MA candidate Aja Rose from East Carolina University works on artifacts. A Roman helmet is in the foreground. (Credit: Egadi Islands Survey Project)
Posted on 07/10/2014 10:15:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Naval archaeologists think they’ve found the only example of armor from Carthage to survive the destruction of the city-state by Rome in 146BC.
The helmet, recovered from the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, northwest of Sicily, is dramatically different from the Celtic style worn across Europe, popularly known as a Roman helmet.
It appears to have a nose guard, a broad brim protecting the back of the neck from ear to ear, and a high, narrow crest, said Dr Jeff Royal, director of archaeology at the RPM Nautical Foundation in Florida.
Roman helmets, called montefortinos, are easily identified, said Dr Royal from the deck of his foundation’s ship, RV Hercules...
The suspected Carthaginian helmet, heavily encrusted after more than two-millennia under the Mediterranean Sea, is currently undergoing cleaning and conservation that should eventually reveal more details...
Dr Royal and his colleague Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily’s superintendent of the sea, and their team have also discovered ... 11 bronze battering rams, the main maritime weapon of the day. These were cast to custom fit the bows, thus revealing the dimensions of the timbers used in the keels.
From those measurements, Dr Royal and his team calculate that the ships could not have been more than 28 metres (90ft) long, far less than the 40 metres previously estimated. That throws into question whether they were really triremes, with three decks of oarsmen, as a ship so tall would be unstable.
The weight of the rams, around 125kg (275lbs), indicates that they would have been able to smash in the side of a ship, rather than just poke a small hole in it, as had been thought.
The rams, mounted below the waterline, had three horizontal planes designed to slice into their targets’ timbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
MA candidate Aja Rose from East Carolina University works on artifacts. A Roman helmet is in the foreground. (Credit: Egadi Islands Survey Project)
....... say what?
A pretty pair of....... archeological artifacts.
Why do these “teams” always include an attractive coed graduate student? Is it because the lead “scientist” has complete control and dominance over that students career or am I missing something?
Pretty hard to see the shape under all that crust. It will be interesting to see when it’s cleaned up.
It’s all about the axegrinding by the media shill, nothing more. At one time there weren’t a lot of women in the sciences, but as the sciences broadened to include things that are a little, uh, iffy science-wise, and all kinds of gubmint barriers and social barriers (including zero tolerance and so-called diversity training) were placed in the way of boys and young men at every level of schooling, such fields looked less and less attractive. In the US, antiscientific BS like NAGPRA and the global warming hoax have helped destroy the sciences both in education and in practice, and undermine interest except among the indoctrinated. Basic science is well on the way to being destroyed in the US — and yet the misdirection play is to blame people who aren’t in charge of either of those fiascos but are instead fighting tooth and nail against them.
Probably non-invasive methods would work.
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