[fso301]

I'm not an Egyptologist or student of military antiquities but my guess is the Egyptian chariots were largely composed of wood due to it's weight. Fasteners and decorations may have been metallic but I suspect the axle, wheels, floor and apron were largely wooden.

At growth rates of 1/2 inch per year, corals would have long ago overgrown their original seed material (metal chariot parts) and would now be large coral reefs. To have a recognizeable chariot part, recovered now, it would have needed to have been buried at or shortly after the Egyptian army was destroyed.

[Smokin' Joe]

Agreed on the probable composition. However, rates of coral growth and sedimentation/scouring of sediments cannot be assumed to be constant. Wood may or may not have provided appropriate anchor points for coral if the wood was covered with sediment rapidly, and the amount of coral growth is dependant on numerous factors as well. Too many variables in the equation.

You are right about burial, but the mechanism of closing walls of water could have provided plenty of suspended sediment with no prevailing current.

Coral growth and sedimentation could be significant, or nearly negligable; the conditions which would promote organic decay (water circulation, nutrient flow, oxygenation) would also enhance coral growth to a point. They are not a given, however. Even so, encrustation of wooden artifacts should provide even crude molds, which properly found and investigated, should yield at least the gross morphology of the void space, and thus, be identifiable to some degree. Wood has survived long internment under water in the proper conditions, though little known to be from this era.

If this is a shipwreck, there should be evidence of cargo, ballast, and a ship, with some fittings unique to that (maritime) venue. The debris field should be limited in size (by the size of the vessel).

If an army on the march, another assemblage of artifacts would be expected of a more terrestrial bent, one significantly larger than a ship could contain, and dispersed in such a fashion that would make a maritime source unlikely.

Imagine drowning a large force of foot soldiers, horse, and chariots. Even if the chariots were made from wood too dense to float, or adorned/fitted heavily eonugh to stay submerged, only the soldiers encumbred by sufficient goods, armor, or weapons to hold their bodies on the bottom after bloating would stay in place. Putrefaction, bloating, and a west wind could have delivered numerous weapons into the hands of the Hebrews, literally coming ashore.

I was thinking, though that any force of significant size should have contained a fair metallic component in the debris, (clasps, buckles, ornaments, if not weapons, (projectile points, etc.) In the absence of ferrous metals, (no magnetic anomaly), this might be tougher to detect, but there should still be a substantial amount of material which should have been left on the bottom.

Politics of the region will likely make thorough investigation difficult, if not impossible, which is a pity. This is intriguing as an archaeological problem, the potential religious significance is astounding.