HOT NEWS !

By Claire Bessette - The Day

New England's real pirate history is coming to Otis Library on Sept. 11.

The pirate ship Whydah sank in a storm April 26, 1717, off the coast of Wellfleet on Cape Cod. In 1984, marine archaeologist Barry Clifford discovered the wreck and its wealth of gold, pirate artifacts and the namesake ship's bell.

Clifford opened a museum in Provincetown to display the artifacts and a laboratory to remove centuries of encrusted barnacles and sand from the items.

Now, the Whydah is going on a national tour, "Real Pirates," sponsored by National Geographic Society.

While Norwich is not a destination on the national tour, local officials have landed a piece of the action.

At the end of August, when Otis Library reopens after a furlough, selected items from the Whydah will be placed on display in the library lobby cases. On Sept. 11, Clifford will appear at the library for a fundraiser reception and lecture on the Whydah discovery and other shipwrecks he is now exploring, including searching for Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria, off the coast of Haiti.

"This is an exciting program, and given the long and illustrious maritime history of southeastern Connecticut, it seems like an excellent match," Otis Library Executive Director Robert Farwell said.

Clifford's lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. at Otis. Admission is $25 per person. A wine and hors d'oeuvres reception for $55 per person will be begin at 6 p.m. at the library. For information and reservations, call Otis Library at (860) 889-2365, extension 124.

Farwell said while the topic of pirates might be enticing to youths, the lecture program is geared for adults.

Clifford is also working on a major expedition to Ile Ste. Marie off the coast of Madagascar for a Discovery Channel "Quest" initiative. Five shipwreck sites were discovered; including the Adventure Galley (flagship of the pirate William Kidd) and the Fiery Dragon, commanded by the pirate William "Billy One-Hand" Condon.

By WPTV Web Team

Treasure hunting season is well underway in the waters off of the coast of Indian River County.

Captain Greg Bounds, Brent Brisben, and their team of treasure hunters found a four foot cannon and 22 gold coins just off of the coast of Indian River Shores on Sunday.

They estimate the coins are worth around $150,000 and date back to 1698. The canon is harder to estimate.

Brisben and his father bought out part of the territory owned by famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher, the man who discovered 40 tons of silver and gold on the Atocha wreck in the 1980s.

This is Brisben's first big find since he took over the operation. His group previously found a gold coin and gold locket.

Finding treasure is not as easy as it might appear. Many days treasure hunters return with nothing but suntans.

The group has been searching for the Lost Spanish Fleet of 1715 and the Queen's Jewels. These wrecks, and many more, have helped give the Treasure Coast its appropriate nickname.

By Roy Hoffman - Press Register

From bits of brick, pieces of slate and shards of glass, Neil Norman is hoping to piece together the lost world of Africatown.

For the last several weeks, the anthropology professor from the College of William & Mary has excavated sites in Plateau, in north Mobile County, looking for remnants of the daily life of the Africans who arrived in Mobile in 1860 as captives on the slave ship Clotilda.

"This is one of the few projects of its kind in the country," said Norman, who was accompanied by a group of students helping with the dig.

His personal interest deepened after working in Benin, in west Africa, home to the slaves who were brought to Mobile on the Clotilda.

In a room at the Brookley Conference Center, Norman looked out at bags of seeming rubble and debris that his group had collected. 

But in those bags, he explained, were archaeological treasures. He picked up a bright red bead and cradled it in his palm -- a piece of jewelry, or adornment, he said.

He examined a piece of crockery, and a bit of pig bone.

In Plateau, he said, on the homesites of the Clotilda's descendants, were architectural elements that he had just begun to uncover, like a double hearth in the home of one former slave.

The objects "talk about the dynamics of daily life," he said.

By Michael Dresser - The Baltimore Sun

For months in the spring and summer of 1814, Commodore Joshua Barney and his ragtag flotilla of gunboats had harassed the mighty British navy on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

But outnumbered and outgunned, Barney and his miniature fleet were bottled up in the Patuxent River with no escape and enemy forces approaching.

So following orders from Washington, Barney's men scuttled the estimated 17 vessels — including his flagship, the USS Scorpion — near a place known as Pig Point.

Almost 200 years later, a team of archaeologists have been combing the bottom of a stretch of the river separating Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties in search of artifacts from what they believe is the wreckage of the Scorpion.

With a storm approaching, Susan Langley emerged from the murky waters of the Patuxent on a recent afternoon last week and climbed aboard a cluttered barge floating above the presumed resting place of the Scorpion.

"Visibility is a pretty grim right now," the chief archaeologist for the Maryland Historical Trust reported as she and her colleagues from the historical trust, the State Highway Administration and the Navy neared the end of three weeks of underwater excavation efforts.

The team wrapped up Monday but hopes to be back next year to resume the mission to uncover a long-buried piece of Maryland's history in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812 campaign that ended in the successful defense of Baltimore.

Archaeologists have suspected the presence of Barney's flagship in this spot since 1980, when Nautical Archaeological Associates researchers Donald Shomette and Ralph Eshelman performed a magnetometer survey of the river bottom and found artifacts they believed came from the Scorpion.

But lacking the funds and facilities to preserve what they might uncover, they decided to conserve the wreck in place — leaving its excavation for another time.

That time didn't come until this year — and only in a limited way.

"It's all about the money," said Julie Schablitsky, chief archaeologist for the highway administration, which is involved because it is Maryland's center of expertise in archaeology.

(Federal and state laws require the agency to protect historical resources that might be in the way of road projects.)

Much of the funding for the project comes from federal transportation programs administered by the state.

Schablitsky said the state and federal governments were able to put together $200,000 to finance this summer's explorations, which were intended to pinpoint the dimensions of the wreckage to allow its excavation in future years.

"It truly is a literal time capsule, and 200 years would be a perfect time to open this time capsule," Schablitsky said. "This is a prime opportunity to garner support and enthusiasm for what we believe will be a very symbolic object to the entire state of Maryland."

The events that put the Scorpion on the bottom of the Patuxent are part of a heroic but little-known chapter in American history involving an all-but-forgotten hero of the early Navy.

Barney, born near what is now Dundalk, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War who re-entered naval service after war with Britain broke out in 1812.

The summer of 1814 found him in command of the Chesapeake flotilla, a makeshift fleet of shallow-draft barges that did a surprisingly effective job of delaying and annoying the British. Barney's flagship was the estimated 50-foot Scorpion, with two long guns and two carronades.

In 1814, the British dispatched a fleet and army to the Chesapeake Bay region, where they raided costal settlements. Barney's ships were forced to flee to the sanctuary of the shallow St. Leonard Creek near the mouth of the Patuxent, where British warships could not pursue them.

By Jaya Menon - Times of India

Exploration planned under the sea off Poompuhar on Tamil Nadu's coast could provide evidence of the thriving trade centre mentioned in the works of Ptolemy and Pliny

According to the Tamil epic Manimekalai, Poompuhar on Tamil Nadu's east coast was 'swallowed' by the sea following the curse of a goddess.

The myth says that a Chola king, mourning his son's death, forgot to celebrate the annual spring festival, Indra Vizha and incurred the deity's wrath.

Historians today believe that the disaster that hit the port town was a tsunami. Centuries later, the 2004 tsunami that ravaged modern-day Poompuhar has posed a big challenge to archaeologists.

The ancient town lies buried in the sea and divers of the Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography will have to scrape through layers of sediment, sea barnacles, flora and fauna to piece together the story of the busy port town that had trade links with the east and the west.

"There is enough proof that the rich merchants of Manigrama, a suburban village of ancient Poompuhar, travelled by boats accompanied by 'sena muka' (soldiers to defend vessels against pirates) to Takua Pa (now in south Thailand) to trade in mani (gems).

A Tamil inscription on a stone to this effect is still preserved in modern-day Takua Pa," says former state archaeology director, R Nagaswamy.

Notable Greeks such as Ptolemy and Pliny describe this Chola town as an important port. It flourished between the 3rd century BC and the 5th century AD and did business with both the Roman Empire and China, until it was washed away by tidal waves.

Onshore and offshore excavations since the 1960s have given archaeologists an exciting glimpse of this once rich town. Excavations have revealed ring wells, brick structures, semi-precious stones and shards of amphorae.

State archaeology minister Thangam Thennarasu says the government is keen on an elaborate exploration that can help unearth and preserve the remnants of an ancient Tamil culture.

The government is in talks with the NIO for an expedition that would also include other ancient ports off the TN coast, now submerged under the sea.

Besides Poompuhar, the excavation team will also explore Alagankulam, near Rameswaram, Periyapattinam, where large quantities of porcelain were found, Korkai near Thoothukudi, mentioned in Sangam literature as a pearl-rich port and Nagapattinam, another port that flourished during the medieval period.

By Jesse Robichaud - Times & Transcript

Everything turns to dust.

At least that's the case for artifacts that are salvaged from the estimated 9,500 shipwrecks that sit on the sea floor off New Brunswick if they aren't properly treated for conservation.

The New Brunswick legislature has already granted royal assent to the Heritage Conservation Act that will regulate shipwreck salvaging and treasure hunting across the province's land and seas.

Once the act's regulations are ready, it will replace the 1954 Heritage Sites Protection Act, which depends on a ministerial discretion to name protected sites.

The new law, which was voted on before Nova Scotia's NDP government declared it would overhaul its Treasure Trove Act and render the spoils of treasure hunting property of the Crown, will clearly define what constitutes a protected artifact.

"Previously, the process was that if someone wanted something protected they would have to make the argument to the minister responsible for heritage," said government archeologist Brent Suttie.

"There are a few shipwrecks that are protected provincial sites, and those sites are protected because people were either going to salvage them or people were picking stuff off the bottom from fairly old and significant sites."

Suttie says the act will be of particular use to amateur scouts of treasures and relics who will be able to access the province's resources and expertise to help conserve artifacts that otherwise couldn't stand up against the test of time plainly exposed.

"The whole intent is addressing issues we have had in the past of people finding pretty amazing stuff and not having the capacity or the ability to preserve it, and that stuff is lost," said Suttie.

Suttie said artifacts that are found in the water or on the eroding coast can disintegrate in a matter of months if trained professionals can't treat them first.

"If they hold on to it themselves it is going to be dust in a matter of months," he said.

The new legislation will make these protected artifacts property of the Crown. So what's in it for these amateur history sleuths ? Suttie says that in the majority of cases if an artifact is deemed strong enough to maintain its physical integrity once it is exposed to oxygen, it will be loaned to the finders on a long-term basis.

"The new act allows for amateur archeological licenses which still don't allow people to do destructive practices like digging, but what it does allow is people to walk the shoreline and find early historic artifacts."

The shoreline is the focal point for amateur treasure hunters because digging for artifacts without a proper archeological permit is illegal in New Brunswick, explains Suttie.

That makes erosion the best friend of amateur relic hunters.

Read more...

From the Augusta Chronicle

A decade after the raising of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley off the South Carolina coast, the cause of the sinking of the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship remains a mystery. But scientists are edging closer.

On Friday, scientists announced one of the final steps that should help explain what happened after the hand-cranked sub and its eight-man crew rammed a spar with a powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic off Charleston in February 1864.

Early next year the 23-ton sub will be delicately rotated to an upright position, exposing sections of hull not examined in almost 150 years.

When the Hunley sank, it was buried in sand listing 45 degrees to starboard. It was kept that way as slings were put beneath it and it was raised and brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston a decade ago.

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the raising of the Hunley, discovered five years earlier by shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler.

As thousands watched from boats and the shoreline, the Hunley was brought from the depths and back to the lab by barge. Thousands turned out again in April 2004 when the crew was buried in what has been called the last Confederate funeral.

Read more...

From Barents Observer

The unique operation on removal of the wreck of the Russian cruiser Murmansk in Sørøya, Northern Norway, will be made into a documentary. A webcam has been put up by the wreck, giving people the opportunity to follow the operation on-line.

Since this is a unique project on world basis the contractor Norwegian company AF Gruppen Norge AS and the Norwegian Coastal Administration want to document the operation through a documentary, NRK reports. The two parties have concluded an agreement with a film production company.

The web camera that has been put up near the shipwreck will provide possibilities for time-laps sequences in the film. This is the first time the new camera system Roundshot livecam is being used in Norway, which on three seconds can take 360° freeze-frames. The on-line pictures will have a 24 hour delay, the Norwegian Coastal Administration’s web site reads.

Removal of the wreck of the Russian cruiser “Murmansk” started last summer, as BarentsObserver reported. The vessel ended its days in Sørøya in the rocks outside Sørvær on the coast of Finnmark in December 1994. The cruiser was being tugged southwards for scrapping when it tore away during a storm and has since been to a lot of nuisance to the local population.

The plan is to drain the sea bottom around the wreck by using jetties and then cut the vessel in pieces on the dry bottom. The operation should be completed in 2011.

Watch the removal operation on-line here !!