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From The Sofia Globe

Archaeological finds in Bulgaria are usually limited to excavations of Thracian and classical antiquity sites on land, but the waters of the Black Sea hold no fewer treasures, as an expedition off the coast of Bourgas is finding.

The medieval fortress on Cape Akin near the village of Chernomorets (10km south east of Bourgas) is not a new find, but it has not been heavily investigated before this summer – in part, due to the military bases that dot the areas immediately around Bourgas, which were no-go zones during the communist era.

This has proven a blessing in disguise because it has kept the sites undisturbed by treasure hunters, the bane of Bulgarian archaeologists in other areas, most notably the “valley of Thracian kings” near Kazanluk.

Following his digs on Cape Akin earlier this summer, archaeologist Ivan Hristov has now turned his sights on the waters of Vromos Bay, which lies between Cape Akin at the east and Cape Atiya to the west, according to the National History Museum.

With two boats and eight divers, Hristov’s expedition has focused on the remains of a trading village that also served as an unloading point for small ships, now entirely submerged under water at a depth of about 15m, the museum said in statement.

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By Rossela Lorenzi - Discovery News

Hungarian archaeologists have found what they believe may be an intact medieval shipwreck in the Danube river.

Partially buried in mud and gravel near the riverbank at Tahitótfalu, some 18 miles north of Budapest, the flat bottom river wreck has yet to be excavated.

A preliminary survey from the Argonauts Research Group in cooperation with the county museum of Szentendre, revealed that the ship is about 40 feet long and 10 feet wide.

The archaeologists could distinguish oak floor-planks, floor-timbers, and L-shaped ribs.

They also noticed that the junction piece of the bottom and the side wall of the wreck is carved from a single log.

"Only a few river ships of this kind have been found in Europe," Attila J. Tóth, associate of the National Office of Cultural Heritage, told Discovery News.

The ship most likely sank because of an accident.

"River navigation was dangerous. Downstream cargo ships floated using large rudder-oars, which made maneuvering very hard. Accidents happened very often," Tóth said.

The largest river of Central Europe, the Danube connected in the Middle Ages Hungary with the German Empire to the west and the Byzantine Empire to the south, serving as a waterway for intense commerce as well as a route for military campaigns.

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By Dene Moore - The Star Phoenix

Archeologists involved in the hunt for the wreckage of the Franklin Expedition in Canada's Arctic have discovered human remains they believe are from a member of the doomed crew.

Despite bad weather that has hampered some of their plans, the journey has been a productive one so far, says the chief of underwater archeology for Parks Canada, and it should get even better with the addition of an automated underwater vehicle from the University of Victoria.

"Work is going well ... (but) we haven't found the ships yet," Marc-Andre Bernier said in a telephone interview after leaving the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier last week.

What they have found in a search on land are more artifacts from the ill-fated expedition.

At Erebus Bay, where at least a dozen members of the Franklin crew are known to have died, more human remains have been recovered.

"They did find a human tooth, and some bone and a toothbrush," Bernier said. "These were really exciting finds."

Sir John Franklin set out from England on May 19, 1845, on a mission to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic.

He had two Royal Navy ships - the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror - a crew of 135, and provisions for what was expected to be a three-year journey.

In August 1845, two European whaling ships had a chance meeting with the Franklin Expedition as they waited to cross Baffin Bay to Lancaster Sound.

That would be their last contact with the outside world.

From SF Gate
 

Alerted to changing conditions by a Houston photographer, an archaeology team is working against the clock off Galveston to get a 3-D record of the remains of the Hatteras, an iron-hulled Union gunboat sunk by the South on Jan. 11, 1863.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration is leading the charge and credits underwater photographer and journalist Jesse Cancelmo for sparking the expedition after recent storm activity uncovered the shipwreck from silt and sand about 20 miles off the Texas Coast.

The U.S. Navy ship is “largely intact” at 57 feet below the surface, NOAA says on its website.

Working from a NOAA research vessel and two private craft, the divers plan to deploy high-resolution mapping sonar to create 3-D photomosaics of the Hatteras for research, education, and outreach purposes during the two-day mission.

The team was to begin sonar mapping work Monday.

“This will create a detailed visual representation of a long buried wreck in murky waters that we can share with the public while also using it to plan for USS Hatteras’ long term protection as an archaeological site and war grave,” says James Delgado, director of maritime heritage for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.

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From The Associated Press

Shipwrecks and other obstructions the Union sank to the bottom of Charleston Harbor during the Civil War – along with submerged Confederate blockade runners – are mapped in a project that took scientists nearly as long as the four-year battle for the city where the war began.

The endeavor taken on by James Spirek and his colleagues from the University of South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology cost almost $60,000 and provides a nearly complete map of the war relics in the busy harbor.

The project was financed with an American Battlefield Protection grant matched by the institute.

The map includes the locations of the so-called Stone Fleet and 13 wrecked blockade runners.

The Union brought the Stone Fleet of 29 old whaling and merchant vessels from New England, filled them with stones and sank the mess to obstruct Confederate shipping.

Spirek’s team located the first Stone Fleet by finding ballast mounds beneath the main shipping channel.

A second group of 13 ships is in another channel and its location has proved elusive, so Spirek plans to return this year to explore further.

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From NBC Miami

The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is currently conserving the pieces from Nuestra Senora de Atocha and Santa Margarita.

Gov. Rick Scott visited a Key West museum Friday to select shipwreck artifacts to be displayed in the Governor’s Mansion this month, the Florida Keys News Bureau announced.

The artifacts, currently conserved at Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, were salvaged from 16th and 17th century Spanish shipwrecks off the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.

They are expected to be exhibited at the mansion during National Hispanic Heritage Month, the bureau said.

"Part of the history of Florida is all the treasure ships, what Mel Fisher did, the ships that were coming back and forth from Spain," he said.

"My wife has opened up the mansion to a lot more children coming through, and it's a way for them to learn a lot more about the history of the state."

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By Joseph Catanzaro - The West Australian

A WA shipwreck hunter credited with finding the watery grave of the Batavia believes he has discovered the great ghost ship of the Abrolhos, a Dutch merchantman that mysteriously disappeared almost 300 years ago with 200 souls and a fortune in silver aboard.

The Aagtekerke, which vanished in 1726 on a journey from Africa to Indonesia, has eluded Hugh Edwards for almost 50 years

But the 79-year-old said that decades of research and many expeditions meant the ocean might be about to give up a jealously guarded secret.

Mr Edwards believes the sunken grave of the Aagtekerke - and up to three tonnes of silver coins which would be worth millions of dollars today - lie just a few hours from Geraldton by boat.

In his Swanbourne home yesterday, he unrolled a map on a desk littered with relics and pointed at a treacherous section of reef off the Abrolhos Islands.

"We believe we've found it," Mr Edwards said.

In 1966, Mr Edwards was spear-fishing off the Abrolhos when he found an elephant tusk on the ocean floor. He knew then and there it would lead him to a wreck. He just didn't realise it would be the lost Aagtekerke.

The tusk was a mere 300m away from where, in 1963, Mr Edwards and his team had found evidence of the wreck of another Dutch merchantman, the Zeewyk.

The ships had been built like identical twins.

The Zeewyk wreck would later prove to be the major obstacle and the key to unlocking the mystery of her missing sister ship's supposed location.

In the 1700s, Dutch trading vessels, loaded with chests full of silver destined for the China spice trade, frequently made the dangerous voyage between the Cape of Good Hope and Indonesia.

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By Marina Mello - The Royal Gazette Online

Bermuda’s “inspirational” scuba diving is a cover story in Sport Diver magazine, featuring several pages of colour photos of the Island’s shipwrecks and sights as the writer follows in the footsteps of the stars of the movie The Deep.

And even more publicity is set to follow in the November issue when the magazine publishes a 16-page feature on Bermuda and a special guide to the Island.

But the leading scuba magazine said it received no cooperation or advertising from the Tourism Department for either issue —- despite the fact the new National Tourism Plan specifically named diving and water sports as a new “destination hub” that Bermuda should be marketing.

In fact, Sport Diver’s editor said they were only able to eventually get all the articles and guide produced by working directly with two dive centres and two hotels on the Island.

The editor said Bermuda Tourism representatives in Britain had provided no help with the assignment, but that did not put his team off wanting to write about diving in Bermuda.

In the end, the dive centres and hotels ended up funding the Bermuda guide, he said.

“After much contact back and forth with the UK representation for the tourist board regarding sorting out an editorial trip to Bermuda, and the possibility of a 16-page ‘Guide to ...’, eventually it all came to nothing despite endless promises of assistance, and the only reason that we managed to get any articles on Bermuda — and a cut-down, 12-page ‘Guide to ...’ — was through the sterling efforts of two individual dive centres, assisted by two hotels,” said Mark Evans, editor of Sport Diver’ and Global Dive Companion.

UK-based Sport Diver is the official magazine of PADI’s International Diving Society.

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