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Mary Celeste discovery hints to a shady past
By James Whittaker - BDA Sun
A bottle of wine, discovered by scuba divers in the wake of Hurricane Bill, could help piece together an untold subplot of one of Bermuda's most storied shipwrecks.
The corked bottle, dated 1853, was found amid the wreckage of the Mary Celeste - a steam-powered blockade runner used to transport guns to British forces during the American Civil War. And experts believe it could hint at the ship's role in a trans-Atlantic black market wine trade.
The ship went down off the South Shore in 1864 claiming the life of the cook, who is rumored to have scrambled below decks in a futile bid to retrieve his wages.
The latest discovery, made by curator of wrecks Phillipe Rouja, hints at another role for the fated paddle wheel steamer.
"It's not worth that much in itself, but what it tells us about the story is more pleasing," said Mr Rouja.
"The wine had to have come from France, so while they were running guns it seems as though they were also running bottles of wine.
"Somewhere there was probably a buyer for this. It speaks to a black market trade."
The discovery was made in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Bill. The storm churned up the seabed around the wreck, exposing parts of the ship that had been buried under sand for years.
"You usually cannot see the stern at all but this time it was completely exposed, right down to the keel."
After making the find Mr Rouja immediately closed off the wreck to recreational divers. It is relatively unusual to discover new artifacts on Bermuda's shipwrecks, which have been heavily salvaged over the years, and he was keen to preserve the site.
He had planned further archaeological dives in a bid to retrieve pieces of the crate and confirm his theory that the wine bottle was part of a larger order destined for sale in the South.
In-depth exploration of Titanic at next historical society talk
By Jackie Hanusey - Shore News Today
Tom Maddox of Estell Manor, the owner of East Coast Diving in Northfield, will share his experience of being one of the last divers to see the Titanic during a Greate Egg Harbour Historical Society presentation 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 at the Egg Harbor Township Community Center.
In was in 2005 that Maddox went with a crew filming the special “Titanic's Final Moments: Missing Pieces” for The History Channel.
The opportunity of a lifetime to see the legendary shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean came by way of a diving student from 20 years ago, David Concannon, who went on to become a lawyer for James Cameron, producer and director for the film “Titanic.”
Fewer than 120 people have seen Titanic since it was found in 1985 about 2½ miles down on the Atlantic Ocean floor.
“It’s kind of like outer space,” he said. ‘Very few people can say they have gone there.” After they arrived on the wreck site, it took some time to get to their ultimate destination.
It takes 2½ hours to descend to the bottom where they can explore for seven hours before another two-hour journey back to the surface. Only three submersibles can stand the pressure at the depths of Titanic, and its close quarters. “Three people are in a 6-foot sphere for over 12 hours,” Maddox said about the experience.
He said a lot goes through your mind on such a trip. “You think about how you pass the point of no return,” he said, noting that after a certain point if one thing goes wrong with the sub, you would be crushed to death in moments.
There are also emotions one feels. “Even on the ship over top of her, there is also an eerie feeling that some type of hell happened there one night,” he said. “You can feel the screams and the panic.”
Maddox’s role during the expedition was to videotape the bow of the ship. “When you are down there you see first hand life jackets, ones that people either didn’t get on or someone was in it,” he said.
You also see the divides of the various classes still down there in the ruins. “The biggest remainders in the debris field are toilets, cups and saucers,” he said, noting that porcelain does not wither away in the water.
You also see the remainders of third class, as he saw chamber pots or bedpans, which passengers would have used on the bottom of the ocean.
While a man in scuba gear can only safely dive about 130 feet, Maddox said he still felt the urge to “crawl out the window” at times, wishing he could touch and feel what was going on outside. Beyond knowing the ship was the reason for going to sea, Titanic’s influences are everywhere when on the expedition, right down to the emergency drill you have to do first.
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By Barbara Cole - IOL
Shipwreck sleuth Vanessa Maitland likes nothing better than a mystery, and getting to the bottom of something for her means real deep research.
Maitland is a maritime archaeologist and when the ocean finally looks like giving up some of its secrets, she is called in to don her diving suit and investigate.
The Agatha Christie of the deep might not have uncovered the stuff of boys' adventure novels like pirated gold coins, but what she finds is much more important, she said.
"The treasure is the information you get," she said.
Fathoming a mystery might take her years, but as she put it, "it is not the destination, but the voyage that counts".
Maitland was called in recently after a mystery shipwreck was detected during dredging operations to widen and deepen the entrance to Durban harbour, which will enable the bigger ships of the future to get into the port.
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By Li Li - Beijing Review
Archaeologists exploring a well-preserved shipwreck prove a forgotten marine trade route.
The first probing of the ancient merchant vessel Nanhai No.1 after the wreck was put into a museum pool of simulated seawater successfully recovered porcelain and stone artifacts from its cabin on September 27.
Archaeologists said the more than 200 precious porcelain artifacts found on the 800-year-old ship were produced by some of China's best kilns operating at that time.
First discovered at the sea bottom 18 nautical miles off the coast in the South China Sea, known as Nanhai, in 1987, the 30-meter-long wrecked ship is believed by Chinese archaeologists to be one of the largest and best-preserved ancient vessels in the world.
Archaeologists salvaged the wreck and its surrounding silt with an iron container and hoisted it from its watery grave in December 2007.
The container was dragged ashore to a museum that was built specifically to exhibit the ship in the coastal city of Yangjiang.
The find was put into a pool that allows scientists to control the water temperature, pressure and other conditions to replicate the sea floor upon which the ship rested for centuries.
The creative salvage operation attracted enormous media coverage and was praised as a significant archaeological expedition for China.
World's oldest submerged town dates back 5,000 years
From Science Daily
Archaeologists surveying the world's oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago — at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.
These remarkable findings have been made public by the Greek government after the start of a five year collaborative project involving the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and The University of Nottingham.
As a Mycenaean town the site offers potential new insights into the workings of Mycenaean society. Pavlopetri has added importance as it was a maritime settlement from which the inhabitants coordinated local and long distance trade.
The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeology Project aims to establish exactly when the site was occupied, what it was used for and through a systematic study of the geomorphology of the area, how the town became submerged.
By Beverley Ware - The Chronicle Herald
A large rock juts out of the dark, choppy waters off Prospect.
Inscribed on it is the date Nov. 24, 1814, and the name Fantome, the British warship that hit a rocky reef and sank there.
This spot, about 30 kilometres southwest of Halifax, has become the flash point for a turf war that reaches to the depths of the ocean floor.
The crew of the 18-gun naval brig survived, and for nearly 200 years, so has the mystique about what the sloop may have been carrying.
Because of that, archaeologists and the treasure hunters who hire them to document Nova Scotia’s marine heritage are at loggerheads over how wrecks like the Fantome should be treated.
Nova Scotia is the only province to allow treasure hunting. Critics say the Treasure Trove Act should be abolished.
Bad weather hampers billion dollar recovery
From PR Web
Sub Sea Research has been over the shipwreck several times only to be driven off by heavy seas. Captain Greg Brooks stated "This has been the worst offshore weather in decades, but we will keep at it until we recover all the treasure aboard."
The German U-Boat U.87 fired 2 torpedoes at the freighter "Port Nicholson". Both torpedoes hit the ship and several hours later she sank. What is remarkable about this ship is that she carried a secret cargo of bullion headed from Europe to the U.S.
That cargo is 71 tons of platinum. At the time of sinking, it was un-salvageable because of depth restrictions, and the fact officials placed her sinking in the wrong spot.
She was not to be found until Sub Sea Research began the hunt in 2007. The company filed a federal claim on the site as soon as the wreck was located.
Utilizing their 220' salvage ship "M/V Sea Hunter", operations for recovery began in July. The companies two ships left Portland Maine and headed to the wreck site offshore Cape Cod Ma.
The Mary Rose's artefacts give us a unique insight into Tudor life
By Dr Eric Kentley - Times Online
Launched as the flagship of a young and ambitious king, the Mary Rose was not only a reflection of Henry VIII’s ambitions, she was also a new breed of warship.
She was one of England’s first ships to be built with gunports: part of the first generation of broadside-firing warships that heralded the beginnings of a 300-year period of warship design.
But the Mary Rose is important not only to maritime historians. It is also what she took with her to the bottom of the Solent in 1545 that gives her a special significance.
These were the possessions and tools of 500 men from all levels of society. The 19,000 artefacts that have been recovered range from gunners’ linstocks to gambling dice, from a bosun’s call to a rosary.
There is no comparable collection of Tudor artifacts anywhere: no other archaeological site has given us so many insights into Tudor life.
No other shipwreck, no other structure and no other collection gives such a clear window into the 16th century. It is no exaggeration to describe the Mary Rose as England’s Pompeii.
Her loss at a precise moment gives us a chronological reference point for all the artefacts that went down with her. This is almost unique for a museum collection.
Specialists from many fields consistently remark how the Mary Rose artifacts they have studied represent the earliest known examples of their type or provide unique information for the study of human society.