Posted on 10/25/2011 10:40:24 PM PDT by FritzG
The wreck of a ship thought to have taken part in a failed Mongol invasion of Japan has been found off the Japanese coast.
A team of researchers uncovered a 12-metre (36ft) section of keel buried in deep sand off Nagasaki prefecture.
They said it was the first time such a large piece of hull had been recovered from the Mongol invasion fleets.
The 13th Century attacks on Japan were a rare setback for the Mongols at the height of their powers.
Experts expressed surprise that the wreck was so well preserved after so many centuries on the seabed.
The researchers from the Okinawa-based University of the Ryukyus used ultrasonic equipment to detect the remains of the ship.
The wood on the hull was painted whitish grey and held together by nails. Bricks, weapons and other instruments were found on board.
The discovery is expected to shed light on the shipbuilding skills of the time and give clues about the nature of the Mongol defeat. 'Divine wind'
The Japanese have always attributed their victory to storms that wrecked the Mongol fleets during both attempted invasions in 1274 and 1281.
They concluded that Japan was protected from invasion by a divine wind, or Kamikaze, which was invoked in the Second World War to inspire pilots to launch suicide attacks on allied ships.
As Central Asian nomads, the Mongols had little experience of the sea and used subjugated Chinese and Koreans to build their fleets.
The structure of the ship is said to resemble Chinese ships of the era.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Kamikaze, ping.
Woah... I live about 20 miles from the place where this was found, and I never heard about it. Looks like I should have been watching local news instead of following the protester antics on the Internet :)
Boy are they lucky those ships never made it there! There would be no sushi today only Mongolia goat barbeque :-D
the Divine wind! Banzai! Thanks for posting this, Fritz
"They couldn't have built such ships on their own back then. They HAD to have some help from somewhere. These were definitely extraterrestrial ships!"
that’s funny
Several years ago, the History Channel (I think it was) aired a documentary on this doomed fleet and intimated the enslaved shipbuilders may have deliberately sabotaged the ships by employing substandard materials and shipbuilding techniques, knowing full-well they would come apart in heavy seas. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Incidentally, those fleets were enormous. Very impressive. The second one had over a thousand ships in it, iirc. Untold thousands drowned. Really knocked the wind out of the Mongols.
Must have been sailing ships. :-)
That guy is hillarious.
Pinging my wife to her favorite Art Bellian
And Centari are ALIENS, so you see no one else could have done the show on aliens, but an alien!!!!
Good ole Londo....
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