HOT NEWS !

By Kristin Romey - Newswatch National Geographic

After a year of careful planning, our National Geographic team is now set up at a base camp on the northern shore of Issyk Kul, one of the world’s highest and deepest lakes, in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.

So why are we here ? Issyk Kul, which means “hot lake” in Kyrgyz, was a critical location along the fabled Silk Road, with routes running along its shores.

Nestled in the largest east-west valley in the high Central Asian mountains, Issyk Kul was renowned in historical documents as a strategic point along the Silk Road that was vied and battled for over the millennia.

Countless traders, caravans and nomadic tribes and armies traveled along the 113-mile long lake, leaving a remarkable archaeological legacy behind.

Since the nineteenth century, Russian scientists and, subsequently, Soviet archaeologists and researchers from the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences have studied the ancient remains around Issyk Kul, which range from petroglyphs and 3,000-year-old kurgans (nomadic burial mounds) to early Christian monasteries and medieval cities.

Early on, Issyk Kul also drew attention from researchers for the remains that lie beneath its stunning cobalt waters.

It’s an endorheic lake (meaning that it has no outlet) with abundant underwater springs, and the water level has fluctuated dramatically over the centuries, submerging settlements, buildings and even entire cities that had been established on earlier shorelines.

Issyk Kul was one of the earliest sites for underwater archaeological research in Central Asia, with divers exploring its depths as long ago as the 1860s.
 

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From Cape Gazette

During the month of September, the Zwaanendael Museum at 102 Kings Highway in Lewes will shine a spotlight on southern Delaware’s unique maritime history with a series of programs that explore local shipwrecks, seafaring traditions and the area’s early whaling industry.

Lectures and tours of the remains of His Majesty’s Sloop DeBraak, which was capsized and lost off the Delaware coast on May 25, 1798, will take place at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Mondays, Sept. 10, 17, 24 and Oct. 1.

The program begins at the Zwaanendael Museum and includes a trip to the DeBraak hull facility in nearby Cape Henlopen State Park for an interpreter-led tour of the ship’s remains. Limited seating. Admission is $10 in advance by reservation only at http://history.delaware.gov.

From 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 15, historical interpreter and artist Sharyn Murray will demonstrate the stipple technique used to draw artifacts from the Roosevelt Inlet Shipwreck, a British commercial ship that sank off Lewes in the late 18th century. Free admission.

At 3 p.m., Friday, Sept. 21, “Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of … .” The Fun Friday Oktoberfest program will explore beer, grog, rum and other beverages and foods that sustained sailors on their long voyages. Museum open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Free admission.

At 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 29, “A Whale of a Tale, Part One” will explore the whaling industry’s relationship to the first settlement in the First State by the Dutch in 1631. Museum open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Free admission.

By Erin  McLaughlin - ABC News

Hurricane Isaac has uncovered the remains of an old sailing ship on an Alabama beach, prompting questions about when the ship wrecked and where it came from.

The remains of the large wooden ship have been seen before: the wreckage is normally covered by sand, but the beach erosion caused by big storms has periodically given glimpses of what is left of the ship's hull.

The wreckage was first exposed after Hurricane Camille in 1969, then again in 2004 after Hurricane Ivan, and again in 2008 after Hurricane Ike.

But Isaac unearthed more of the ship than has been seen before, bringing droves of people out to see the bit of historical mystery on the shore.

Local historians say there really is no mystery about the ship's origins. According to Mike Bailey, historian with the Fort Morgan, Ala., Historical Society, the ship is the Rachel, a schooner built in Pascagoula, Miss., during World War I.

At that time, the government was using most steam ships for the war effort, but the region still needed trade ships, so the Rachel was built to carry cargo in the gulf.

The Rachel was built at the De Angelo Shipyard in Moss Point, Miss., for the purpose of carrying lumber.

When she was completed in 1918, she was the largest ship built in the yard at more than 150 feet long with three masts.

However, with the conclusion of WWI, she wasn't in high demand, sitting unused for several years, Bailey told ABC.

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Photo Laura Simon

By Lori Trepasso - Southeast Missourian

To some, diving for sunken treasure in the sea sounds like the stuff of mysterious novels or movies.

But to Randy Barnhouse, sunken treasure diving is a passion that he has pursued for nearly 30 years.

"I always liked swimming and being around lakes, rivers and streams," says Barnhouse. "In 1980, I decided to take scuba lessons from a local dive shop that was then located here in town.

I got my basic certification and then later my advanced certification, and that's [what eventually led me] to treasure diving."

Barnhouse goes treasure diving about once a year off the east coast of Florida.

"There was a fleet of Spanish ships that sank back in 1715 during a hurricane," says Barnhouse. "We know the location of about a half a dozen of those ships.

Some of the treasure [that those ships carried] has still not been found."

In 1985, Barnhouse was lucky enough to be involved in a dive that discovered the Spanish ship "Nuestra Señora De Atocha." It was the culmination of a 16-year search headed by Mel Fisher, whom Barnhouse calls "the undisputed king of sunken treasure."

"The Spaniards could never find that ship after it sank, so we really hit the mother lode when we found it," says Barnhouse. Thousands of emeralds, 150 pounds of gold and 50 tons of silver bars were found on that dive, along with a huge collection of gold chains, rings and crucifixes.

"We actually ended up lowering shopping carts down into the water with us to haul all of the treasure out," says Barnhouse.

Painstaking measures are taken to document everything found on treasure dives, according to Barnhouse.

"We take photographs and document things like the location of the item, how the artifact lies in relation to the wreckage and which ship wreck it came from," he explains.

"We treat each find as a time capsule. Otherwise, the historical integrity [of the artifacts] can be lost."

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By Petrice Tarrant - Marlborough Express

A new discovery about a sunken shipwreck in the ferocious Kaipara Harbour graveyard might rewrite New Zealand's history books.

At Dargaville Museum's annual meeting, dendrochronologist Jonathan Palmer revealed the preliminary results of a paper he has been working on for more than three years, which suggests New Zealand's oldest shipwreck is no longer a sealing supplies vessel called the Endeavour, which sunk in 1795, but is a ship buried off the Pouto coastline in 1705.

The paper has been submitted to the Royal Society of New Zealand and will hopefully be published in one month.

Shipwreck finder Noel Hilliam had developed a theory that the ship Cecillia Maria had travelled down from Portugal, stopped in Indonesia for repairs and made it to New Zealand where it was claimed by the unforgiving west coast.

With a piece of the wreck stored at his house, Hilliam teamed up with Palmer and various other professionals from universities in New Zealand and Australia to carbon date the timber samples.

When the team discovered that more of the remains had been stored at the museum since 1982 things sped up quickly, Palmer says.

The teak and tropical lagerstroemia wood samples from the ship have been carbon tested by Waikato Radiocarbon Dating laboratory director Alan Hogg at least five times.

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From Hydro International
 

On 31 August, the survey ship Level A collided with a Belgian-propelled barge on the Rhine at Basel, Switzerland, and capsized.

The four crew members fell overboard.

Although Professor Dr Volker Böder, director of the project and professor of geodesy and hydrography at the HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU), was rescued, he sadly died in hospital the following day as a result of his injuries.

Despite a large-scale search operation, the skipper of the Level A has not yet been found.

The two other crew members survived the accident. The Level A was commissioned by the Basel urban construction and transportation departments and in collaboration with the Swiss Rhine ports active in Basel, tasked with testing new equipment and technologies for measuring the shipping lanes in the Rhine.

Boat and crew had arrived at Basel earlier that week and were due to remain working on the Rhine in Switzerland for a further two weeks.

Professor Dr Volker Böder made an enormous contribution to encouraging young professionals to join the hydrographic industry.

From Paul Fraser Collectibles

A gold ingot that was salvaged from the SS Central America has returned to California after selling as top lot in Bonhams' Coins & Medals auction on September 2.

The ingot was recovered from the wreckage of the famed 280 foot sidewheel steamer, which was sunk by a hurricane in 1857.

At the time of sinking the "Ship of Gold" was weighed down with 10 tonnes of gold prospected during the California gold rush.

The 40.56 ounce bar, which is stamped: "No.648 Kellogg & Humbert Assayers 40.56oz 8.87 Fine", sold for $146,900. The sale saw the bar achieve a 4.6% increase on its high estimate of $140,000.

Since being located in 1987, and following an intense legal battle for ownership, the treasures of the wreck have been achieving outstanding results at auction.

Another, larger ingot sold for $891,250 at the 2012 ANA World's Fair of Money on August 9.

An 80 pound ex-SS Central America ingot was once recognised as the most valuable piece of currency in the world after selling for $8m in 2001.

From Art Daily

A team of Inrap archaeologists is currently excavating part of the Antique port of Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes).

This research, curated by the State (Drac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), is being conducted in advance of the construction of an underground parking lot by QPark. The archaeologists will work for seven months at the site of "Pré aux Pêcheurs”. 

Antibes is the Antique Antipolis, a Greek trading post founded by the Phocaeans of Massalia. The date of its establishment is still uncertain, but it followed an indigenous habitat located in the high areas of the current city.

Along the Provençal shoreline, Antipolis occupied an advantageous location on the maritime routes linking Marseille to the Italian coast. Like the Saint-Roch cove, it had a natural port that was protected from the dominant winds.

The prosperity of the Greek and then Roman city was largely based on the dynamic activity of its maritime commerce, as well as on the transformation of sea products, fish salting and the fabrication of garum (a fish based sauce).

The archaeologists are currently exploring, over 5000 m2, the bottom of an Antique port basin, which was progressively covered with sand.

This obvious waste dump has yielded many objects – waste thrown from mooring boats or bits of cargo lost during transshipments – and provides information on the daily activities of the sailors and the maritime commerce.

The layers of archaeological objects have been accumulating since the 3rd century BC until the 6th century AD.

Several tens of thousands of objects of all kinds that were sunken underwater in the Saint-Roch cove have already been recovered, including merchandise originating from periphery of the Mediterranean basin.

They alone illustrate the dynamic nature of the Antique port and commerce in this part of the Mediterranean.

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