Ghost Fleet: 40 ancient ships found at the bottom of the Black Sea.

Ghost Fleet
Explorers accidentally find a graveyard of more than 40 perfectly preserved ancient shipwrecks at the bottom of the Black Sea
By Shivali Best
Daily Mail
October 27, 2016

In the depths of the Black Sea lies a landscape of complete darkness, where there is no light and no oxygen.

Archaeologists have long believed this ‘dead zone’ holds of a perfectly preserved graveyard of shipwrecks.

Now, a mapping expedition has proved them right, after accidentally uncovering more than 40 ancient shipwrecks from the Ottoman and Byzantine periods.

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More than 40 shipwrecks have been discovered from the Ottoman and Byzantine periods, many of which provide the first views of ship types known from historical sources. Pictured is a shipwreck from the Ottoman period

The expedition has been scouring the waters 5,900ft (1,800 metres) below the surface of the Black Sea using an off-shore vessel equipped with some of the most advanced underwater equipment in the world.

The vessel is on an expedition mapping submerged ancient landscapes which were inundated with water following the last Ice Age.

The project, known Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea MAP), involves an international team led by the University of Southampton’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology.

Professor Jon Adams, the principle investigator on the project, said: ‘We’re endeavouring to answer some hotly-debated questions about when the water level rose, how rapidly it did so and what effects it had on human populations living along this stretch of the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea.

‘The primary focus of this project is to carry out geophysical surveys to detect former land surfaces buried below the current seabed, take core samples and characterise and date them, and create a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of Black Sea prehistory.’

The vessel is based on board the Stril Explorer and carries some of the most advanced underwater survey systems in the world.

The researchers are using two Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to survey the seabed.

One is optimised for high-resolution 3D photography, while the other, called Surveyor Interceptor, ‘flies’ at four times the speed of conventional ROVs and carries an entire suite of geophysical instrumentation, as well as lights, high-definition cameras and a laser scanner.

BLACK SEA'S HISTORY
Many of the colonial and commercial activities of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Byzantine Empire, centred on the Black Sea.
After 1453, when the Ottoman Turks occupied Constantinople (and changed its name to Istanbul), the Black Sea was virtually closed to foreign commerce.
Nearly 400 years later, in 1856, the Treaty of Paris re-opened the sea to the commerce of all nations.

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Many of the colonial and commercial activities of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Byzantine Empire, centred on the Black Sea (pictured)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...hipwrecks.html

Quote:

After 1453, when the Ottoman Turks occupied Constantinople (and changed its name to Istanbul), the Black Sea was virtually closed to foreign commerce.

Actually Istanbul is a corruption of the Greek phrase "Is tan Poli"

Similarily, Izmir is Greek for "H Smyrna" or "The Smyrna"

In Greek like French every name has a gender and since Smyrna is feminine (since its a city) it is preceded by "H", French examples include "La Paris" " The Paris" and as you all should know Paris was the son Priam king of Troy, another Greek city.

maritime archeology I chose the wrong career. I remember when photographs underwater were full of dust.

'They are astonishingly preserved due to the anoxic conditions (absence of oxygen) of the Black Sea below 150 metres.

'Using the latest 3D recording technique for underwater structures, we've been able to capture some astonishing images without disturbing the sea bed.

'We are now among the very best exponents of this practice methodology and certainly no-one has achieved models of this completeness on shipwrecks at these depths.'

That is a very interesting read. It sounds like there is at least 2,000 years of history at the bottom of the Black Sea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristinaLadyBug

That is a very interesting read. It sounds like there is at least 2,000 years of history at the bottom of the Black Sea.

And well preserved. I can barely believe it, the photos look like a movie set. This is a historic gold mine.