Posted on 09/09/2005 8:28:22 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea.
Nautical archaeologist Dr Tom Vosmer and seven other sailors had set off from Oman for a two-week voyage in the Magan, a 12-metre-long sailing boat made of reeds, rope and wood, but capsized within hours.
"Water leaked into the Magan causing it to capsize, but a support ship from the Omani royal navy accompanying the boat intervened and rescued the sailors," a source from Oman's culture and national heritage ministry which organised the trip told AFP.
Experts on board the ship are now trying to repair the Magan to enable it to resume its 500-nautical-mile journey, the source said.
The voyage was aimed at reliving a voyage not made for about 5,000 years, when such boats plied the waters between Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and India.
Magan, named after a civilisation about 5,000 years old believed to have emerged in what is now Oman, sailed from Sur, 300 kilometres south of Muscat, to cross the Arabian Sea to India carrying fish, pottery filled with Omani honey, incense, copper and other traditional foodstuffs and wares. The sailors, from Australia, Oman, India, Italy and France, were hoping to rely on stars, waves and the colour of the sky and sea to find their way to Mandvi in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
While carrying no engine, Magan is fitted with some radars and safety equipment and was being trailed by a support ship from the Omani royal navy.
Dr Vosmer, formerly of the WA Maritime Museum but who has been living in Oman for several years, was at the forefront of designing and constructing the boat.
He told the Indian Express newspaper last month that the boat was constructed using the same materials employed in the Bronze Age.
These included reeds, bound with rope handmade from date palm fibre. Bitumen, imported from Iraq, was used for water-proofing.
Wooden parts were made from teak, sails were hand-woven from sheep wool and the ropes made from goat hair.
The project began after an Omani-Italian-French archaeological mission discovered about 300 fragments of bitumen during excavations in the early 1990s.
Dr Vosmer was the first to understand the significance of the bitumen fragments, said a report in the Oman Observer.
© 2005 AAP Brought to you by AAP
This sounds like old news.
Maybe they shoulda aksed Thor Heyerdahl.
A short-trip version of the Kon-Tiki?
The Ruins at Vijayanagara and Hampi, in India 
They might have used a little mud or tar to seal the bottom... Over 5,000 years the mud is gone leaving only the reeds so they actually did not duplicate the vessel.
And just why is that do you suppose?
Anyone? ;)
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They may, and I stress may, learn what "the ancients" found out about boating. If you go to sea in a boat that can leak and come apart it will. A lot of ancient would be seamen drowned in order to get a start on sea travel.
A wooden ship would make more sense.
Where do you get waterproof mud?
Ah, Adventures in Paradise!
You might also want to actually put your boat in the water to test it before you start a 500 mile journey into open ocean.
http://www.wedigboats.org/Thaikkal.htm
The Kadakkarapally Boat,(The Thaikkal Find)
An Ancient Sailing Barge in India
This is a collaborative project between INA and the State Institute of Archaeology, Art History, Conservation, and Museology (SIAACM) of Kerala, India
Director: Dr. M.V. Nair- (SIAACM)
Associate Director (hull recording): Dr. Ralph K. Pedersen- (INA)
Preliminary information:
Located in a coconut grove at Kadakkarapally, near Chertala in Kerala, India.
The hull has been carbon-dated by Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany, Luchnow, India to 1010 years before present. Further testing conducted by Beta Analytics, Florida, USA has yielded at date of AD 1020 to 1270, the lower end of which reinforces the date from the lab in luchnow. There are no associated artifacts with the wreck that can aid in the determination of the ship's age.
Two maststeps, one amidships, and one double-socketed in the bow, indicate that this was a sailing barge. Its hull is divided into sections by bulkheads that either served to separate cargo or to stablize it. The bulkheads were not watertight.
Hull constructed primarily of anjili (aini) wood (Artocarpus hirsuta), a local hardwood.
The boat is flat-bottomed, hard-chined, and has little freeboard. It exhibits a combination of constructional features unique to the current corpus of nautical archaeology.
This is a project of SIAACM, at whose invitation Dr. Pedersen and INA are collaborating.
Each day the water must be pumped out for
recording to continue.
A view toward the bow of the vessel
The wreck as viewed from the starboard
stern quarter
Yet not so tragic as last year's "Boat of Mud" expedition, I'm thinking...
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