Jugs awaiting museum display (Elpida Hadjidaki) Pseira seal (Courtesy Philip Betancourt)
Posted on 02/23/2010 5:38:02 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Depictions of ships abound on Minoan seals and frescoes. They are detailed enough to show that the vessels were impressive: generally, they had 15 oars on each side and square sails, and were probably about 50 feet long. But little more was known about actual Minoan seafaring--until Greek archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki became the first to discover a Minoan shipwreck...
For nearly a month, she and a team of three sponge and coral divers aboard a 20-foot-long wooden fishing boat trolled up and down the island's shores. Together with George Athanasakis of Athens Polytechnic University, they used side-scanning sonar and detected some 20 "targets," or anomalies, that Hadjidaki sent her divers to investigate, often reaching depths of 400 feet. One by one, they turned out to be a depressing array of natural geological formations and portions of the seafloor ripped up by the nets of deep-sea trawlers, as well as a World War II airplane, a 19th-century shipwreck, and several pairs of shoes.
On the second-to-last day of the survey, Hadjidaki decided to ditch the technology and go on gut instinct. She knew that in 1976, Jacques Cousteau had brought a team to the small island of Pseira, a Bronze Age port about one and a half miles from the northeastern coast of Crete in the Gulf of Mirabello... had found Minoan pottery underwater near the shore, and suggested it came from ships sunk in the harbor by the volcanic eruption that destroyed Thera in 1650 or 1520 B.C. (The finds are now believed to be from houses on Pseira that fell into the sea during an earthquake.)
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Jugs awaiting museum display (Elpida Hadjidaki) Pseira seal (Courtesy Philip Betancourt)
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Yeah! Now let's get some thermoluminescence dating on these. |
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Well I will admit I would love to see Mary Ann in one of those Minoan bodices.
You mean Thera Ann?
Just one maybe two questions ...
"... a World War II airplane, a 19th-century shipwreck, and several pairs of shoes."
What is up with people tossing shoes? Looks like it is an age old tradition. I mean, I can take a drive down the road and a shoe or a pair of shoes are in the road. Does not happen everyday but often enough for me to ask, why?
That’s a nice find.
A 21 metre long ancient Greek vessel dating to c. 500 BC has been raised to the surface off Sicily. The wooden vessel was found by scuba divers in 1988, 800 metres from the ancient Greek colony and port of Gela. Parts of the vessel and the cargo have already been raised.
Over thirty-five years ago Michael Katzev excavated the 'oldest Greek ship,' a Hellenistic merchant vessel which sank off the north coast of Cyprus near Kyrenia sometime between 310 and 300 B.C. (This image is used with permission from and thanks to the National Geographic Society.) Dr. Katzev estimates that the ship was about 70-80 years old when she went down. Some planks are from the original ship; others are from patches, or from patches to the patches. Last summer, after three years of accumulating the appropriate permissions, we were able to bring back pieces of 32 planks from the Kyrenia wreck. They were all soaked in PEG (polyethylene glycol), so we had to dissolve at least the surface layer so that we can see the rings. Work on the Kyrenia wood is going on as I write. Two of the planks measured this week had 131 and 124 rings, and I thought I spotted another at the time of collection with 150 rings, so there is hope that a useful chronology will emerge.
And what is with the shoes dangling from phone lines?
WHOOPS!
Minoan...Frieze
Now that is a right peculiar seal. Like a ship, yet not like. Reminds me of a Swiss army knife! Never seen one like it.
Thanks!
You ain’t ever got rotten drunk and took off your shoes laced the together and thrown them on overhead lines..
No!
Me neither, but lots of retards out running around think it is funny..
Nope. I haven’t.
The ships look like later designed Athenian styled warships.
Victor.D.Hanson has a book on the Peloponnese war and goes into detail on life on a trireme,Hope you are on top level not below.. 
Proven to clear chest congestion* 8X faster than Thera-Flu!
Recommended by 9 out of 10 Minoan healers.
The 10th was a blind eunuch.
*WARNING: May increase congestion in other body parts.
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