Wikimedia commons user: MKFI
Posted on 01/03/2015 11:30:35 AM PST by SunkenCiv
37 shipwrecks from the Byzantine Empire have been discovered as part of archaeological excavations that began in Turkey in 2004.
The shipwrecks were discovered in Yenikapi, Istanbul, a port of the ancient city which was called Constantinople during the Byzantine period. The ships are in exceptionally good condition say the archaeologists, especially since they date back to between the fifth and eleventh centuries.
Cemal Pulak, a study author from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, stated, "Never before has such a large number and types of well preserved vessels been found at a single location."
Eight of the ships were especially highlighted in the study. These ships showed that the builders had been using a more complex process than previously thought. The fact that they were distinct from the rest of the ships intrigued the researchers.
There were two ship-building methods during the Byzantine period, of which each of the 37 ships showed signs of, according to the researchers who examined them. In one method, the shell was built first while in the other method, the skeleton was built first. Researchers believe that the "skeleton" first approach was being moved towards in the seventh century...
Of the eight distinct ships that the researchers chose to examine in more detail, six were classified as "round ships", because they were propelled almost entirely by sail. The other two ships were galleys, which according to researchers were "notably the first shipwrecks of this type discovered from the Byzantine period". The galleys were long, oared ships measuring almost 30 meters in length.
Before, Byzantine galleys could only be seen in paintings and books dating from the time period, making this discovery hugely important for the study of Byzantine history.
(Excerpt) Read more at newhistorian.com ...
Wikimedia commons user: MKFI
Nautical Archaeology Takes A Leap Forward
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1946326/posts
Intact 5th century merchant ship found in Istanbul
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2773170/posts
Cries for a centerboard!
Very cool!
Any technology that is used by large numbers of people and is constantly used will advance and develop. If one were to use the same materials as the Byzantines had available, I have no doubt they could build far better ships than present-day humanity could with the same materials.
I'm getting a McAfee “Security” block on the New Historian website your post links to.
I don't get those very often, so I'm not going to risk clicking through it.
I agree - seems very strange, and unlikely, and probably just a false alarm of some kind.
But I thought you should know what's showing up on my computer.
Chappelle would be pleased with their efforts.
Thanks z, my scanner is a different brand, but oh, wait, that’s on the Windows contraption, I’m running on the 20 year old Mac today. :’) But it’s good to know that regardless, something for everyone to be aware of.
Did it keep the photo from loading?
I wholeheartedly agree. The Romans (the name “Byzantines” is modern) built pretty enormous ships in wood, well past what was considered the practical limit even during the Age of Sail. Caligula built a temple to himself, of which not all that much remains, but the foundations of the pillars he had put into the facade are there, and at least one of the pillars survives. It was quarried in Egypt (I believe at Mons Claudianus) in one piece, and transported by ship. Each of those weighed about 200 tons. The special ship he had made to transport that really large (300+ tons) obelisk from Egypt was a tourist attraction in its own right. It may actually still exist, I’ve gone all pedantic about that in another topic.
:’)
I can still click through and get the same web page everyone else does.
In the past, all the warnings came on websites I was not familiar with, usually sites I had clicked on because of interesting photos or headlines.
My guess - your site is fine, but some quirk in its code set off McAfee.
Just in the last few weeks McAfee has started blocking ads on a number of sites I use, like Daily Caller and even Drudge from time to time.
There is probably some new software protocol that “safe” sites are supposed to use, but the smaller sites with limited funds have not got around to installing the update yet.
Now, back to the topic....
Not long ago, I read that the water at the bottom of the Black Sea is almost completely devoid of oxygen, and Black Sea shipwrecks are often in pristine condition, but, unfortunately, very little marine archeology has been conducted there.
Were the shipwrecks in your post found off Turkey’s Black Sea coastline or off the Mediterranean coast?
cool
That’s how mine works as well. If there’s some odd IP in the warning screen, one that isn’t what I was headed for, that could be a big red flag, but also sometimes (if it’s merely a graphic I want to load) the site may be notorious for lots of adware and annoyances. As long as it’s not the HTML code, probably okay.
Willard Bascom was still alive when Robert Ballard started his survey in the Black Sea. They did a quick run to identify potential sites for close-up investigation, and went back after they’d done the job for which they’d been paid. He used the same approach to look for and find the Titanic (under contract to the Pentagon to find a lost nuclear sub), and later to survey the eastern Med off Israel (under contract, looking for a lost sub) and found some Phoenician wrecks.
Bascom was Ballard’s mentor and alas, passed to the afterlife a few days before the team found the wreck. In the National Geographic show about Ballard’s search for Noah’s Flood, Ballard read the intro from Bascom’s long-ago book on underwater archaeology. Wish I could find the dang thing online, it’s electrifying. Bascom imagined a wreck with its mast still upright, setting on the bottom, down in the anoxic layer — and that’s exactly what they found.
The big news of course was that Ballard had found Noah’s farmhouse or something, and he’s spent nearly 15 years correcting that misconception.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0105/feature3/
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