The external squad of diver and archaeologists who are investigate the website of an ancient Grecian ship that sank more than 2,000 years ago off the distant island of Antikythera have not been disappoint . Not only is the situation bigger than they thought , it also contains a treasure trove of artifact .
First , an explanation for that amazing image you see above . The ship , a lavishness cargo vessel bear Greek treasure from the coast of Asia Minor W to Rome , sink in big water around 70 to 60 BC in some rather deep H2O . The ship is locate at a depth unsafe for human divers — 55 meters ( 180 feet ) — so the squad at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ( WHOI ) utilize a diving exosuit . It uses rebreather technology in which carbon dioxide is scrub from the exhaled air while atomic number 8 is introduced and recirculated . This allowed the diver to explore the site for up to three hour at a time .
The Antikythera web site is a treacherous one indeed . Back in 1900 , when it was first discovered by sponge divers , the swimmers had to terminate their mission after one of the diver died of the Bend and two were paralyze . But not before they pulled up a spectacular draw of treasures , including bronze and marble statue , jewelry , article of furniture , luxury glassware , and the surprisingly complexAntikythera Mechanism .
Advanced Imaging let on a Computer 1,500 Years forward of Its Time
The up-to-the-minute expedition , call theReturn to Antikythera , is an effort to revisit the site to see what else it might arrest . And wow , is there a lot of stuff down there .
From the WHOIreport :
component of the ship , including multiple lead anchor over a m long and a bronze rigging ring with fragments of wood still attached , bear witness that much of the ship survives . The finds are also disperse over a much larger area than the quick study divers realized , covering 300 meters of the seafloor . This together with the huge size of the backbone and recovered hull planks proves that the Antikythera ship was much larger than antecedently think , perhaps up to 50 m long .
“ The evidence shows this is the largest ancient wreck ever discovered , ” say Foley . “ It ’s the Titanic of the ancient world . ”
The archeologist also recovered a beautiful inviolate board jug , part of an ornate bed leg , and most telling of all , a 2 - beat - longsighted bronze gig lay to rest just beneath the airfoil of the backbone . Too expectant and gravid to have been used as a weapon , it must have belong to a jumbo statue , perhaps a warrior or the goddess Athena , pronounce Foley . In 1901 , four elephantine marble horses were discovered on the wreck by the sponge divers , so these could have mould part of a building complex of statue involve a warrior in a chariot that was pulled by the four horses .
Fascinatingly , it appear that much of the ship ’s cargo is still preserved beneath the sediment . The archaeologists plan to generate next class to excavate the site further and recover more of the ship ’s shipment .
[ WHOI ]
ArchaeologyMarine archaeologyScienceshipwrecks
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