released the exact location of the wreckage, saying it doesn't want ``treasure hunters'' at the site.
The scientists said Wednesday that they weren't sure if anyone else had been poking around the Macon.
Grech said it was ``kind of strange'' that a few large objects -- such as a fire extinguisher and a bundle of rope -- were no longer there.
``I'm not sure why they moved,'' he said, adding that the forces of nature could have been to blame.
Scientists said they aren't sure when they will return to the Macon. But they would like to use the results of the new underwater survey to place it on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places.
The Macon is about four times longer than the ``blimps'' often seen today hovering above sporting events, flashing the names of tire companies. In fact, the 785-foot ship was only 97 feet shorter than the Titanic.
In its heyday, the Macon was a familiar sight in the Bay Area. Throngs would turn out to get a look at the ``flying aircraft carrier.''
Before its demise, the Macon was garaged at Moffett's Hangar One, a gigantic relic that is now targeted for demolition.
In its exploration of the site, the Tiburon was controlled by new software developed at Stanford University by Steve Rock, professor of aeronautics and astronautics. The software allows the submersible to maneuver with more precision than human operators could achieve alone. The mission was an important proving ground for software that might one day be used for planetary exploration, scientists at the institute said.
The Macon was only two years old when it crashed. All but two of the crew of 83 survived; the bodies of the dead were never found.
``This is a grave site of Navy personnel,'' said Bruce Terrell, senior archaeologist at the National Marine Sanctuary Program. ``We treated it with respect.''
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Historic Soviet shipwreck 'found'
__________________________________________________________________________________
BBC News
By James Rodgers
September 21, 2006
BBC News
By James Rodgers
September 21, 2006
The Chelyuskin became trapped
in ice in December 1933.
Russian divers say they have found the wreck of a Soviet ship which sank attempting a historic journey along the Arctic coast in 1934.
The Chelyuskin was trapped in ice as it tried to complete a voyage from Murmansk in north-western Russia to Vladivostok in the Pacific Ocean.
It was supposed to show that a normal vessel - rather than an icebreaker - could complete the journey.
More than 100 of the crew were rescued by pilots who were hailed as heroes.
'Triumph'
The Chelyuskin was supposed to make history. It did, but not for the reason that Soviet propagandists had had in mind.
Russia's north coast is free of ice for only a few months in the summer.
It makes delivering vital supplies to Arctic communities a huge challenge.
As the Chelyuskin neared the end of its journey in December 1933, it became trapped in ice.
It sank in February 1934. But a failure became a triumph after the rescue operation.
After an unsuccessful attempt to find the Chelyuskin two years ago, divers say they have now located it.
Artefacts from the wreck are to be sent to Denmark, where the ship was built, to confirm its identity.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Russian divers say they have found the wreck of a Soviet ship which sank attempting a historic journey along the Arctic coast in 1934.
The Chelyuskin was trapped in ice as it tried to complete a voyage from Murmansk in north-western Russia to Vladivostok in the Pacific Ocean.
It was supposed to show that a normal vessel - rather than an icebreaker - could complete the journey.
More than 100 of the crew were rescued by pilots who were hailed as heroes.
'Triumph'
The Chelyuskin was supposed to make history. It did, but not for the reason that Soviet propagandists had had in mind.
Russia's north coast is free of ice for only a few months in the summer.
It makes delivering vital supplies to Arctic communities a huge challenge.
As the Chelyuskin neared the end of its journey in December 1933, it became trapped in ice.
It sank in February 1934. But a failure became a triumph after the rescue operation.
After an unsuccessful attempt to find the Chelyuskin two years ago, divers say they have now located it.
Artefacts from the wreck are to be sent to Denmark, where the ship was built, to confirm its identity.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Monday, September 18, 2006
Replica of Argo launched on trial journey
_________________________________________________________________
IOL.com
September 18, 2006
Volos - A replica of Argo, a mythical Greek ship believed to have sailed 3 000 years ago on a heroic quest from Greece to modern-day Georgia, set sail on Sunday from the central Greek port of Volos on a trial run.
Built with Bronze Age tools to the specifications of a Mycenaean-era vessel, the 28.5m wooden ship sailed into the waters of Pagasitikos Bay - the legendary expedition's original starting point - after a four-year construction project.
According to Greek legend, the expedition headed by Jason and featuring 50 other heroes - including Hercules and Peleus - sailed to the Black Sea kingdom of Colchis in a mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece, the skin of a divine ram.
Equipped with a ram of its own, the 14th century BC ship was of similar design to the vessels that later carried the Greek armies of the Trojan War described in Homer's Iliad, the organisers said.
In 2003, Greek shipbuilders also created the replica of a 3 500-year-old Minoan ship that sailed in the Aegean Sea the following year.
In the Argonaut legend, Jason returned from Colchis to Iolkos (near modern-day Volos) with the Fleece and the daughter of the local king, Medea, as his wife.
According to a tale dramatised by Classical-era Greek tragedian Euripides that bears her name, Medea later became insane with jealousy after Jason left her for another princess and killed their two children in reprisal.
The modern Argo will sail on its two-month maiden voyage to the Black Sea with a crew of 50 rowers - representing every country in Europe - next year.
IOL.com
September 18, 2006
Volos - A replica of Argo, a mythical Greek ship believed to have sailed 3 000 years ago on a heroic quest from Greece to modern-day Georgia, set sail on Sunday from the central Greek port of Volos on a trial run.
Built with Bronze Age tools to the specifications of a Mycenaean-era vessel, the 28.5m wooden ship sailed into the waters of Pagasitikos Bay - the legendary expedition's original starting point - after a four-year construction project.
According to Greek legend, the expedition headed by Jason and featuring 50 other heroes - including Hercules and Peleus - sailed to the Black Sea kingdom of Colchis in a mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece, the skin of a divine ram.
Equipped with a ram of its own, the 14th century BC ship was of similar design to the vessels that later carried the Greek armies of the Trojan War described in Homer's Iliad, the organisers said.
In 2003, Greek shipbuilders also created the replica of a 3 500-year-old Minoan ship that sailed in the Aegean Sea the following year.
In the Argonaut legend, Jason returned from Colchis to Iolkos (near modern-day Volos) with the Fleece and the daughter of the local king, Medea, as his wife.
According to a tale dramatised by Classical-era Greek tragedian Euripides that bears her name, Medea later became insane with jealousy after Jason left her for another princess and killed their two children in reprisal.
The modern Argo will sail on its two-month maiden voyage to the Black Sea with a crew of 50 rowers - representing every country in Europe - next year.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Lost ship holds key to colony mystery
By Mike Toner
September 18, 2006
GEORGETOWN, S.C. — Two miles off a deserted beach, the research vessel C-Hawk, its course plotted by satellite navigation signals, makes a 180-degree turn and heads back the way it came.
One mile and it will turn again, recording the ocean floor's magnetic profile as systematically as if it were a tractor plowing a field.
In the past month, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology research vessel has surveyed 6 square miles of the ocean bottom outside the mouth of Winyah Bay, searching for the 500-year old flagship of the expedition that established America's first colony — on the Georgia coast.
"If the Spanish had this kind of navigation gear in the 16th century, we probably wouldn't be out here looking for this ship now," grins archaeologist Jim Spirek, looking up from the computer screen in the cabin of the C-Hawk.
In August 1526, as Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon's fleet of six ships plied these waters, depths were determined by dangling a lead weight overboard at the end of a line. The method had its limitations. Ayllon's flagship ran aground — and the first European effort to colonize the mainland of North America began to go horribly awry.
American history brims with accounts of Jamestown, Plymouth Rock and Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony of Roanoke. But there isn't much said about Ayllon's effort to establish a colony of 600 people nearly a century earlier.
One reason is that the colony, San Miguel de Gualdape, was an abject failure. The other is that no trace has ever been found of Ayllon's initial landing on the Carolina coast or the short-lived colony he established later in Georgia.
Christopher Amer, South Carolina's state underwater archaeologist, hopes to change that. Other archaeologists have looked for the ephemeral remains of the failed Georgia colony, which is thought to have been located somewhere in the vicinity of Sapelo Sound, south of Savannah, and found nothing.
Amer is betting that sea floor sediments, which would have quickly buried the wreck, have preserved Ayllon's ill-fated Chorruca and its cargo.
Ayllon's "tubby little vessel," a wide-beamed class of ship that Amer says was known for "sailing like a truck," was the Mayflower of its time.
"This was the earliest known shipwreck in North America," he says. "It carried a complete toolkit for starting a colony in a strange land — containers of food, tools, weapons, everything they needed. If the ship is buried in sediment, these things can last a long time. It won't be easy to find, but that's what makes it exciting."
Amer has no illusions of instant success. This summer's initial four weeks of surveying with the C-Hawk's torpedo-shaped magnetometer — an instrument that detects masses of iron or steel — have yielded five "interesting" targets.
But magnetic readings can't distinguish between a rusty refrigerator and a 16th-century Spanish anchor. They also don't reveal whether the object is lying on the seabed or buried beneath thick sediment. To find out, Amer and his team will return to the most promising targets this month, use side scan sonar to examine them and then don wet suits to investigate firsthand.
"There are lots of shipwrecks in the area, including at least three Civil War blockade runners. But we believe there weren't any other 16th-century Spanish shipwrecks, so if we find any artifacts from that period, it will be pretty interesting. If we don't find anything, we'll keep looking."
The historical accounts that Amer used to narrow his search to 45 square miles of ocean off the entrance to Winyah Bay are a frustrating blend of ambiguity, supposition and incomplete data.
History duly records that Ayllon left Hispaniola, the island now shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, in July 1526 and headed for North America with six ships carrying 600 men, women and children, including doctors, clergymen, sailors and slaves.
In addition to 100 horses and livestock, the ships carried stores of corn, bread and olive oil. Ayllon attempted his initial landing about 10 miles north of what he had, on a previous reconnaissance of the area, named "the River Jordan" on Aug. 9, 1526.
All hands survived the loss of his flagship, suggesting that it wasn't far offshore, but the colonists quickly concluded that the location was unsuitable for a colony.
Ayllon had the colonists build a vessel to replace his flagship and then sent the women, children and sick south while he led the remaining men on a grueling overland march that ended with the two groups reconvening somewhere on the Georgia coast. There, in September 1526, Spain founded the first, albeit short-lived, colony in the New World.
It didn't last long. By mid-November, more than half the colonists, including Ayllon, were dead of disease, starvation and Indian attacks.
The survivors called it quits, burned the settlement and departed for Hispanola. En route, the ships were struck by a late-season hurricane and only 150 people returned. Maps of North America would continue for some time to refer to the Southeast as "the land of Ayllon."
But the colony's location has intrigued and baffled archaeologists for years.
Until recently, historians thought the initial landing occurred somewhere near Cape Fear, N.C., about 100 miles north of where Amer is searching.
But new translations of a Spanish document called the Chaves Rutter — a compilation of information and geographic descriptions from pilots who sailed along the Atlantic coast in the 16th century — convinced later historians otherwise.
"The Santee River has the highest probability of being the River Jordan, and Winyah Bay is the most likely location where Ayllon's ship was lost," says Amer. "We may be looking for a needle in a haystack, but I think we are in the right haystack."
There are abundant shoals outside the entrance to Winyah Bay that could easily have snagged Ayllon's ship, which had a draft of about 15 feet.
But Amer says the search for Ayllon's ship won't be as simple as checking out every bump on the ocean floor that's 15 feet deep or less. Sea level has risen nearly 5 feet since Ayllon's time and the shoreline has undergone dramatic changes too.
North Island, the sandy finger of land guarding the northern side of the bay entrance, has advanced as much as four miles to the south in the last 500 years. South Island, across from the entrance, has advanced and retreated several times.
"With all the changes that have occurred, it's possible that the wreck is now buried under those sand dunes," Amer says. "If it's there and it's not in the water, we're going to need a whole new approach to finding it."
The project is funded by the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and the privately funded Archaeological Research Trust, but Amer is also seeking funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for future survey work in the remaining 39 square miles of the prospective search area.
How long might it take to find America's oldest shipwreck? It's a small ship. And a big ocean.
Amer, who was part of the team that discovered and raised the celebrated Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley in Charleston Harbor, isn't making any promises.
"Let's just say that I'm planning on retiring in 10 years or so," he says.
"And this project might take every one of them."
September 18, 2006
GEORGETOWN, S.C. — Two miles off a deserted beach, the research vessel C-Hawk, its course plotted by satellite navigation signals, makes a 180-degree turn and heads back the way it came.
One mile and it will turn again, recording the ocean floor's magnetic profile as systematically as if it were a tractor plowing a field.
In the past month, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology research vessel has surveyed 6 square miles of the ocean bottom outside the mouth of Winyah Bay, searching for the 500-year old flagship of the expedition that established America's first colony — on the Georgia coast.
"If the Spanish had this kind of navigation gear in the 16th century, we probably wouldn't be out here looking for this ship now," grins archaeologist Jim Spirek, looking up from the computer screen in the cabin of the C-Hawk.
In August 1526, as Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon's fleet of six ships plied these waters, depths were determined by dangling a lead weight overboard at the end of a line. The method had its limitations. Ayllon's flagship ran aground — and the first European effort to colonize the mainland of North America began to go horribly awry.
American history brims with accounts of Jamestown, Plymouth Rock and Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony of Roanoke. But there isn't much said about Ayllon's effort to establish a colony of 600 people nearly a century earlier.
One reason is that the colony, San Miguel de Gualdape, was an abject failure. The other is that no trace has ever been found of Ayllon's initial landing on the Carolina coast or the short-lived colony he established later in Georgia.
Christopher Amer, South Carolina's state underwater archaeologist, hopes to change that. Other archaeologists have looked for the ephemeral remains of the failed Georgia colony, which is thought to have been located somewhere in the vicinity of Sapelo Sound, south of Savannah, and found nothing.
Amer is betting that sea floor sediments, which would have quickly buried the wreck, have preserved Ayllon's ill-fated Chorruca and its cargo.
Ayllon's "tubby little vessel," a wide-beamed class of ship that Amer says was known for "sailing like a truck," was the Mayflower of its time.
"This was the earliest known shipwreck in North America," he says. "It carried a complete toolkit for starting a colony in a strange land — containers of food, tools, weapons, everything they needed. If the ship is buried in sediment, these things can last a long time. It won't be easy to find, but that's what makes it exciting."
Amer has no illusions of instant success. This summer's initial four weeks of surveying with the C-Hawk's torpedo-shaped magnetometer — an instrument that detects masses of iron or steel — have yielded five "interesting" targets.
But magnetic readings can't distinguish between a rusty refrigerator and a 16th-century Spanish anchor. They also don't reveal whether the object is lying on the seabed or buried beneath thick sediment. To find out, Amer and his team will return to the most promising targets this month, use side scan sonar to examine them and then don wet suits to investigate firsthand.
"There are lots of shipwrecks in the area, including at least three Civil War blockade runners. But we believe there weren't any other 16th-century Spanish shipwrecks, so if we find any artifacts from that period, it will be pretty interesting. If we don't find anything, we'll keep looking."
The historical accounts that Amer used to narrow his search to 45 square miles of ocean off the entrance to Winyah Bay are a frustrating blend of ambiguity, supposition and incomplete data.
History duly records that Ayllon left Hispaniola, the island now shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, in July 1526 and headed for North America with six ships carrying 600 men, women and children, including doctors, clergymen, sailors and slaves.
In addition to 100 horses and livestock, the ships carried stores of corn, bread and olive oil. Ayllon attempted his initial landing about 10 miles north of what he had, on a previous reconnaissance of the area, named "the River Jordan" on Aug. 9, 1526.
All hands survived the loss of his flagship, suggesting that it wasn't far offshore, but the colonists quickly concluded that the location was unsuitable for a colony.
Ayllon had the colonists build a vessel to replace his flagship and then sent the women, children and sick south while he led the remaining men on a grueling overland march that ended with the two groups reconvening somewhere on the Georgia coast. There, in September 1526, Spain founded the first, albeit short-lived, colony in the New World.
It didn't last long. By mid-November, more than half the colonists, including Ayllon, were dead of disease, starvation and Indian attacks.
The survivors called it quits, burned the settlement and departed for Hispanola. En route, the ships were struck by a late-season hurricane and only 150 people returned. Maps of North America would continue for some time to refer to the Southeast as "the land of Ayllon."
But the colony's location has intrigued and baffled archaeologists for years.
Until recently, historians thought the initial landing occurred somewhere near Cape Fear, N.C., about 100 miles north of where Amer is searching.
But new translations of a Spanish document called the Chaves Rutter — a compilation of information and geographic descriptions from pilots who sailed along the Atlantic coast in the 16th century — convinced later historians otherwise.
"The Santee River has the highest probability of being the River Jordan, and Winyah Bay is the most likely location where Ayllon's ship was lost," says Amer. "We may be looking for a needle in a haystack, but I think we are in the right haystack."
There are abundant shoals outside the entrance to Winyah Bay that could easily have snagged Ayllon's ship, which had a draft of about 15 feet.
But Amer says the search for Ayllon's ship won't be as simple as checking out every bump on the ocean floor that's 15 feet deep or less. Sea level has risen nearly 5 feet since Ayllon's time and the shoreline has undergone dramatic changes too.
North Island, the sandy finger of land guarding the northern side of the bay entrance, has advanced as much as four miles to the south in the last 500 years. South Island, across from the entrance, has advanced and retreated several times.
"With all the changes that have occurred, it's possible that the wreck is now buried under those sand dunes," Amer says. "If it's there and it's not in the water, we're going to need a whole new approach to finding it."
The project is funded by the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and the privately funded Archaeological Research Trust, but Amer is also seeking funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for future survey work in the remaining 39 square miles of the prospective search area.
How long might it take to find America's oldest shipwreck? It's a small ship. And a big ocean.
Amer, who was part of the team that discovered and raised the celebrated Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley in Charleston Harbor, isn't making any promises.
"Let's just say that I'm planning on retiring in 10 years or so," he says.
"And this project might take every one of them."
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Unexpected USS Monitor artifacts turn up during cleanup
_________________________________________________________________
Kentucky.com
By Mark St. John Erickson
Kentucky.com
By Mark St. John Erickson
September 17, 2006
Four years after Navy divers pulled the USS Monitor gun turret from the ocean's grasp, the historic Civil War artifact has compiled a long record of surprising conservators with its secrets.
But few revelations have been more unexpected than the artifacts that turned up during seemingly routine excavations inside the new conservation facility at The Mariners' Museum this summer.
Probing though some of the last deposits that remain after the removal of tons of sediment, concretion and sand, conservators David Krop and Susanne Grieve knew their chances of coming across any overlooked finds were slim. Yet hidden under layers of accumulated grit that now measure as little as 2 inches thick was an assortment of unanticipated artifacts, including a trio of buttons, a mysterious iron crank and a piece of chalk that once stroked messages to the ill-fated vessel's sailors.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was a quartet of brass-jacketed bullets that seemed to come out of nowhere. Not only were they the first examples of ammunition found on the famous warship but they also emerged in an entirely unsuspected location.
"I must have had my nose pressed against that exact spot on at least a dozen different occasions," says Jeff Johnston, the historian for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, describing a familiar site on the turret's interior wall.
"But it just shows you why we don't want to go in there and start chipping away until we hit bottom. You never know what's in there under the surface - or what you're going to expose when you remove the next layer."
Recovered from the ocean floor off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in August 2004, the famous iron cylinder has required a lengthy and often complex series of conservation steps as the Newport News museum and sanctuary office - which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - have labored to preserve it.
Immersed in the Atlantic for more than 140 years, its chloride-contaminated iron plates will spall and rupture disastrously if allowed to dry out. That means constant interruptions from a system of overhead water sprinklers whenever the conservators drain the turret's immense, 95,000-gallon tank in order to carry out their work.
Despite such obstacles, the museum and the sanctuary - with the help of engineers and riggers from Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard - have successfully removed the heavy but fragile iron beams that braced the bottom of the turret and supported its pair of 9-ton Dahlgren guns. They also have hoisted both of the historic cannon as well as their ponderous carriages, completing the delicate move from the turret to individual conservation tanks without causing any damage to the inscribed surfaces on the 13-foot-long barrels.
Since completing that task in late 2004, much of the conservators' efforts have focused on documenting the turret's newly cleared and stabilized interior, which they mapped with the aid of digital laser scanners. In August, they began a new excavation campaign aimed at clearing some of the last bits of sediment and concretion from the walls and ceiling - which now forms the floor of the upside-down cylinder.
Using their hands to probe the softer deposits and pneumatic air chisels to peel off the concretions, Krop and Grieve - joined by three East Carolina University students working as NOAA interns - spent four weeks removing and then sifting through the seemingly unpromising accumulations. But it didn't take long for the first discovery to galvanize their attention.
"We were looking at areas that had been gone over before," Krop says. "And then, all of a sudden, there was a button - and then this piece of chalk in the remaining sediment.
"It's always great when you find things like this - and this was really unexpected."
Krop's surprise was intensified by the personal nature of some of the objects that emerged.
The buttons, in particular, provide a concrete link to the stormy Dec. 31, 1862 night when the Monitor sank - and many of its crewmen struggled to remove their heavy winter coats before leaping to the deck and attempting to reach the lifeboats.
"You can just imagine them standing there inside the turret - tearing things off before they jumped into the water," Krop says. "These guys really were scrambling for their lives - and some of them didn't make it."
Almost as evocative is a chunk of chalk once used to scribble out messages to the officers and crew on a slate board. According to accounts of the sinking, the captain used one such board to communicate to an escort ship alongside the ironclad, saying that he'd hang a red lantern as a distress signal if the Monitor started to go down.
Other artifacts, including a simple wooden handle, may have great historic value because of their use during the Monitor's pioneering clash with the CSS Virginia - also known as the Merrimack - in the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads.
"We've found lots of handles," Krop says. "Some are bone and were parts of silverware. Some are iron wrapped in canvas - and they were parts of the gun tools. But the lanyards for the Monitor's guns had a simple handle that looked a lot like this."
Even such seemingly nondescript finds as the brass-jacketed bullets can have important documentary value, Johnston says.
In an era when most small firearms still used percussion caps - and required their users to ram Minie balls and paper gunpowder cartridges down the muzzle into the barrel - these self-contained breech-loading projectiles represented unusually advanced technology.
"Breech-loaders were state-of-the-art - so it's just the sort of thing that you'd expect on the Monitor," he says.
"They were taking state-of-the-art firearms and putting them on their state-of-the-art vessel. There wasn't much that was old-fashioned about this ship."
____
www.schnorkel.blogspot.com
Four years after Navy divers pulled the USS Monitor gun turret from the ocean's grasp, the historic Civil War artifact has compiled a long record of surprising conservators with its secrets.
But few revelations have been more unexpected than the artifacts that turned up during seemingly routine excavations inside the new conservation facility at The Mariners' Museum this summer.
Probing though some of the last deposits that remain after the removal of tons of sediment, concretion and sand, conservators David Krop and Susanne Grieve knew their chances of coming across any overlooked finds were slim. Yet hidden under layers of accumulated grit that now measure as little as 2 inches thick was an assortment of unanticipated artifacts, including a trio of buttons, a mysterious iron crank and a piece of chalk that once stroked messages to the ill-fated vessel's sailors.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was a quartet of brass-jacketed bullets that seemed to come out of nowhere. Not only were they the first examples of ammunition found on the famous warship but they also emerged in an entirely unsuspected location.
"I must have had my nose pressed against that exact spot on at least a dozen different occasions," says Jeff Johnston, the historian for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, describing a familiar site on the turret's interior wall.
"But it just shows you why we don't want to go in there and start chipping away until we hit bottom. You never know what's in there under the surface - or what you're going to expose when you remove the next layer."
Recovered from the ocean floor off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in August 2004, the famous iron cylinder has required a lengthy and often complex series of conservation steps as the Newport News museum and sanctuary office - which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - have labored to preserve it.
Immersed in the Atlantic for more than 140 years, its chloride-contaminated iron plates will spall and rupture disastrously if allowed to dry out. That means constant interruptions from a system of overhead water sprinklers whenever the conservators drain the turret's immense, 95,000-gallon tank in order to carry out their work.
Despite such obstacles, the museum and the sanctuary - with the help of engineers and riggers from Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard - have successfully removed the heavy but fragile iron beams that braced the bottom of the turret and supported its pair of 9-ton Dahlgren guns. They also have hoisted both of the historic cannon as well as their ponderous carriages, completing the delicate move from the turret to individual conservation tanks without causing any damage to the inscribed surfaces on the 13-foot-long barrels.
Since completing that task in late 2004, much of the conservators' efforts have focused on documenting the turret's newly cleared and stabilized interior, which they mapped with the aid of digital laser scanners. In August, they began a new excavation campaign aimed at clearing some of the last bits of sediment and concretion from the walls and ceiling - which now forms the floor of the upside-down cylinder.
Using their hands to probe the softer deposits and pneumatic air chisels to peel off the concretions, Krop and Grieve - joined by three East Carolina University students working as NOAA interns - spent four weeks removing and then sifting through the seemingly unpromising accumulations. But it didn't take long for the first discovery to galvanize their attention.
"We were looking at areas that had been gone over before," Krop says. "And then, all of a sudden, there was a button - and then this piece of chalk in the remaining sediment.
"It's always great when you find things like this - and this was really unexpected."
Krop's surprise was intensified by the personal nature of some of the objects that emerged.
The buttons, in particular, provide a concrete link to the stormy Dec. 31, 1862 night when the Monitor sank - and many of its crewmen struggled to remove their heavy winter coats before leaping to the deck and attempting to reach the lifeboats.
"You can just imagine them standing there inside the turret - tearing things off before they jumped into the water," Krop says. "These guys really were scrambling for their lives - and some of them didn't make it."
Almost as evocative is a chunk of chalk once used to scribble out messages to the officers and crew on a slate board. According to accounts of the sinking, the captain used one such board to communicate to an escort ship alongside the ironclad, saying that he'd hang a red lantern as a distress signal if the Monitor started to go down.
Other artifacts, including a simple wooden handle, may have great historic value because of their use during the Monitor's pioneering clash with the CSS Virginia - also known as the Merrimack - in the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads.
"We've found lots of handles," Krop says. "Some are bone and were parts of silverware. Some are iron wrapped in canvas - and they were parts of the gun tools. But the lanyards for the Monitor's guns had a simple handle that looked a lot like this."
Even such seemingly nondescript finds as the brass-jacketed bullets can have important documentary value, Johnston says.
In an era when most small firearms still used percussion caps - and required their users to ram Minie balls and paper gunpowder cartridges down the muzzle into the barrel - these self-contained breech-loading projectiles represented unusually advanced technology.
"Breech-loaders were state-of-the-art - so it's just the sort of thing that you'd expect on the Monitor," he says.
"They were taking state-of-the-art firearms and putting them on their state-of-the-art vessel. There wasn't much that was old-fashioned about this ship."
____
www.schnorkel.blogspot.com
Friday, September 08, 2006
Coastline holds key to our past
_________________________________________________________________
North Norfolk News
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
North Norfolk News
September 07, 2006
NORTH Norfolk's crumbling coastline holds the key to unearthing further discoveries about Britain's earliest human inhabitants, archaeologists said this week - but they face a race against time to make sure precious artefacts are not lost to the sea.
Britain has one of the richest records of early human history in the world, but archaeological discoveries elsewhere - particularly in Africa - tend to grab headlines.
Now archaeologists want to put Britain on the prehistoric map and believe East Anglia - particularly around Happisburgh and sites in Suffolk - will help them do it.
A major funding announcement for investigations in the region is due next month, but archaeologists fear the speed of coastal erosion means artefacts could be lost unless something is done to stem the tide.
The news comes as the people of Happisburgh are at the forefront of a campaign to stop the government abandoning sea defences in a new policy of “managed retreat”.
If they fail, the quickening erosion could overtake archaeologists' attempts to capture the evidence.
If they succeed, it could stop Mother Nature gnawing away at the cliffs and throwing up vital clues for the history hunters.
Prof Chris Stringer, head of Human Origins at the Natural History Museum in London, who gave a lecture at the BA Festival of Science in Norwich on Tuesday, said: “East Anglia is unique in this country because when the glaciers swept across much of Britain, instead of destroying everything in their path, what was underneath was preserved.”
There are several key archaeo logical areas, including Pakefield in Suffolk and Happisburgh.
Prof Stringer said: “We will certainly do more work at Happisburgh in the future. This is where a dogwalker, who is also a local collector, discovered a handaxe which we think dates from at least 680,000 years ago but probably earlier.
“Personally, I am hopeful that we will even find fossil remains of the people themselves.
“The trouble is the erosion is happening too fast and one of our fears is that it will be destroyed before we can get to it. Some way needs to be found to slow it down.”
NORTH Norfolk's crumbling coastline holds the key to unearthing further discoveries about Britain's earliest human inhabitants, archaeologists said this week - but they face a race against time to make sure precious artefacts are not lost to the sea.
Britain has one of the richest records of early human history in the world, but archaeological discoveries elsewhere - particularly in Africa - tend to grab headlines.
Now archaeologists want to put Britain on the prehistoric map and believe East Anglia - particularly around Happisburgh and sites in Suffolk - will help them do it.
A major funding announcement for investigations in the region is due next month, but archaeologists fear the speed of coastal erosion means artefacts could be lost unless something is done to stem the tide.
The news comes as the people of Happisburgh are at the forefront of a campaign to stop the government abandoning sea defences in a new policy of “managed retreat”.
If they fail, the quickening erosion could overtake archaeologists' attempts to capture the evidence.
If they succeed, it could stop Mother Nature gnawing away at the cliffs and throwing up vital clues for the history hunters.
Prof Chris Stringer, head of Human Origins at the Natural History Museum in London, who gave a lecture at the BA Festival of Science in Norwich on Tuesday, said: “East Anglia is unique in this country because when the glaciers swept across much of Britain, instead of destroying everything in their path, what was underneath was preserved.”
There are several key archaeo logical areas, including Pakefield in Suffolk and Happisburgh.
Prof Stringer said: “We will certainly do more work at Happisburgh in the future. This is where a dogwalker, who is also a local collector, discovered a handaxe which we think dates from at least 680,000 years ago but probably earlier.
“Personally, I am hopeful that we will even find fossil remains of the people themselves.
“The trouble is the erosion is happening too fast and one of our fears is that it will be destroyed before we can get to it. Some way needs to be found to slow it down.”
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Remains of ‘Viking’ boat discovered by archaeologists at Castlebar lake
_________________________________________________________________
The Cannaught Telegraph
The Cannaught Telegraph
September 2006
ARCHAEOLOGISTS working on the Castlebar sewage scheme stumbled upon what has been described by the National Museum of Ireland as a ‘significant and exciting archaeological find’.
While trench testing close to Lough Lannagh they uncovered a wooden boat, believed to be medieval with a strong possibility that it could even be from the Viking period of around 1,100 years ago.
Measuring 10 feet long and some six-foot wide, the boat is in reasonable condition having been preserved in a blanket of peat which covered it from once the Castlebar lake receded.
It may have been used as a cargo or fishing vessel. Its discovery was made possible due to a drop in the water levels of the lake which have dropped significantly since the 1800s when water was diverted for a mill race. The Moy Drainage Scheme in the 1960s also led to a lowering of the lake levels by as much as 12 feet.
The discovery was made by Olga Sheehy, who is one of a team of six archaeologists headed by licensed archaeologist, Joanna Nolan, currently working at the site.
The team is working on the preservation and recording of the various parts of the boat which has already been visited by conservators from the National Museum of Ireland who have taken samples of the vessel for carbon 14 dating and a sample of the keel also taken for a dendrochronology test which will give it an even more accurate date than the carbon 14 result.
At first it was thought the boat was the remnants of a trackway which were quite common on boggy areas but closer examination revealed quite a significant hull, floor and a vessel that was clinker built and very definitely based on Viking technology.
Joanna Nolan explained that the iron nails were a particular diagnostic feature which gives the boat a very definite medieval date and possibly of the Viking period.
“We are hoping it is but it is certainly unique and very definitely medieval,” said Joanne.
“It is a unique boat and the lightness of planking would suggest it was a cargo boat of light construction. It was found near the old lakeshore, which we believe receded twice in the 1800s when a mill race was being constructed.
“A further drop in water level was caused in the 1960s when the Moy Drainage Scheme was in operation and the lake has dropped by some 12 feet over a period.
“After we did some cleaning, remnants of a larger boat with a keel plank and bilge area with flattened out timber crossing, became visible.
“There is a base of a keel and at least one rib fragment which gave the planking stability. It was clinker built, that means a series of planks were used and they were fastened by iron nails hammered through the plank and held by a clench plate on the end, the clench plate acting like a washer.
“We are naturally hoping that it is early rather than late medieval,” she said.
The fact that the National Museum of Ireland has expressed an interest in the find would certainly indicate that it is significant and experts from the museum have already been to Castlebar to examine the boat.
Describing the find as ‘significant’, Mr. Eamon Kelly, Head of Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, said the technology used to design the boat was undoubtedly Viking but whether the boat itself is from the Viking period is still not certain.
That will be established when a carbon date is returned in the next week or two.
“What we can say is that this was a boat based on the Viking style of building, which was used up to the 17th century.
“In fact, the legendary pirate queen, Grainne Uaille O’Malley, used these style of boats for her famous galleys which were copies of the Vikings so it could fit into a number of periods but it is undoubtedly medieval.
“There was a strong Scandinavian presence around the Clew Bay region and there are several references in the annals concerning the Vikings taking over fishing in the region.
“Such Vikings ships became common around the 9th century when the Vikings first invaded Ireland and were not uncommon in the west of Ireland where fishing was a major occupation of the Viking settlers.
“Mayo would have been a popular area for fishing by Vikings and it was certainly an area where Viking boat building was quite common.”
This latest archaeological find is one of a number of significant discoveries on a number of Mayo County Council projects in a county that has a rich archaeological heritage.
The same team that is working on the Castlebar boat also uncovered what was thought to be a boat in Ballina but subsequent tests have now established that it was a wooden trough, possibly used for washing or cooking.
The Castlebar team would like to thank a number of people who have made their work at the site easier, particularly the owners of the land where the find was made, Carmel and Trevor McDonald.
“Roadbridge Ltd., who are constructing the Castlebar Sewage Scheme along with Mayo County Council have been very supportive of our work as indeed are Tobin Constructing Engineers who are administering the project.”
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
ARCHAEOLOGISTS working on the Castlebar sewage scheme stumbled upon what has been described by the National Museum of Ireland as a ‘significant and exciting archaeological find’.
While trench testing close to Lough Lannagh they uncovered a wooden boat, believed to be medieval with a strong possibility that it could even be from the Viking period of around 1,100 years ago.
Measuring 10 feet long and some six-foot wide, the boat is in reasonable condition having been preserved in a blanket of peat which covered it from once the Castlebar lake receded.
It may have been used as a cargo or fishing vessel. Its discovery was made possible due to a drop in the water levels of the lake which have dropped significantly since the 1800s when water was diverted for a mill race. The Moy Drainage Scheme in the 1960s also led to a lowering of the lake levels by as much as 12 feet.
The discovery was made by Olga Sheehy, who is one of a team of six archaeologists headed by licensed archaeologist, Joanna Nolan, currently working at the site.
The team is working on the preservation and recording of the various parts of the boat which has already been visited by conservators from the National Museum of Ireland who have taken samples of the vessel for carbon 14 dating and a sample of the keel also taken for a dendrochronology test which will give it an even more accurate date than the carbon 14 result.
At first it was thought the boat was the remnants of a trackway which were quite common on boggy areas but closer examination revealed quite a significant hull, floor and a vessel that was clinker built and very definitely based on Viking technology.
Joanna Nolan explained that the iron nails were a particular diagnostic feature which gives the boat a very definite medieval date and possibly of the Viking period.
“We are hoping it is but it is certainly unique and very definitely medieval,” said Joanne.
“It is a unique boat and the lightness of planking would suggest it was a cargo boat of light construction. It was found near the old lakeshore, which we believe receded twice in the 1800s when a mill race was being constructed.
“A further drop in water level was caused in the 1960s when the Moy Drainage Scheme was in operation and the lake has dropped by some 12 feet over a period.
“After we did some cleaning, remnants of a larger boat with a keel plank and bilge area with flattened out timber crossing, became visible.
“There is a base of a keel and at least one rib fragment which gave the planking stability. It was clinker built, that means a series of planks were used and they were fastened by iron nails hammered through the plank and held by a clench plate on the end, the clench plate acting like a washer.
“We are naturally hoping that it is early rather than late medieval,” she said.
The fact that the National Museum of Ireland has expressed an interest in the find would certainly indicate that it is significant and experts from the museum have already been to Castlebar to examine the boat.
Describing the find as ‘significant’, Mr. Eamon Kelly, Head of Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, said the technology used to design the boat was undoubtedly Viking but whether the boat itself is from the Viking period is still not certain.
That will be established when a carbon date is returned in the next week or two.
“What we can say is that this was a boat based on the Viking style of building, which was used up to the 17th century.
“In fact, the legendary pirate queen, Grainne Uaille O’Malley, used these style of boats for her famous galleys which were copies of the Vikings so it could fit into a number of periods but it is undoubtedly medieval.
“There was a strong Scandinavian presence around the Clew Bay region and there are several references in the annals concerning the Vikings taking over fishing in the region.
“Such Vikings ships became common around the 9th century when the Vikings first invaded Ireland and were not uncommon in the west of Ireland where fishing was a major occupation of the Viking settlers.
“Mayo would have been a popular area for fishing by Vikings and it was certainly an area where Viking boat building was quite common.”
This latest archaeological find is one of a number of significant discoveries on a number of Mayo County Council projects in a county that has a rich archaeological heritage.
The same team that is working on the Castlebar boat also uncovered what was thought to be a boat in Ballina but subsequent tests have now established that it was a wooden trough, possibly used for washing or cooking.
The Castlebar team would like to thank a number of people who have made their work at the site easier, particularly the owners of the land where the find was made, Carmel and Trevor McDonald.
“Roadbridge Ltd., who are constructing the Castlebar Sewage Scheme along with Mayo County Council have been very supportive of our work as indeed are Tobin Constructing Engineers who are administering the project.”
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Noah's Ark Discovered ... Again and Again
_________________________________________________________________
Live Science
By Benjamin Radford
September 05, 2006
In this world there are things that seem on the verge of being discovered every so often, yet never quite materialize. The "Lost City" of Atlantis, for example, has been "found" at least a half dozen times. One researcher is pretty sure it is in Bolivia; another says it is Antarctica; a third claims that Bimini beachrock may be from the lost civilization.
So it is with Noah's Ark.
The difference is, of course, that the implications of Noah's Ark actually being found extend far beyond archaeology. The weight of all the paired animals in the world is nothing compared to the religious freight that the Ark carries.
The Ark story is scientifically implausible; there simply wouldn't be enough space on the boat to accommodate two of every living animal (including dinosaurs), along with the food and water necessary to keep them alive. Furthermore, constructing a vessel of that scale would take hundreds of workers months to complete. Still, Biblical literalists—those who believe that proof of the Bible's events remains to be found—have spent lives and fortunes trying to validate their beliefs.
The search goes on
Before discussing the recent claims regarding the whereabouts of Noah's vessel, a history of Ark "finds" is instructive.
Violet M. Cummings is the author of several books on Noah's Ark, among them "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (1975), in which she claimed that Noah's Ark was found on Turkey's Mount Ararat. According to the 1976 book and film "In Search of Noah's Ark," "there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah's Ark really does exist.... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark's exact location on Mt. Ararat."
This is a rather remarkable claim, for despite repeated trips to Mt. Ararat over the past thirty years, the Ark remains elusive.
Undeterred by a lack of evidence, in 1982 Cummings issued a book titled, "Has Anybody Really Seen Noah's Ark?," published by Creation-Life Publishers. The subtitle, "An Affirmative Definitive Report," hints at Cummings's conclusion.
Interest in Noah's Ark resurfaced in February 1993, when CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." (Little did CBS know that they were using incredible in its accurate, proper meaning: "not credible.")
As Ken Feder describes in his book "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries," the special "was a hodgepodge of unverifiable stories and misrepresentations of the paleontological, archaeological, and historical records." It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but recovered a piece of it. Jammal's story (and the chunk of wood he displayed) impressed both CBS producers and viewers. Yet he was later revealed as a paid actor who had never been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber (identified in the Bible as "gopher wood") but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce and artificially aged in an oven.
Red-faced CBS, which had done little fact-checking for their much-hyped special, said that the program was entertainment, not a documentary.
Recent claims
More claims surfaced periodically, including in March 2006, when a LiveScience writer reported on yet another incarnation of the Ararat claim. A team of researchers found a rock formation that might resemble a huge ark, nearly covered in glacial ice. Little came of that claim but a few months later, in June, a team of archaeologists from the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (BASE) Institute, a Christian organization, found yet another rock formation that might be Noah's Ark.
This time the Ark was "found" not on Ararat but at 13,000 feet in the Elburz mountains of Iran. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said team member Arch Bonnema. They brought back pieces of stone they claim may be petrified wood beams, as well as video footage of the rocky cliffs.
The team believes that, within the rock formation, they can see evidence of hundreds of massive hand-hewn wooden beams laid out in the presumed size and shape of the Ark.
The Biblical archaeologists seem to have experienced pareidolia; seeing what they want to see in ambiguous patterns or images. Just as religious people will see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in toast, stains, or clouds, they may also see images of Noah's Ark in stone cliffs. (In New Mexico's Sandia National Forest there is a large rock formation called Battleship Rock, which—from a certain angle—does indeed look like a battleship. One wonders what the BASE team would make of that.)
Other researchers remain certain that the Ark is in fact on Mt. Ararat. Noah's Ark enthusiasts are therefore in the somewhat awkward position of deciding which (if any) of several scientifically "definitive" Ark finds is the real one.
The BASE claims, as with all previous reports of finding the Ark, have yet to be proven. Ultimately, it may not matter, because, as BASE president Bob Cornuke states, "I guess what my wife says my business is, we sell hope. Hope that it could be true, hope that there is a God."
Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah's Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be "found" by those looking for it—whether it exists or not.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Live Science
By Benjamin Radford
September 05, 2006
In this world there are things that seem on the verge of being discovered every so often, yet never quite materialize. The "Lost City" of Atlantis, for example, has been "found" at least a half dozen times. One researcher is pretty sure it is in Bolivia; another says it is Antarctica; a third claims that Bimini beachrock may be from the lost civilization.
So it is with Noah's Ark.
The difference is, of course, that the implications of Noah's Ark actually being found extend far beyond archaeology. The weight of all the paired animals in the world is nothing compared to the religious freight that the Ark carries.
The Ark story is scientifically implausible; there simply wouldn't be enough space on the boat to accommodate two of every living animal (including dinosaurs), along with the food and water necessary to keep them alive. Furthermore, constructing a vessel of that scale would take hundreds of workers months to complete. Still, Biblical literalists—those who believe that proof of the Bible's events remains to be found—have spent lives and fortunes trying to validate their beliefs.
The search goes on
Before discussing the recent claims regarding the whereabouts of Noah's vessel, a history of Ark "finds" is instructive.
Violet M. Cummings is the author of several books on Noah's Ark, among them "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (1975), in which she claimed that Noah's Ark was found on Turkey's Mount Ararat. According to the 1976 book and film "In Search of Noah's Ark," "there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah's Ark really does exist.... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark's exact location on Mt. Ararat."
This is a rather remarkable claim, for despite repeated trips to Mt. Ararat over the past thirty years, the Ark remains elusive.
Undeterred by a lack of evidence, in 1982 Cummings issued a book titled, "Has Anybody Really Seen Noah's Ark?," published by Creation-Life Publishers. The subtitle, "An Affirmative Definitive Report," hints at Cummings's conclusion.
Interest in Noah's Ark resurfaced in February 1993, when CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." (Little did CBS know that they were using incredible in its accurate, proper meaning: "not credible.")
As Ken Feder describes in his book "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries," the special "was a hodgepodge of unverifiable stories and misrepresentations of the paleontological, archaeological, and historical records." It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but recovered a piece of it. Jammal's story (and the chunk of wood he displayed) impressed both CBS producers and viewers. Yet he was later revealed as a paid actor who had never been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber (identified in the Bible as "gopher wood") but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce and artificially aged in an oven.
Red-faced CBS, which had done little fact-checking for their much-hyped special, said that the program was entertainment, not a documentary.
Recent claims
More claims surfaced periodically, including in March 2006, when a LiveScience writer reported on yet another incarnation of the Ararat claim. A team of researchers found a rock formation that might resemble a huge ark, nearly covered in glacial ice. Little came of that claim but a few months later, in June, a team of archaeologists from the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (BASE) Institute, a Christian organization, found yet another rock formation that might be Noah's Ark.
This time the Ark was "found" not on Ararat but at 13,000 feet in the Elburz mountains of Iran. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said team member Arch Bonnema. They brought back pieces of stone they claim may be petrified wood beams, as well as video footage of the rocky cliffs.
The team believes that, within the rock formation, they can see evidence of hundreds of massive hand-hewn wooden beams laid out in the presumed size and shape of the Ark.
The Biblical archaeologists seem to have experienced pareidolia; seeing what they want to see in ambiguous patterns or images. Just as religious people will see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in toast, stains, or clouds, they may also see images of Noah's Ark in stone cliffs. (In New Mexico's Sandia National Forest there is a large rock formation called Battleship Rock, which—from a certain angle—does indeed look like a battleship. One wonders what the BASE team would make of that.)
Other researchers remain certain that the Ark is in fact on Mt. Ararat. Noah's Ark enthusiasts are therefore in the somewhat awkward position of deciding which (if any) of several scientifically "definitive" Ark finds is the real one.
The BASE claims, as with all previous reports of finding the Ark, have yet to be proven. Ultimately, it may not matter, because, as BASE president Bob Cornuke states, "I guess what my wife says my business is, we sell hope. Hope that it could be true, hope that there is a God."
Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah's Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be "found" by those looking for it—whether it exists or not.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Divers to explore ancient Cornish wrecks
_________________________________________________________________
Dive Magazine
September 01, 2006
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www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Dive Magazine
September 01, 2006
A team of divers plan to search Cornish waters for ancient shipwrecks, after receiving a £50,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Maritime Archaeological Society (CISMAS) officially launched its two-year project to identify and survey sunken historic artefacts near St Michael's Mount castle near Penzance in August.
The search is expected to uncover items spanning more than 2,000 years, following the discovery of documents referring to the area's maritime transport which date back to 325BC. According to archaeologists, the sea was the only practical means of transporting goods to and from this region up until the 19th century.
'Exploratory dives in the intended area of the survey have shown that there is no shortage of historic wreck material exposed on the seabed,' said dive team leader Brendon Rowe. 'Our practice is to prioritise targets shown up in the geophysical survey so that the most significant are always searched and surveyed first.'
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www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Clean-up for historic shipwreck
_________________________________________________________________
BBC
September 04, 2006
The Royal Oak was torpedoed by
The experts hope to be able to extract oil from two inner tanks which have lain untouched for decades.
There could still be a substantial amount of fuel still in the wreck in Scapa Flow.
The navy increased efforts to reduce the flow since the amount of oil leaking from the ship soared some 10 years ago.
This week the team will concentrate on previously inaccessible inner tanks which they think still contains a substantial amount of oil.
Live ammunition
They developed the hot tapping system which allowed them to attach valves to the tanks.
The work is dangerous as there is still live ammunition on board but a sonar survey of the vessel shows the wreck is very stable and sturdy considering her age.
They will also remove oil from two well known areas where it has leaked from for several years.
The work is expected to take about two weeks but the MoD says that it is committed to carrying on the work for the foreseeable future.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
BBC
September 04, 2006
The Royal Oak was torpedoed by
a German submarine.
Ministry of Defence team is due to restart work on removing oil from the wreck of the Royal Oak in Orkney.
Ministry of Defence team is due to restart work on removing oil from the wreck of the Royal Oak in Orkney.
The experts hope to be able to extract oil from two inner tanks which have lain untouched for decades.
There could still be a substantial amount of fuel still in the wreck in Scapa Flow.
The navy increased efforts to reduce the flow since the amount of oil leaking from the ship soared some 10 years ago.
This week the team will concentrate on previously inaccessible inner tanks which they think still contains a substantial amount of oil.
Live ammunition
They developed the hot tapping system which allowed them to attach valves to the tanks.
The work is dangerous as there is still live ammunition on board but a sonar survey of the vessel shows the wreck is very stable and sturdy considering her age.
They will also remove oil from two well known areas where it has leaked from for several years.
The work is expected to take about two weeks but the MoD says that it is committed to carrying on the work for the foreseeable future.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
31st Annual Whaling History Symposium
_________________________________________________________________
Maritime Compass
September 05, 2006
The New Bedford Whaling Museum will be hosting its annual symposium from Oct 14-15, this year.
Sessions include:
"Yankee Whaling in the Caribbean and its Impact in Local culture: The Logbooks Speak" with Aldermaro Romero, "Sails, False Flags, and Paper Chases: Recovering the Cruise of hte CSS Shenandoah" with Tom Chaffin, and "All About Woggins" with Storrs L. Olson on the Smithsonian Insitution.
October 14-15, 2006
9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
$100 members, $120 non-members
For more information or to register, call 508-997-0046 ext. 101
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Maritime Compass
September 05, 2006
The New Bedford Whaling Museum will be hosting its annual symposium from Oct 14-15, this year.
Sessions include:
"Yankee Whaling in the Caribbean and its Impact in Local culture: The Logbooks Speak" with Aldermaro Romero, "Sails, False Flags, and Paper Chases: Recovering the Cruise of hte CSS Shenandoah" with Tom Chaffin, and "All About Woggins" with Storrs L. Olson on the Smithsonian Insitution.
October 14-15, 2006
9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
$100 members, $120 non-members
For more information or to register, call 508-997-0046 ext. 101
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Monday, September 04, 2006
Wreck hunter seeks home for remnants of Great Lakes Titanic of its day
_________________________________________________________________
Mytelus.com
September 04, 2006
The steamship Lady Elgin was photographed on
the Chicago River before the disastrous collision
Mytelus.com
September 04, 2006
The steamship Lady Elgin was photographed on
the Chicago River before the disastrous collision
with schooner Augusta that sunk her.
CHICAGO - The rusty, almost metre-long steam whistle Harry Zych cradles in his arms screamed in alarm 146 years ago this month, as the stately USM Lady Elgin foundered and sank just north of Chicago in one of the 19th century's worst maritime disasters.
A schooner had just sliced into the paddle-wheeled luxury steamer, breaching her hull and spilling her more than 500 passengers into Lake Michigan. All but about 100 would die within hours in the cold, storm-driven waters.
While her demise on Sept. 8, 1860, once captured the attention of Americans in the 19th century in much the way the sinking of the Titanic would in the 20th, the Queen of the Lakes - as the Lady Elgin also was called - is now largely forgotten.
Not, however, by Zych, who poured more than $200,000 US and 20 years into locating her, fought the state of Illinois over her artifacts and now finds himself in another battle - to win over museums that aren't interested in a ship unless it is named Titanic.
"This ship was the Holy Grail for shipwreck hunters around the Great Lakes," says the grizzled, hard-talking Zych. "But there just isn't interest out there. . . . I've been turned down by one museum after another."
The 58-year-old Vietnam veteran located the Lady Elgin's long-lost wreckage in 1989, eight kilometres off Highland Park, in Chicago's northern suburbs. In 1999, he won a 10-year legal battle with the state over ownership of the wreck.
The sleek white Lady Elgin was one of the best known ships plying the Great Lakes, and whenever she pulled into ports crowds gathered to gawk, said Brendon Baillod, a Great Lakes maritime historian.
"Worldwide, she was definitely the Titanic of her day," Baillod said. Her sinking even inspired a song, "Lost on the Lady Elgin," which became popular during the Civil War.
Even so, Baillod said fascination with the Titanic has overshadowed the Lady Elgin and virtually all other shipwrecks since the ocean liner sank in 1912, killing more than 1,500 passengers and crew.
"Artifacts from most shipwrecks aren't attractive to museums anymore," Baillod said. "The Titanic's sexy because of the (1997) movie. Other shipwrecks are not."
Among Zych's artifacts are parts of musical instruments and an entire chandelier, under which passengers danced until the collision with a 40-metre, Chicago-bound schooner, the Augusta.
The Augusta rammed the 76-metre Lady Elgin's bow first, sheering off one of the larger ship's paddle wheels, then punching through her hull. The Lady Elgin flooded and sank within 30 minutes, while the Augusta stayed intact and sailed on to Chicago.
The whistle, which Zych says "sounded the death knell of the Lady Elgin," is among his most treasured artifacts. Among the several hundred others are china plates, swords, rifles and a spoon engraved with the words "Lady Elgin."
Zych said he's contacted about a dozen museums around Chicago about the artifacts. He blames their disinterest in part on what he calls a misplaced emphasis on flashy, entertainment-oriented exhibits.
"They don't want the hard artifacts anymore," he said. "They want the kind of display where kids can push buttons and then move on to the next entertainment."
Greg Borzo, an official at Chicago's Field Museum, said museums do face tough choices about what artifacts to exhibit. Less than one half of one per cent of the 23 million artifacts housed at the Field Museum is on public display, he said. Borzo was unaware of any contact between the museum and Zych.
"There's little room to put things on display," Borzo said. "You'd always have to bump something else out. And that all costs money."
But historian Baillod said museums could be especially wary of Lady Elgin artifacts because of legal action begun in 1989 in which Illinois accused Zych of stealing artifacts. A later lawsuit sought state ownership of the ship's wreckage.
The Illinois Supreme Court sided with Zych in 1999, saying he was the rightful owner of the wreck.
"There's still a lot of baggage associated with the Lady Elgin because of the vilification by the state of Harry during the lawsuit," Baillod said. "The vilification wasn't justified. But some museums would deny him entry because of it."
Worst of all, claims Zych, was that the lawsuit opened the way for unscrupulous divers to loot the wreck while a court order barred him from going near it. Among the items they may have hauled away are the Lady Elgin's bell and ship's wheel.
Dave Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois State Preservation Agency, defended the lawsuit, saying the state had to try to establish state ownership in the name of historical preservation.
"There's no doubt that the common perception out there was, 'Hey, finders, keepers,' " he said. "But the state had the bigger-picture issue in mind."
Zych says he never saw the Lady Elgin as a potential money maker and simply wants to preserve the memory of the ship. He hopes, for instance, to restore the whistle to sound at schools as he tells the Lady Elgin's story.
"The sunken treasure was the history of this wreck, and the history of the people on it," he said. "For me, it was always purely a labour of love."
He's considered launching a website featuring photographs of the artifacts. But he's still determined not to let them languish in safe deposit boxes, where most are currently kept.
"I'm still fighting the fight, but I'm running out of life span," he sighed. "I'd like to find a home for this stuff before I die."
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
CHICAGO - The rusty, almost metre-long steam whistle Harry Zych cradles in his arms screamed in alarm 146 years ago this month, as the stately USM Lady Elgin foundered and sank just north of Chicago in one of the 19th century's worst maritime disasters.
A schooner had just sliced into the paddle-wheeled luxury steamer, breaching her hull and spilling her more than 500 passengers into Lake Michigan. All but about 100 would die within hours in the cold, storm-driven waters.
While her demise on Sept. 8, 1860, once captured the attention of Americans in the 19th century in much the way the sinking of the Titanic would in the 20th, the Queen of the Lakes - as the Lady Elgin also was called - is now largely forgotten.
Not, however, by Zych, who poured more than $200,000 US and 20 years into locating her, fought the state of Illinois over her artifacts and now finds himself in another battle - to win over museums that aren't interested in a ship unless it is named Titanic.
"This ship was the Holy Grail for shipwreck hunters around the Great Lakes," says the grizzled, hard-talking Zych. "But there just isn't interest out there. . . . I've been turned down by one museum after another."
The 58-year-old Vietnam veteran located the Lady Elgin's long-lost wreckage in 1989, eight kilometres off Highland Park, in Chicago's northern suburbs. In 1999, he won a 10-year legal battle with the state over ownership of the wreck.
The sleek white Lady Elgin was one of the best known ships plying the Great Lakes, and whenever she pulled into ports crowds gathered to gawk, said Brendon Baillod, a Great Lakes maritime historian.
"Worldwide, she was definitely the Titanic of her day," Baillod said. Her sinking even inspired a song, "Lost on the Lady Elgin," which became popular during the Civil War.
Even so, Baillod said fascination with the Titanic has overshadowed the Lady Elgin and virtually all other shipwrecks since the ocean liner sank in 1912, killing more than 1,500 passengers and crew.
"Artifacts from most shipwrecks aren't attractive to museums anymore," Baillod said. "The Titanic's sexy because of the (1997) movie. Other shipwrecks are not."
Among Zych's artifacts are parts of musical instruments and an entire chandelier, under which passengers danced until the collision with a 40-metre, Chicago-bound schooner, the Augusta.
The Augusta rammed the 76-metre Lady Elgin's bow first, sheering off one of the larger ship's paddle wheels, then punching through her hull. The Lady Elgin flooded and sank within 30 minutes, while the Augusta stayed intact and sailed on to Chicago.
The whistle, which Zych says "sounded the death knell of the Lady Elgin," is among his most treasured artifacts. Among the several hundred others are china plates, swords, rifles and a spoon engraved with the words "Lady Elgin."
Zych said he's contacted about a dozen museums around Chicago about the artifacts. He blames their disinterest in part on what he calls a misplaced emphasis on flashy, entertainment-oriented exhibits.
"They don't want the hard artifacts anymore," he said. "They want the kind of display where kids can push buttons and then move on to the next entertainment."
Greg Borzo, an official at Chicago's Field Museum, said museums do face tough choices about what artifacts to exhibit. Less than one half of one per cent of the 23 million artifacts housed at the Field Museum is on public display, he said. Borzo was unaware of any contact between the museum and Zych.
"There's little room to put things on display," Borzo said. "You'd always have to bump something else out. And that all costs money."
But historian Baillod said museums could be especially wary of Lady Elgin artifacts because of legal action begun in 1989 in which Illinois accused Zych of stealing artifacts. A later lawsuit sought state ownership of the ship's wreckage.
The Illinois Supreme Court sided with Zych in 1999, saying he was the rightful owner of the wreck.
"There's still a lot of baggage associated with the Lady Elgin because of the vilification by the state of Harry during the lawsuit," Baillod said. "The vilification wasn't justified. But some museums would deny him entry because of it."
Worst of all, claims Zych, was that the lawsuit opened the way for unscrupulous divers to loot the wreck while a court order barred him from going near it. Among the items they may have hauled away are the Lady Elgin's bell and ship's wheel.
Dave Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois State Preservation Agency, defended the lawsuit, saying the state had to try to establish state ownership in the name of historical preservation.
"There's no doubt that the common perception out there was, 'Hey, finders, keepers,' " he said. "But the state had the bigger-picture issue in mind."
Zych says he never saw the Lady Elgin as a potential money maker and simply wants to preserve the memory of the ship. He hopes, for instance, to restore the whistle to sound at schools as he tells the Lady Elgin's story.
"The sunken treasure was the history of this wreck, and the history of the people on it," he said. "For me, it was always purely a labour of love."
He's considered launching a website featuring photographs of the artifacts. But he's still determined not to let them languish in safe deposit boxes, where most are currently kept.
"I'm still fighting the fight, but I'm running out of life span," he sighed. "I'd like to find a home for this stuff before I die."
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Oldest ship to sink a second time
_________________________________________________________________
Turkish Daily News
September 04, 2006
A group of scientists has built an exact replica of a Lydian trade ship found near Kas¸ in Antalya, and will sink it to establish the first archeology park in the world.
The original ship, which sank 3,300 years ago near Uluburun, is the oldest ship found to date. The 360 Degrees Historical Research Study Group, the Kas¸ administrative office and the Kas¸ Municipality jointly built the replica.
Project Coordinator Osman Erkurt said the idea had come from Kas¸ administrative official Nurullah Çakır. “It took us 40 days to build it,” he said, noting that Ankara University, Israel's Haifa University and Texas University had helped them.
The ship, 14 meters long and five meters wide, has attracted a significant amount of attention, he said. “A replica we made for the ‘The Uluburun Shipwreck and 3,000 Years of World Commerce' exhibit in German was visited by 500,000 people during a nine-month run.
Although the project cost only YTL 110,000, we found it difficult to find the money, but the local municipality and governor's office helped us, and we are near to completing it.
As part of Oct. 29, Republic Day, celebrations we will sink the ship 18 meters under water, and it will be used as a school to train underwater archeologists.”
Çakır said foreign academics were closely following the developments, noting that similar projects would be initiated elsewhere around the world once the results of their efforts were published.
“There is also the commercial side of the project due to the huge tourism interest it will generate. Thousands will come here to watch how underwater archeologists operate.” He said they would also be placing replicas of the artifacts found in and around the shipwreck to make it as authentic as possible.
The original Uluburun shipwreck is currently on display at Bodrum Museum.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Turkish Daily News
September 04, 2006
A group of scientists has built an exact replica of a Lydian trade ship found near Kas¸ in Antalya, and will sink it to establish the first archeology park in the world.
The original ship, which sank 3,300 years ago near Uluburun, is the oldest ship found to date. The 360 Degrees Historical Research Study Group, the Kas¸ administrative office and the Kas¸ Municipality jointly built the replica.
Project Coordinator Osman Erkurt said the idea had come from Kas¸ administrative official Nurullah Çakır. “It took us 40 days to build it,” he said, noting that Ankara University, Israel's Haifa University and Texas University had helped them.
The ship, 14 meters long and five meters wide, has attracted a significant amount of attention, he said. “A replica we made for the ‘The Uluburun Shipwreck and 3,000 Years of World Commerce' exhibit in German was visited by 500,000 people during a nine-month run.
Although the project cost only YTL 110,000, we found it difficult to find the money, but the local municipality and governor's office helped us, and we are near to completing it.
As part of Oct. 29, Republic Day, celebrations we will sink the ship 18 meters under water, and it will be used as a school to train underwater archeologists.”
Çakır said foreign academics were closely following the developments, noting that similar projects would be initiated elsewhere around the world once the results of their efforts were published.
“There is also the commercial side of the project due to the huge tourism interest it will generate. Thousands will come here to watch how underwater archeologists operate.” He said they would also be placing replicas of the artifacts found in and around the shipwreck to make it as authentic as possible.
The original Uluburun shipwreck is currently on display at Bodrum Museum.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Arqueologia subaquática sensibiliza nas escolas
_________________________________________________________________
A União
By Humberta Augusto
September 04, 2006
Os estabelecimentos escolares da ilha Terceira vão ser sensibilizados para o património arqueológico subaquático da Baía de Angra.
A direcção regional da Cultura vai promover uma série de visitas para promover o interesse a salvaguarda do espólio submerso.
O património arqueológico subaquático da Região vai chegar às escolas este ano.
Já no próximo mês de Setembro, os estabelecimentos escolares da ilha Terceira vão receber visitas dos técnicos da direcção regional da Cultura (DraC) que desenvolverão acções de sensibilização junto das populações mais novas.
Trata-se de um projecto impulsionado pela criação do primeiro parque arqueológico subaquático do País, localizado na Baía de Angra do Heroísmo, e que traz um novo impulso à investigação e ao trabalho desenvolvido no sector.
Isso mesmo refere, em declarações ao jornal “a União”, a arqueóloga da DraC, Catarina Garcia, ao explicar que “a actividade arqueológica subaquática nunca esteve tanto activa como agora”.
“Neste momento há uma linha de rumo, há um projecto estruturado”, disse a responsável.
A deslocação deste trabalho subaquático para o espaço escolar insere-se numa estratégia já planeada de dar a conhecer o trabalho entretanto desenvolvido junto das crianças e jovens para potenciar o interesse e a salvaguarda deste património.
Para tal, a DraC, através do Centro do Conhecimento dos Açores (CCA) aloja no seu site, no link dedicado aos Parques Arqueológicos Subaquáticos dos Açores, um portal inteiramente dedicado aos mais novos sobre os sítios visitáveis em Angra, fornecendo não só o enquadramento histórico dos achados, como noções de arqueologia, de técnicas e instrumentos, jogos, passatempos que, através de uma linguagem jovem, pretende “criar interesse junto de miúdos e graúdos”, afirmou.
A ideia, explicou, é alargar esta campanha de sensibilização a todas as escolas da Região.
Catarina Garcia destaca o facto de este ser o primeiro site do género no país que cruza a informação entre a arqueologia e a história exclusivamente para jovens.
Arqueologia e História na Baía
Igualmente inédito é o projecto que juntou o Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM) da Universidade Nova de Lisboa e o Núcleo de História do Atlântico da Universidade dos Açores este Verão para dar início aos trabalhos de prospecção que hoje terminaram na Baía de Angra
O responsável pela equipa do CHAM, arqueólogo José António Bettencourt, aponta esse facto “é um projecto inovador em Portugal porque é a primeira vez que se cruzam especialistas nas diferentes áreas da arqueologia e história, com investigadores de topo na investigação”.
O projecto trienal de arqueologia marítima, financiado pela Direcção Regional da Cultura, estará pronto em 2008 e até lá quer desenvolver o estudo, salvaguarda e a promoção património cultural subaquático da Região através da análise de vestígios arqueológicos com o cruzamento de fontes históricas sobre a importância do porto de Angra como escala da navegação transatlântica entre os séculos XVI e XIX.
O resultado final, será a publicação científicas de estudos, livros, realização de colóquios, criação de portais na internet, entre outras iniciativas.
O que se pretende, em última análise, é acabar de explorar os treze sítios arqueológicos (ver coluna) que compõe o Parque Arqueológico de Angra, e do qual apenas o “Run´Her”, o “Lidador”, e o “Cemitério das Âncoras” foram exaustivamente estudados, sendo estes últimos visitáveis.
Segundo a arqueóloga Catarina Garcia, após esta investigação, ficar-se-á a saber se há interesse em alargar estes locais visitáveis.
Cadaste e caldeirão “musealizáveis”
Além da obtenção de dados, foram igualmente recuperados pela equipa, no final da semana, dois importantes vestígios do fundo da Baía que apresentavam risco de destruição, mas “com muito significado patrimonial e potenciais objectos musealizáveis”, disse João Bettencourt.
Foram retirados do mar um cadaste (parte da popa de uma embarcação onde encaixa o leme), encontrado próximo do sítio arqueológico “Angra B” e um caldeirão em bronze, localizado a este do “Lidador”.
Além destes dois objectos, ao longo dos trabalhos, foram igualmente resgatados do fundo da Baía de Angra diversos pequenos objectos, como pedaços de cerâmica e outros materiais provenientes das embarcações afundadas.
Para já, aquilo que está a ser apurado prende-se com a datação, o registo, a avaliação das condições de preservação, a origem e o enquadramento histórico dos sítios arqueológicos.
Neste primeiro ano, os trabalhos consistem na identificação dos vestígios, através do levantamento em fotografia, desenho e sua interpretação.
Segundo José Bettencourt, até 2008 serão “avaliadas as potencialidades de cada sítio para definir estratégias específicas para cada um deles porque cada um tem as suas características”.
José Bettencourt não tem dúvidas das potencialidades desta investigação para o desenvolvimento de uma melhor oferta do património da Baía de Angra do Heroísmo: “tem um enorme potencial arqueológico subaquático”.
Angra - Sítios arqueológicos
Ao todo, são treze os sítios arqueológicos que compõe o Parque Arqueológico Subaquático de Angra do Heroísmo, doze deles relativos a embarcações naufragadas e uma zona de deposição de âncoras.
– O “Angra A” corresponde a um naufrágio localizado entre o cais da Figueirinha e a Prainha e depositado a cinco metros de profundidade com uma mancha de destroços visível ao longo de quarenta metros de extensão.
– O “Angra B” corresponde a um naufrágio onde é possível observar dois núcleos de destroços: o primeiro é composto por um aglomerado de pedras de lastro e algumas madeiras do casco do navio, como a quilha.
– O “Angra C” foi localizado sob uma espessa camada de um metro de sedimento, tendo sido transladado para uma zona da baia fora do alcance das obras da marina.
– O "Tumulus" de “Angra C e D” são peças integrantes dos dois navios foram registadas in situ e posteriormente retiradas, tendo sido criado no local um túmulo artificial para estas peças, que se encontram cobertas por sacos de areia para protecção.
– “O Angra D” reporta-se a um casco bem preservado, depositado sob uma espessa camada de pedras de lastro e sedimento arenoso, com um total 35 metros de comprimento, provavelmente de origem hispânica.
– O “Angra E” tem três núcleos visíveis de madeiras, tendo sido recuperado deste local um caldeirão em bronze, um cabo de faca em osso e alguns fragmentos cerâmicos.
– O “Angra F” está junto ao naufrágio do Lidador, a cerca de 8 metros de profundidade e é composto por uma extensão de pedras de lastro de mais de 30 metros.
– o “Angra G” foi o último núcleo arqueológico a ser descoberto na baía de Angra, composto por duas grandes âncoras, madeiras e artefactos diversos, apontando para um naufrágios da carreira da Índia (séc. XVI-XVII.
– O “Lidador”, encalhado paralelamente ao Cais da Figueirinha, pertence a um dos dois locais visitáveis do Parque Arqueológico, representando um dos últimos naufrágios a ocorrer na Baía de Angra.
– O “Run'her”, navio inglês, foi encontrado sob o casco do navio “Angra D”, estando disperso as suas peças.
– No “Cemitério das Âncoras”, o segundo local visitável, estão depositadas entre a cota dos -15 a -35 metros de profundidade um vasto conjunto de âncoras que estende-se por uma área de cerca de 500 metros ao longo do Monte Brasil.
– “Canhões”: estes são igualmente os bens mais encontrados na Baía.
– “Vestígios Dispersos”: um pouco por toda a baía de Angra são encontrados vestígios arqueológicos, oriundos dos muitos navios que ali escalaram ou se perderam.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
A União
By Humberta Augusto
September 04, 2006
Os estabelecimentos escolares da ilha Terceira vão ser sensibilizados para o património arqueológico subaquático da Baía de Angra.
A direcção regional da Cultura vai promover uma série de visitas para promover o interesse a salvaguarda do espólio submerso.
O património arqueológico subaquático da Região vai chegar às escolas este ano.
Já no próximo mês de Setembro, os estabelecimentos escolares da ilha Terceira vão receber visitas dos técnicos da direcção regional da Cultura (DraC) que desenvolverão acções de sensibilização junto das populações mais novas.
Trata-se de um projecto impulsionado pela criação do primeiro parque arqueológico subaquático do País, localizado na Baía de Angra do Heroísmo, e que traz um novo impulso à investigação e ao trabalho desenvolvido no sector.
Isso mesmo refere, em declarações ao jornal “a União”, a arqueóloga da DraC, Catarina Garcia, ao explicar que “a actividade arqueológica subaquática nunca esteve tanto activa como agora”.
“Neste momento há uma linha de rumo, há um projecto estruturado”, disse a responsável.
A deslocação deste trabalho subaquático para o espaço escolar insere-se numa estratégia já planeada de dar a conhecer o trabalho entretanto desenvolvido junto das crianças e jovens para potenciar o interesse e a salvaguarda deste património.
Para tal, a DraC, através do Centro do Conhecimento dos Açores (CCA) aloja no seu site, no link dedicado aos Parques Arqueológicos Subaquáticos dos Açores, um portal inteiramente dedicado aos mais novos sobre os sítios visitáveis em Angra, fornecendo não só o enquadramento histórico dos achados, como noções de arqueologia, de técnicas e instrumentos, jogos, passatempos que, através de uma linguagem jovem, pretende “criar interesse junto de miúdos e graúdos”, afirmou.
A ideia, explicou, é alargar esta campanha de sensibilização a todas as escolas da Região.
Catarina Garcia destaca o facto de este ser o primeiro site do género no país que cruza a informação entre a arqueologia e a história exclusivamente para jovens.
Arqueologia e História na Baía
Igualmente inédito é o projecto que juntou o Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM) da Universidade Nova de Lisboa e o Núcleo de História do Atlântico da Universidade dos Açores este Verão para dar início aos trabalhos de prospecção que hoje terminaram na Baía de Angra
O responsável pela equipa do CHAM, arqueólogo José António Bettencourt, aponta esse facto “é um projecto inovador em Portugal porque é a primeira vez que se cruzam especialistas nas diferentes áreas da arqueologia e história, com investigadores de topo na investigação”.
O projecto trienal de arqueologia marítima, financiado pela Direcção Regional da Cultura, estará pronto em 2008 e até lá quer desenvolver o estudo, salvaguarda e a promoção património cultural subaquático da Região através da análise de vestígios arqueológicos com o cruzamento de fontes históricas sobre a importância do porto de Angra como escala da navegação transatlântica entre os séculos XVI e XIX.
O resultado final, será a publicação científicas de estudos, livros, realização de colóquios, criação de portais na internet, entre outras iniciativas.
O que se pretende, em última análise, é acabar de explorar os treze sítios arqueológicos (ver coluna) que compõe o Parque Arqueológico de Angra, e do qual apenas o “Run´Her”, o “Lidador”, e o “Cemitério das Âncoras” foram exaustivamente estudados, sendo estes últimos visitáveis.
Segundo a arqueóloga Catarina Garcia, após esta investigação, ficar-se-á a saber se há interesse em alargar estes locais visitáveis.
Cadaste e caldeirão “musealizáveis”
Além da obtenção de dados, foram igualmente recuperados pela equipa, no final da semana, dois importantes vestígios do fundo da Baía que apresentavam risco de destruição, mas “com muito significado patrimonial e potenciais objectos musealizáveis”, disse João Bettencourt.
Foram retirados do mar um cadaste (parte da popa de uma embarcação onde encaixa o leme), encontrado próximo do sítio arqueológico “Angra B” e um caldeirão em bronze, localizado a este do “Lidador”.
Além destes dois objectos, ao longo dos trabalhos, foram igualmente resgatados do fundo da Baía de Angra diversos pequenos objectos, como pedaços de cerâmica e outros materiais provenientes das embarcações afundadas.
Para já, aquilo que está a ser apurado prende-se com a datação, o registo, a avaliação das condições de preservação, a origem e o enquadramento histórico dos sítios arqueológicos.
Neste primeiro ano, os trabalhos consistem na identificação dos vestígios, através do levantamento em fotografia, desenho e sua interpretação.
Segundo José Bettencourt, até 2008 serão “avaliadas as potencialidades de cada sítio para definir estratégias específicas para cada um deles porque cada um tem as suas características”.
José Bettencourt não tem dúvidas das potencialidades desta investigação para o desenvolvimento de uma melhor oferta do património da Baía de Angra do Heroísmo: “tem um enorme potencial arqueológico subaquático”.
Angra - Sítios arqueológicos
Ao todo, são treze os sítios arqueológicos que compõe o Parque Arqueológico Subaquático de Angra do Heroísmo, doze deles relativos a embarcações naufragadas e uma zona de deposição de âncoras.
– O “Angra A” corresponde a um naufrágio localizado entre o cais da Figueirinha e a Prainha e depositado a cinco metros de profundidade com uma mancha de destroços visível ao longo de quarenta metros de extensão.
– O “Angra B” corresponde a um naufrágio onde é possível observar dois núcleos de destroços: o primeiro é composto por um aglomerado de pedras de lastro e algumas madeiras do casco do navio, como a quilha.
– O “Angra C” foi localizado sob uma espessa camada de um metro de sedimento, tendo sido transladado para uma zona da baia fora do alcance das obras da marina.
– O "Tumulus" de “Angra C e D” são peças integrantes dos dois navios foram registadas in situ e posteriormente retiradas, tendo sido criado no local um túmulo artificial para estas peças, que se encontram cobertas por sacos de areia para protecção.
– “O Angra D” reporta-se a um casco bem preservado, depositado sob uma espessa camada de pedras de lastro e sedimento arenoso, com um total 35 metros de comprimento, provavelmente de origem hispânica.
– O “Angra E” tem três núcleos visíveis de madeiras, tendo sido recuperado deste local um caldeirão em bronze, um cabo de faca em osso e alguns fragmentos cerâmicos.
– O “Angra F” está junto ao naufrágio do Lidador, a cerca de 8 metros de profundidade e é composto por uma extensão de pedras de lastro de mais de 30 metros.
– o “Angra G” foi o último núcleo arqueológico a ser descoberto na baía de Angra, composto por duas grandes âncoras, madeiras e artefactos diversos, apontando para um naufrágios da carreira da Índia (séc. XVI-XVII.
– O “Lidador”, encalhado paralelamente ao Cais da Figueirinha, pertence a um dos dois locais visitáveis do Parque Arqueológico, representando um dos últimos naufrágios a ocorrer na Baía de Angra.
– O “Run'her”, navio inglês, foi encontrado sob o casco do navio “Angra D”, estando disperso as suas peças.
– No “Cemitério das Âncoras”, o segundo local visitável, estão depositadas entre a cota dos -15 a -35 metros de profundidade um vasto conjunto de âncoras que estende-se por uma área de cerca de 500 metros ao longo do Monte Brasil.
– “Canhões”: estes são igualmente os bens mais encontrados na Baía.
– “Vestígios Dispersos”: um pouco por toda a baía de Angra são encontrados vestígios arqueológicos, oriundos dos muitos navios que ali escalaram ou se perderam.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Nautical archaeologist has vision for exploring the past
_________________________________________________________________
The Eagle
By Greg Okuhara
September 03, 2006
The Eagle
By Greg Okuhara
September 03, 2006
Jim Delgado remembers sitting in a dark, cold and cramped Russian submersible on his way to explore the Titanic shipwreck in 2000.
The 2 1/2-mile descent into the northern Atlantic Ocean took more than two hours, giving Delgado plenty of time to collect his thoughts before viewing the famous shipwreck.
But once the submersible's lights illuminated the massive hull, Delgado said he was in awe.
"Suddenly it's there," with orange, red and brown rust oozing down the side next to the enormous anchors, he said. "Nothing prepares you for what you see. The Titanic is a like a ghost town. It's like walking into an empty room with empty chairs, but you know what was said and done."
Delgado has countless stories about diving and exploring shipwrecks. And as a former host of the National Geographic show Sea Hunters, he tells those stories with vivid imagery.
Now he wants to share them on a local and national stage.
Delgado, 54, is the new executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, a nonprofit organization headquartered at Texas A&M University. Delgado, interviewed on campus last week during his first visit since joining the INA, officially started in July and will work primarily from his offices in Vancouver, Canada.
The main component of his job will be outreach and fund-raising, so his storytelling and warm personality will come in handy.
"I had my eye on him for years," said George Bass, one of the institute's founders and head of the INA Foundation. "He's one of the best public speakers I've ever heard. His enthusiasm is infectious. I've already seen him talk to some of our current sponsors, and the connection is already there."
The institute, founded in 1973, is considered the world's leading scientific and education organization dedicated to understanding the historical interaction between humans and the sea.
Much of its current work centers around shipwrecks near Bodrum, Turkey, that date back 3,500 years to the Bronze Age.
Delgado's archaeology and anthropology experience includes exploring the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, sunken ships at Bikini Atoll, and Mongolian ships from Kublai Kahn's fleet during a 1281 invasion of Japan.
He remembers the shipwrecks in detail. For instance, near one of those 13th century Mongolian ships was the skeleton of a soldier, probably 20 years old when he died.
In the murky waters of the Imari Gulf, Delgado described how he hovered above the remains and found a rice bowl with the name "Wang" in Chinese script.
"I remember thinking, 'Are you Wang?' Did you think it would come to this?' Perhaps he didn't have a clue because he was young, full of life and thought he was invincible, not realizing he'd end up face down in the mud for 700 years. As an anthropologist, I have a great deal of interest in the people stories.
"But as an archaeologist and scientist, I'm trained to be objective and thinking about what you can learn from this."
Bass said Delgado's extensive knowledge of maritime archaeology as well as contacts around the world make him a perfect fit as the organization's executive director.
Part of his outreach efforts, Delgado said, will include increasing the Institute of Nautical Archaeology's visibility.
As a former host of Sea Hunters, he said he has a good grasp on how to present the institution's stories.
"To be an archaeologist who also spent a fair amount of time in the media gives me a different perspective. I understand the need and importance to share these stories when people will ask, 'What is this? Why should I be interested?'"
Deep roots
Delgado's interest goes back to his childhood in California's Silicon Valley.
In the midst of the rapid development in the area, Delgado, then 14, happened across skeletons, arrowheads and stone tools that had been unearthed during mid-1960s construction.
He began collecting and recording his discovery and was soon joined by students from San Jose State University.
His interest turned to maritime archaeology in 1978, when he helped excavate the remains of Gold Rush-era ships and buildings near San Francisco's financial district.
"I just found it to be like magic," Delgado said. "Here's the ship just sitting there with all these well-preserved things in the mud. Shipwrecks are rare because they're somewhat like these encapsulated moments of time. For the most part, because they're not accessible to most people, they're not picked over."
Delgado spent the last 15 years working at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, where he served as its director.
Earlier in the year, Delgado wanted a career change and heard about the INA opening. He was pleased when Bass followed up.
Dream come true
"The INA and its nautical program are known throughout the world not only as pioneers in the field but as the people who do it best," Delgado said. "George Bass is considered the father of nautical archaeology. This is a dream come true to work here."
Besides working to increase the institute's visibility, Delgado plans to expand its operations with more projects.
That means finding additional funding from donors and sponsors, and Delgado expresses confidence that he can move the organization forward.
"I've been fortunate to be able to develop a large network of friends over the years. In a lot of ways I'll be an ambassador for INA."
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
The 2 1/2-mile descent into the northern Atlantic Ocean took more than two hours, giving Delgado plenty of time to collect his thoughts before viewing the famous shipwreck.
But once the submersible's lights illuminated the massive hull, Delgado said he was in awe.
"Suddenly it's there," with orange, red and brown rust oozing down the side next to the enormous anchors, he said. "Nothing prepares you for what you see. The Titanic is a like a ghost town. It's like walking into an empty room with empty chairs, but you know what was said and done."
Delgado has countless stories about diving and exploring shipwrecks. And as a former host of the National Geographic show Sea Hunters, he tells those stories with vivid imagery.
Now he wants to share them on a local and national stage.
Delgado, 54, is the new executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, a nonprofit organization headquartered at Texas A&M University. Delgado, interviewed on campus last week during his first visit since joining the INA, officially started in July and will work primarily from his offices in Vancouver, Canada.
The main component of his job will be outreach and fund-raising, so his storytelling and warm personality will come in handy.
"I had my eye on him for years," said George Bass, one of the institute's founders and head of the INA Foundation. "He's one of the best public speakers I've ever heard. His enthusiasm is infectious. I've already seen him talk to some of our current sponsors, and the connection is already there."
The institute, founded in 1973, is considered the world's leading scientific and education organization dedicated to understanding the historical interaction between humans and the sea.
Much of its current work centers around shipwrecks near Bodrum, Turkey, that date back 3,500 years to the Bronze Age.
Delgado's archaeology and anthropology experience includes exploring the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, sunken ships at Bikini Atoll, and Mongolian ships from Kublai Kahn's fleet during a 1281 invasion of Japan.
He remembers the shipwrecks in detail. For instance, near one of those 13th century Mongolian ships was the skeleton of a soldier, probably 20 years old when he died.
In the murky waters of the Imari Gulf, Delgado described how he hovered above the remains and found a rice bowl with the name "Wang" in Chinese script.
"I remember thinking, 'Are you Wang?' Did you think it would come to this?' Perhaps he didn't have a clue because he was young, full of life and thought he was invincible, not realizing he'd end up face down in the mud for 700 years. As an anthropologist, I have a great deal of interest in the people stories.
"But as an archaeologist and scientist, I'm trained to be objective and thinking about what you can learn from this."
Bass said Delgado's extensive knowledge of maritime archaeology as well as contacts around the world make him a perfect fit as the organization's executive director.
Part of his outreach efforts, Delgado said, will include increasing the Institute of Nautical Archaeology's visibility.
As a former host of Sea Hunters, he said he has a good grasp on how to present the institution's stories.
"To be an archaeologist who also spent a fair amount of time in the media gives me a different perspective. I understand the need and importance to share these stories when people will ask, 'What is this? Why should I be interested?'"
Deep roots
Delgado's interest goes back to his childhood in California's Silicon Valley.
In the midst of the rapid development in the area, Delgado, then 14, happened across skeletons, arrowheads and stone tools that had been unearthed during mid-1960s construction.
He began collecting and recording his discovery and was soon joined by students from San Jose State University.
His interest turned to maritime archaeology in 1978, when he helped excavate the remains of Gold Rush-era ships and buildings near San Francisco's financial district.
"I just found it to be like magic," Delgado said. "Here's the ship just sitting there with all these well-preserved things in the mud. Shipwrecks are rare because they're somewhat like these encapsulated moments of time. For the most part, because they're not accessible to most people, they're not picked over."
Delgado spent the last 15 years working at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, where he served as its director.
Earlier in the year, Delgado wanted a career change and heard about the INA opening. He was pleased when Bass followed up.
Dream come true
"The INA and its nautical program are known throughout the world not only as pioneers in the field but as the people who do it best," Delgado said. "George Bass is considered the father of nautical archaeology. This is a dream come true to work here."
Besides working to increase the institute's visibility, Delgado plans to expand its operations with more projects.
That means finding additional funding from donors and sponsors, and Delgado expresses confidence that he can move the organization forward.
"I've been fortunate to be able to develop a large network of friends over the years. In a lot of ways I'll be an ambassador for INA."
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
'Graf Spee' rises into a diplomatic storm
_________________________________________________________________
The Independent
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
03 September 2006
Gingerly, and with the utmost delicacy, bits from the Graf Spee - the German pocket battleship whose captain was fooled by the Royal Navy and British diplomats into scuttling her in Uruguayan waters in December 1939 - are being salvaged in the shallow waters of the River Plate.
The divers, blinded by muddy waters off the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, who in February recovered the ship's emblem, a 350kg bronze eagle grasping a Third Reich swastika, are continuing work this month as carefully as they can. But the real refinement is going into the intricate diplomatic minuet which surrounds the salvage operation. When the emblem was first shown, the swastika was carefully masked.
No government official in Uruguay, and certainly none in Germany, wants to be saddled with the reputation of restoring an icon of Hitler's navy in a part of the world where the Führer had no little popularity, some of which still survives. At the same time the salvage company wants to get a return on the money it has spent, and the authorities in Montevideo see relics from the 16,000-ton vessel as the focus of a bright new attraction in a small country which relies on the cash spent by tourists from its giant neighbours Brazil and Argentina.
Uruguay's centre-left government says the relics from the vessel should be sold off to the highest bidder by a reputable auctioneer. Uruguayan parliamentarians are demanding that the wreck be definitively declared a piece of national heritage. For its part, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has gently requested the Uruguayans not to sell pieces off or allow them to go abroad. She certainly doesn't want them back in the German Federal Republic.
But whose is the wreck? The Germans claim it is still theirs. But some say that a British agent bought it from the German government as scrap for £20,000 in 1940. The Uruguayan government says it is now theirs as no one officially claimed it. "The surviving members of the crew and the Jewish lobby do not want the wreck touched," says Joseph Gilbey, author of two books on the vessel.
Alfredo Etchegaray, the Uruguayan businessman who is leading the salvage effort, says he and his partners have spent some $7m (£3.7m) so far. In 2004, working with survivors of the warship, he brought up the 27-ton rangefinder. He says he needs a total of $30m if the whole vessel is to be raised.
Hector Bado, Mr Etchegaray's leading diver, says if the government does not want the bronze eagle to leave Uruguay it should buy it from those who found it: "We've got it up for sale."
The sinking of the Graf Spee commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the Royal Navy's first big victory in the Second World War. The German battleship had sunk nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean within a few months of the outbreak of war, not without sustaining some damage herself.
Off the River Plate, where he was hoping for easy new kills, Langsdorff was being shadowed by Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding a task force of the heavy cruiser Exeter and the light cruiser Ajax, backed up by Achilles of the Royal New Zealand Navy. The German forced Exeter to retire but then lost his nerve, and ran for temporary shelter and to bury his dead in the Uruguayan capital, where he was taken in by false reports circulated by British diplomats that an armada awaited him if he put to sea again. The British persuaded the Uruguayan government that, under international law, Langsdorff could not be sheltered indefinitely.
Conscious that he could not make it back to Germany, he put ashore most of his crew. In front of 250,000 people watching on the Montevideo seafront, he sailed out of Uruguayan waters just after 6pm on Sunday 17 December, two hours before his vessel faced internment by Uruguay.
Using explosives he scuttled Graf Spee three miles out. After burning for three days at anchor, she settled in 25 feet of water, her stern blown off and the 300-ton aft turret lying in the mud nearby. Many Germans survived the disaster and were taken to Argentina, but Langsdorff shot himself two days later in Buenos Aires.
Gingerly, and with the utmost delicacy, bits from the Graf Spee - the German pocket battleship whose captain was fooled by the Royal Navy and British diplomats into scuttling her in Uruguayan waters in December 1939 - are being salvaged in the shallow waters of the River Plate.
The divers, blinded by muddy waters off the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, who in February recovered the ship's emblem, a 350kg bronze eagle grasping a Third Reich swastika, are continuing work this month as carefully as they can. But the real refinement is going into the intricate diplomatic minuet which surrounds the salvage operation. When the emblem was first shown, the swastika was carefully masked.
No government official in Uruguay, and certainly none in Germany, wants to be saddled with the reputation of restoring an icon of Hitler's navy in a part of the world where the Führer had no little popularity, some of which still survives. At the same time the salvage company wants to get a return on the money it has spent, and the authorities in Montevideo see relics from the 16,000-ton vessel as the focus of a bright new attraction in a small country which relies on the cash spent by tourists from its giant neighbours Brazil and Argentina.
Uruguay's centre-left government says the relics from the vessel should be sold off to the highest bidder by a reputable auctioneer. Uruguayan parliamentarians are demanding that the wreck be definitively declared a piece of national heritage. For its part, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has gently requested the Uruguayans not to sell pieces off or allow them to go abroad. She certainly doesn't want them back in the German Federal Republic.
But whose is the wreck? The Germans claim it is still theirs. But some say that a British agent bought it from the German government as scrap for £20,000 in 1940. The Uruguayan government says it is now theirs as no one officially claimed it. "The surviving members of the crew and the Jewish lobby do not want the wreck touched," says Joseph Gilbey, author of two books on the vessel.
Alfredo Etchegaray, the Uruguayan businessman who is leading the salvage effort, says he and his partners have spent some $7m (£3.7m) so far. In 2004, working with survivors of the warship, he brought up the 27-ton rangefinder. He says he needs a total of $30m if the whole vessel is to be raised.
Hector Bado, Mr Etchegaray's leading diver, says if the government does not want the bronze eagle to leave Uruguay it should buy it from those who found it: "We've got it up for sale."
The sinking of the Graf Spee commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the Royal Navy's first big victory in the Second World War. The German battleship had sunk nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean within a few months of the outbreak of war, not without sustaining some damage herself.
Off the River Plate, where he was hoping for easy new kills, Langsdorff was being shadowed by Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding a task force of the heavy cruiser Exeter and the light cruiser Ajax, backed up by Achilles of the Royal New Zealand Navy. The German forced Exeter to retire but then lost his nerve, and ran for temporary shelter and to bury his dead in the Uruguayan capital, where he was taken in by false reports circulated by British diplomats that an armada awaited him if he put to sea again. The British persuaded the Uruguayan government that, under international law, Langsdorff could not be sheltered indefinitely.
Conscious that he could not make it back to Germany, he put ashore most of his crew. In front of 250,000 people watching on the Montevideo seafront, he sailed out of Uruguayan waters just after 6pm on Sunday 17 December, two hours before his vessel faced internment by Uruguay.
Using explosives he scuttled Graf Spee three miles out. After burning for three days at anchor, she settled in 25 feet of water, her stern blown off and the 300-ton aft turret lying in the mud nearby. Many Germans survived the disaster and were taken to Argentina, but Langsdorff shot himself two days later in Buenos Aires.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
The Independent
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
03 September 2006
Gingerly, and with the utmost delicacy, bits from the Graf Spee - the German pocket battleship whose captain was fooled by the Royal Navy and British diplomats into scuttling her in Uruguayan waters in December 1939 - are being salvaged in the shallow waters of the River Plate.
The divers, blinded by muddy waters off the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, who in February recovered the ship's emblem, a 350kg bronze eagle grasping a Third Reich swastika, are continuing work this month as carefully as they can. But the real refinement is going into the intricate diplomatic minuet which surrounds the salvage operation. When the emblem was first shown, the swastika was carefully masked.
No government official in Uruguay, and certainly none in Germany, wants to be saddled with the reputation of restoring an icon of Hitler's navy in a part of the world where the Führer had no little popularity, some of which still survives. At the same time the salvage company wants to get a return on the money it has spent, and the authorities in Montevideo see relics from the 16,000-ton vessel as the focus of a bright new attraction in a small country which relies on the cash spent by tourists from its giant neighbours Brazil and Argentina.
Uruguay's centre-left government says the relics from the vessel should be sold off to the highest bidder by a reputable auctioneer. Uruguayan parliamentarians are demanding that the wreck be definitively declared a piece of national heritage. For its part, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has gently requested the Uruguayans not to sell pieces off or allow them to go abroad. She certainly doesn't want them back in the German Federal Republic.
But whose is the wreck? The Germans claim it is still theirs. But some say that a British agent bought it from the German government as scrap for £20,000 in 1940. The Uruguayan government says it is now theirs as no one officially claimed it. "The surviving members of the crew and the Jewish lobby do not want the wreck touched," says Joseph Gilbey, author of two books on the vessel.
Alfredo Etchegaray, the Uruguayan businessman who is leading the salvage effort, says he and his partners have spent some $7m (£3.7m) so far. In 2004, working with survivors of the warship, he brought up the 27-ton rangefinder. He says he needs a total of $30m if the whole vessel is to be raised.
Hector Bado, Mr Etchegaray's leading diver, says if the government does not want the bronze eagle to leave Uruguay it should buy it from those who found it: "We've got it up for sale."
The sinking of the Graf Spee commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the Royal Navy's first big victory in the Second World War. The German battleship had sunk nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean within a few months of the outbreak of war, not without sustaining some damage herself.
Off the River Plate, where he was hoping for easy new kills, Langsdorff was being shadowed by Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding a task force of the heavy cruiser Exeter and the light cruiser Ajax, backed up by Achilles of the Royal New Zealand Navy. The German forced Exeter to retire but then lost his nerve, and ran for temporary shelter and to bury his dead in the Uruguayan capital, where he was taken in by false reports circulated by British diplomats that an armada awaited him if he put to sea again. The British persuaded the Uruguayan government that, under international law, Langsdorff could not be sheltered indefinitely.
Conscious that he could not make it back to Germany, he put ashore most of his crew. In front of 250,000 people watching on the Montevideo seafront, he sailed out of Uruguayan waters just after 6pm on Sunday 17 December, two hours before his vessel faced internment by Uruguay.
Using explosives he scuttled Graf Spee three miles out. After burning for three days at anchor, she settled in 25 feet of water, her stern blown off and the 300-ton aft turret lying in the mud nearby. Many Germans survived the disaster and were taken to Argentina, but Langsdorff shot himself two days later in Buenos Aires.
Gingerly, and with the utmost delicacy, bits from the Graf Spee - the German pocket battleship whose captain was fooled by the Royal Navy and British diplomats into scuttling her in Uruguayan waters in December 1939 - are being salvaged in the shallow waters of the River Plate.
The divers, blinded by muddy waters off the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, who in February recovered the ship's emblem, a 350kg bronze eagle grasping a Third Reich swastika, are continuing work this month as carefully as they can. But the real refinement is going into the intricate diplomatic minuet which surrounds the salvage operation. When the emblem was first shown, the swastika was carefully masked.
No government official in Uruguay, and certainly none in Germany, wants to be saddled with the reputation of restoring an icon of Hitler's navy in a part of the world where the Führer had no little popularity, some of which still survives. At the same time the salvage company wants to get a return on the money it has spent, and the authorities in Montevideo see relics from the 16,000-ton vessel as the focus of a bright new attraction in a small country which relies on the cash spent by tourists from its giant neighbours Brazil and Argentina.
Uruguay's centre-left government says the relics from the vessel should be sold off to the highest bidder by a reputable auctioneer. Uruguayan parliamentarians are demanding that the wreck be definitively declared a piece of national heritage. For its part, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has gently requested the Uruguayans not to sell pieces off or allow them to go abroad. She certainly doesn't want them back in the German Federal Republic.
But whose is the wreck? The Germans claim it is still theirs. But some say that a British agent bought it from the German government as scrap for £20,000 in 1940. The Uruguayan government says it is now theirs as no one officially claimed it. "The surviving members of the crew and the Jewish lobby do not want the wreck touched," says Joseph Gilbey, author of two books on the vessel.
Alfredo Etchegaray, the Uruguayan businessman who is leading the salvage effort, says he and his partners have spent some $7m (£3.7m) so far. In 2004, working with survivors of the warship, he brought up the 27-ton rangefinder. He says he needs a total of $30m if the whole vessel is to be raised.
Hector Bado, Mr Etchegaray's leading diver, says if the government does not want the bronze eagle to leave Uruguay it should buy it from those who found it: "We've got it up for sale."
The sinking of the Graf Spee commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the Royal Navy's first big victory in the Second World War. The German battleship had sunk nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean within a few months of the outbreak of war, not without sustaining some damage herself.
Off the River Plate, where he was hoping for easy new kills, Langsdorff was being shadowed by Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding a task force of the heavy cruiser Exeter and the light cruiser Ajax, backed up by Achilles of the Royal New Zealand Navy. The German forced Exeter to retire but then lost his nerve, and ran for temporary shelter and to bury his dead in the Uruguayan capital, where he was taken in by false reports circulated by British diplomats that an armada awaited him if he put to sea again. The British persuaded the Uruguayan government that, under international law, Langsdorff could not be sheltered indefinitely.
Conscious that he could not make it back to Germany, he put ashore most of his crew. In front of 250,000 people watching on the Montevideo seafront, he sailed out of Uruguayan waters just after 6pm on Sunday 17 December, two hours before his vessel faced internment by Uruguay.
Using explosives he scuttled Graf Spee three miles out. After burning for three days at anchor, she settled in 25 feet of water, her stern blown off and the 300-ton aft turret lying in the mud nearby. Many Germans survived the disaster and were taken to Argentina, but Langsdorff shot himself two days later in Buenos Aires.
____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com
