The 200-kg beautifully ornamented anchors have two holes in them -- one for the anchor rope and another one for a wooden stick. Photo by BNGES
Posted on 09/14/2011 2:56:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Massive ancient stone anchors were found by divers participating in an archaeological expedition near the southern Bulgarian Black Sea town of Sozopol.
The expedition, led by deputy director of Bulgaria's National Historical Museum Dr Ivan Hristov, found the precious artifacts west of the Sts. Cyricus and Julitta island.
The 200-kg beautifully ornamented anchors have two holes in them -- one for the anchor rope and another one for a wooden stick. They were used for 150-200-ton ships that transported mainly wheat, but also dried and salted fish, skins, timber and metals from what now is Bulgaria's coast.
The anchors' shape suggests they were used by Creto-Mycanaean, Phoenician or Carian sailors in the 15th-12th centuries BC, which would refute the hypothesis that Greeks were the first Black Sea sailors starting the 12th century BC, the BGNES news agency points out.
The anchors are also said to show that the Trojan war may have started because of excise duties imposed by the Trojans, who took advantage of their control over the Dardanelles -- and not because of Helen of Troj.
Last summer's remarkable archeological discovery of what is believed to be St. John the Baptist's relics in Sozopol has attracted huge interest towards the town as a historical center of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at novinite.com ...
The 200-kg beautifully ornamented anchors have two holes in them -- one for the anchor rope and another one for a wooden stick. Photo by BNGES
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Troyan War / Helen of Troj ping. I didn't correct misspellings. :') |
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150 ton ships?
They almost sound like modern cargo ships.
You need a comma and three more zeros....approximately. Recent aircraft carriers, for instance, have weighed in the 90,000 to 100,000 ton range, if memory serves.
After my previous reply I wanted to be certain of my figures, so here is an excerpt from Wikipedia for the Harry S. Truman:
Description Harry Truman (also known as HST within the Navy) is 1,092 ft (333 m) long, 257 ft (78 m) wide and is as high as a twenty-four-story building, at 244 feet (74 m). The super carrier can accommodate approximately 80 aircraft and has a flight deck 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) in size, using four elevators that are 3,880 ft² (360 m²) each to move planes between the flight deck and the hangar bay. With a combat load, HST displaces almost 97,000 tons and can accommodate 6,250 crewmembers.
“beautifully ornamented” ?
Just going by the photo, that thing is uglier than home-made soap!
ping
Ok. Maybe 150 tons displacement is not as large as I thought, but it would put it bigger than the Santa Maria, and would equate to a small medium cargo ship from Rennaissance Europe.
I don’t see how they can get all that information from a couple of old cinder blocks they found in the Ocean, but that’s science for you.
Any fool can see that the Cretan Phoenician rock is way different from the Greek rocks.
I mean, sheesh. Its soooo obvious.
Excise taxes, you posit? Not about Helen and the war over condoms?
Thats revisionist....
LOL
I have seen home made soap.
That’s the size of a not very large Gulf shrimper. That is still pretty big for that time.
That’s the size of a not very large Gulf shrimper. That is still pretty big for that time.
I always love your archaeology posts.Thank you.
I can’t find the beautiful ornaments.
;’) You lay in the ground 3200 years, see how you look. ;’)
A cubic yard of water is 1682 pounds, so 150 tons (that’s displacement, but you know that) is about 178.36 cubic yards of water. By comparison, the Nina (formerly the Santa Clara, renamed for Columbus’ expedition) displaced about 100 tons, probably less (I’ve seen it estimated as little as 80 tons, but basically the three ships were of a similar size); the Santa Maria was the largest of his three ships, and it displaced about 110 tons.
In Roman times, single quarried objects 200 tons and up were transported to Rome from Egypt, by sea; the grain haulers Rome used probably served as the models and/or were adapted for such use. While some experts consider 100 tons the usual size for a large vessel in Roman times, that can’t possibly be true.
In earlier times, when Athens was at its peak, it built very large grain haulers, which could only be loaded in Egypt (where the grain originated) and only handled in the Piraeus. By Roman times the grain market in Athens was not what it had been, and one of the ancient writers living in Athens noted that the people of the city came out to gawk when one of the Roman-era haulers had to put in at the Piraeus due to some problem or other.
My pleasure, and thanks right back. I should also have noted that the Mycenaeans *were* Greeks, so if this anchor were Mycenaean, the snarkiness in the original article was wholly unwarranted. The Carians, Ionians (one of the Greek ethnic groups), and the Phoenicians all hung out, traded with one another, and were all over the seven seas during classical times, and during the preceding heroic age there was the semi-legendary Trojan War. The Iliad includes the catalog of ships (counts of the vessels provided by each of the participating Greek cities). Archaeology has turned up Mycenaean sites in the western Med.
Travel in the Ancient World
by Lionel CassonThe Ancient Mariners
by Lionel Casson
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