Mysterious sunken ship may have belonged to French baron

[European Knight]

A mysterious sunken ship uncovered in the waters off Israel nearly 40 years ago may have belonged to a famous French baron, new research suggests.

By poring over records and documents from the 1800s, researchers were able to tie the wreck to the Baron de Rothschild (1845-1934), or Edmond James Rothschild, one of the preeminent French bankers of his day.

Still, without a name, number or other identifying feature on the ship, the case is still circumstantial, said study co-author Deborah Cvikel, a nautical archaeologist at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel.

"It's not 100 percent sure, but it's not something that we can exclude," Cvikel said. "It's very probable." [Images of Gold Coins Found in Israeli Shipwreck] In Images: The Largest Stash of Gold Coins in Israel

Local secret

In 1976, a diver first uncovered the wreck in the Tantura Lagoon near Dor Beach, a deceptively calm-looking anchorage that has been used since antiquity. The ship sank to a fairly shallow depth, making it easy for scuba divers to uncover and explore

Mysterious sunken ship may have belonged to French baron | Fox News

[LouisFerdinand]

Edmond de Rothschild served as a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. Through it he sponsored the archaeological digs of Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau in Egypt.