Posted on 10/01/2022 9:28:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have described the discovery of a 2,000-year-old anchor on the seabed off Suffolk as an "incredibly rare" underwater find.
The distinctive wrought iron anchor was found 140 feet down in the southern North Sea during survey works for ScottishPower Renewables’ £2.5billion East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm.
Experts believe the anchor is a rare example from the Roman or possibly late Iron Age – somewhere between 1,600-2,000 years old – and is evidence of Romans' seafaring and trading off the coast of the East of England.
Brandon Mason from Maritime Archaeology Ltd said: “Everything points to this being a Roman anchor of almost 2,000 years old, which is an incredibly rare piece of history.
"If this date is confirmed, it would be hard to overstate its significance – we only know about three pre-Viking anchors from northern European waters outside the Mediterranean region and only two actually survived.
“We believe this find could be the oldest and one of the largest surviving examples, giving us hard evidence of the incredible amount of activity that must have been going on in the waters in Roman times, but that we know relatively little about.
"It’s an absolute privilege to bring the anchor to the surface and to share its story with people not just across the East of England, but right around the world."
(Excerpt) Read more at eadt.co.uk ...
Surprising that it’s not completely rusted away.
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Probably has multiple coats of Rust-Oleum. It stops rust!
thank you
Ditto that! My favorite subject and Civ always delivers goodies!
At that point in time it would have been forged from
wrought iron not steel. The fibrous nature of forged iron
tends to retard oxidation. Wrought iron has traditionally
been used for dam grates and other immersed items.
Making forgings of that size by hand 2000 years ago would have been pretty amazing.
Yes today it would be welded together from smaller pieces but how do you forge something that size?
At that point in time as far as we know mechanical forging
machines were not in existence.
Yet huge forgings were made, such as the Pillar of Delhi
although that was somewhat closer to the present but
still pre-machine age.
It is vastly larger than that anchor and of much finer
workmanship. It also is known for not rusting or oxidizing
even exposed to the outdoors for hundreds of years.
lol
I’ll bet it was 50% rust and was very delicately brought up. Perhaps wrapped in a net.
Two works best, but once, twice, three tines an anchor were probably all tried.
That must be the anchor that was referred to in the 2000 year old Roman joke book.................
Yes, there were probably millenniums of foul language before they settled on two tines.
Particularly when the knot came loose and a new anchor was needed.
Don’t be so quick as to assume the knot came loose, there may we be a sunken Roman ship down there as well.
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