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By Colin Dwyer - NPR.org

In an act befitting "our long shared history and the closeness of our current bilateral relationship," the U.K. has announced it will give Canada the recovered shipwrecks of John Franklin, a British explorer who sought to chart an unnavigated section of the Northwest Passage in the Arctic in the 1840s — and died in the attempt, along with all of his crew.

"This exceptional arrangement will recognise the historical significance of the Franklin expedition to the people of Canada, and will ensure that these wrecks and artefacts are conserved for future generations," British Defense Minister Michael Fallon said in a statement published Tuesday.

For more than a century and a half, the resting place of the two vessels remained a mystery — until a team of archaeologists finally found and identified the HMS Erebus in 2014.

Just two years later, researchers acted on a tip from an Inuit man to find the HMS Terror, the flagship of Franklin's 1845 expedition, sitting "perfectly preserved" nearby in the waters near King William Island.

Reporting at the time the HMS Erebus was found, the Toronto Star explained the enduring riddle Franklin's doomed expedition has represented:

"Sir John Franklin and 128 crewmen were lost in the original expedition. Skulls believed to be of the members of the expedition were found and buried on King William Island in 1945. "But for 167 years it has remained a mystery as to why Franklin and his men were never heard from soon after the Royal Navy had mounted one of the best equipped Arctic explorations in its history to find a possible trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

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Ouest France

Une lettre d’un naufragé du Titanic, l’Américain Oscar Holverson, adressée à sa mère, a été vendue aux enchères, samedi en Angleterre, pour la somme de 126 000 livres sterling, soit 141 000 euros. L'hôtel des ventes Henry Aldridg Andson a publié un extrait de la lettre sur son compte Instagram. 

La missive datée du 13 avril 1912, soit la veille du naufrage, est composée de trois pages avec l’en-tête du Titanic, rapporte la BBC.

L’homme détaille la splendeur du paquebot. « Le bateau est d’une taille gigantesque, il est aménagé comme un palace », écrit-il avant de préciser : « Si tout va bien, nous arriverons à New York, mercredi » L’homme d’affaires américain périra le lendemain dans le naufrage.

En revanche sa femme Mary réussit à survivre.

La lettre a été retrouvée sur l’épave du Titanic, à l’intérieur d’un carnet de notes retrouvé sur le corps du défunt. Le courrier a été acheté par un collectionneur britannique.

By Peter B. Campbell - The Guardian

The shipwreck at Antikythera, Greece, continues to reveal its secrets and surprise archaeologists. As reported last week, recent excavations on the 1st century BC shipwreck have revealed statue fragments, bronze ornamentation, and wooden remains from the ship’s hull.

The finds are sensational, but the artifacts and the project have broader importance. Among the finds was the bronze arm of a statue, which may be the most significant find.

When the shipwreck was first found and excavated in 1900-1901, a number of bronze and marble statues were recovered. However, the arm is the first piece that has been found recently and it might point to more intact statuary in the area.

The arm is one of several limb fragments that do not have corresponding bodies. The Antikythera team hypotheses those statues could be in the vicinity of the undisturbed deposit that they excavated this year.

New bronze statues would be a sensational discovery. Bronze statues are among the rarest artifacts to survive from antiquity; however, ancient authors tell us that they were quite common.

Pausanias wrote a Roman travel guide of Greece and he describes the many bronzes statues filling cities like Athens. In Greek Bronze Statuary Professor Carol Mattusch writes, “all ancient literary accounts indicate that freestanding bronze statuary was the primary mode of artistic expression in Classical Greece.”

Ancient cities like Athens and Rome were filled with bronze sculptures, with bronze being preferred over marble.

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By Emily Kent Smith - Daily Mail

The remains of a ship in which more than 820 British prisoners of war drowned at sea after being locked inside by Japanese guards is believed to have been found decades after the tragedy.

Now, 75 years after one of the most shocking crimes committed during the Second World War, a debate over whether the ship’s wreckage should be recovered has been sparked by the only living British man who survived the atrocity.

The Lisbon Maru had some 1,800 captured British soldiers on board when it sunk in the East China Sea in September 1942 after being hit by an American torpedo.

As the 7,000 ton boat started to take on water, Japanese guards battened down the hatches with planks and tarpaulin to try and drown those stranded aboard and leaving many unable to escape.

Of those who made it off the ship, some were shot in the water. More than 820 stayed trapped in the boat and their bodies have remained underwater with no hope of the wreckage ever being found again, until now.

Sonar images have tracked a vessel 98ft below the surface and four miles from the island of Dongfushan, off China, with researchers saying they are ‘100 per cent sure’ they have found the Lisbon Maru.

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From The Siberian Times
 

The name of Benjamin (Ben) Leigh Smith may not seem too familiar among Arctic explorers, but it should be.

The intrepid explorer born into a radical English family named the cape where his vessel sank after being trapped between two giant icebergs after his famous relative Florence Nightingale, known as 'The Lady with the Lamp' for tending the wounded in the Crimean War, an English social reformer and statistician who is seen in her country as the founder of modern nursing. 

On his fateful voyage which culminated in the fateful sinking of his elegant steam yacht, the Eira, a remarkable photograph records a meeting at sea with two other ships from Peterhead in Scotland, the Hope and the Eclipse.

Leigh Smith invited on board the Eira the captains of both these ships and an historic picture records the occasion. 

After the Eira sank, the crew built a shelter - Flora's Cottage, made from driftwood, rocks and ship masts - and somehow survived six months of total darkness, intense cold, and bone cracking gales in the Arctic winter thanks in no small measure to ship's dog Bob.   

They were rescued the next summer after a perilous journey in storm force winds in the Eira's four lifeboats - with sails made of table cloths purloined from the sunken vessel -  to the waters off Novaya Zemlya where they were found by an expedition sent from England to rescue them.

For years researchers have sought to locate the wreck of the Eira, which had been specially built as an Arctic vessel for Leigh Smith. 

It is now revealed that in August 2017, the expedition 'The Open Ocean: Archipelagos of the Arctic' during a survey of the seabed at Cape Flora discovered 'an object' the size of the Eira.

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By Chris Lewis - ABC

For some, there's nothing more exciting than hunting and searching for buried treasure from a shipwreck that happened almost four centuries ago off the coast of Western Australia.

But for archaeologist, author and historian Bob Sheppard, the real treasure is discovering the tales associated with the legend of the wrecked Dutch ship — the Gilt Dragon. But he's reaching out to the public in the hope that someone, somewhere may be able to shed more light on the stories, particularly the event that happened at Dynamite Bay in Green Head in 1964 — so he can include the stories in a book.

"Following the discovery of the [Gilt Dragon] wreck in 1963 there was another party who believed that there was a treasure buried at Green Head which was also related to the Gilt Dragon," Mr Sheppard said.

"They said that the wreck that was found at Ledge Point was not the Gilt Dragon but another ship and the Gilt Dragon was actually wrecked in Dynamite Bay at Green Head.

"This was a story put around by a Dutch man who had a map of where the treasure was buried."

The story goes that Frank Moore helped out this Dutchman who was quite ill.

As a sign of goodwill the Dutchman, named only as Harry, later showed Frank a piece of old yellow parchment and told him it was a map that indicated where chests of coins from the Gilt Dragon were buried.

He claimed to be a direct descendent of one of the survivors of the Gilt Dragon. After showing Frank the map, he then burnt the parchment, saying no-one else has ever seen this and no-one will. The Dutchman later died.

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Tim De Chant - Nova Next

Archaeological divers excavating the Antikythera shipwreck have unearthed even more priceless artifacts, including fragments of statues and a mysterious bronze disc.

The site is among the richest underwater discoveries and dates back to the early days of the Roman Empire. Discovered more than a century ago, the 2,000-year-old wreck was once a cargo ship laden with art, pottery, and an ancient computer—known as the Antikythera mechanism—capable of tracking the movements of heavenly bodies with incredible precision.

On the latest dive to the site, which took place September 4–20, archaeologists found fragments of marble and bronze statues among the treasures.

Here’s Nicholas St. Fleur, reporting for the New York Times:

They said the haul hints at the existence of at least seven more bronze sculptures still buried beneath the seafloor. Bronze sculptures from that era are rare because they were often melted down to make swords, shields and other items. Only about 50 intact examples have survived, so if the team can salvage the submerged statues, it would be a remarkable recovery of ancient artifacts.

Divers first discovered the wreck in the early 1900s. At the time, they hauled up six right arms.

The seventh remained undiscovered until last month, buried a foot and a half beneath the seafloor. The team was only able to find it by using a specially designed metal detector that can peer through more than six feet of rock and sediment.

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From BBC News

British merchant steam ship SS Thistlegorm was hit by a German bomber in 1941 and lies on the bed of the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. The Thistlegorm Project, led by the University of Nottingham, could help to preserve its valuable remains. Director Dr Jon Henderson said the shipwreck deserved to be seen by the wider public.

A website has been launched to enable people to view the images. SS Thistlegorm was carrying trains, aircraft parts, trucks and motorbikes, and heading to Egypt to support the allied war effort when it was hit. Five Royal Navy gunners and four merchant sailors lost their lives.

The wreck has become one of the most famous dive sites in the world due to the clear water and military equipment still on board.

Dr Henderson, from the university's School of Archaeology, said: "The thing about underwater sites and the importance of underwater cultural heritage is that the only people who've ever seen it are divers. "However, we are now at a point where we have the technology to reconstruct these sites."

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