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From Colombo Page

Kuda Ravana and Maha Ravana seas in Sri Lanka's southern maritime territory have been proclaimed as Secured Zones due to the archaeological value of the area.

Maritime archaeological researchers have found a number of places and objects of archaeological and historical value from this zone which can be accessed by boat from Kirinda.

The decision to proclaim this area a security zone was taken at a discussion held in last July between the Archeological Department, Central Cultural Fund and Sri Lanka Navy.

Legend says King Ravana had build fortresses at these locations which are submerged in the sea now.

From Radio new Zealand News


A New Zealand heritage group says it has discovered what appears to be a German U-Boat lying in a watery grave off the Kaipara Coast in Northland.

The Underwater Heritage Group says the mystery of how the U-boat came to be there involves Nazis and stolen treasure.

The group's vice-president, Noel Hilliam, believes the submarine is U-196 and that it sailed to New Zealand in 1944.

Mr Hilliam claims the U-boat was used to smuggle 13 high-ranking nazis onto Northland soil, where they assumed identities as Austrians.

He says the story has now come to light because the descendants of one of the men want to find stolen treasure the group brought with them and repatriate it to Germany.

Mr Hilliam says the sunken boat has been observed seven times and three divers have been on it, but its identity as U-196 is only speculation. He hopes divers can go onto the wrecked submarine early next year to take photographs, proving it is a U-boat.

The location of the treasure he says the nazis brought with them remains unknown.

By Norma Connolly
 

Treasure hunter and former owner of the Holiday Inn in Cayman, Herbert Humphreys has laid claim to what he says is a historically important wreck in international waters.

Captain Humphreys, known as Herbo, said he had found the wreck of a wood–hulled paddle wheel steamship that sank in the 19th Century with a large loss of life.

He said that because a documentary and feature film about the shipwreck and its recovery are planned, he could not reveal the name or location of the wreck at the moment.

“We can’t say anything more about the wreck or where it is until everything is documented and the salvage completed,” said Capt. Humphreys, who is a resident of both Cayman and Memphis, Tennessee.

He said the wreck was “mostly intact, very valuable, and is not a warship. It is in international waters and is less than 500 feet deep, which makes for an affordable recovery.”

By Sharon Hill

An archivist who was digging through old documents in the basement of a Harrow chuch says she has unearthed a 19th century ledger that provides a rare glimpse into Great Lakes shipping history.

"It was as I went through the book and went closer to the back ... I realized this was something unbelievable and exceptional," Debra Majer said Wednesday.

The Catholic diocese of London archivist was holding a treasure trove: a ledger dating to the 1800s with hundreds of names of ships' captains and vessels with the dates they sailed and their fates.

She held 255 pages detailing brigs, tugs and steamships that sailed the Great Lakes.

She knew she'd found something unique when she saw a list of steamboats and propellers lost since 1857.

At the bottom was a legend identifying how the ship was lost, whether it was foundered, run ashore, burnt, sunk by collision, exploded, sunk by ice, capsized or dismantled.

One vessel is recorded as the Phoenix, 1846 with a dot to indicate it was burnt.
 

Read more...

By Tony Henderson

An island-hopping Pacific voyage will give North East scientists the chance to plot the route of one of the most dramatic human migrations in history.

The Durham University bio-archaeologists will be a key part of the 6,000km trip which set sail from the Philippines this week.

Doctors Keith Dobney and Greger Larson will be among crew members on two traditional Polynesian double canoes. The main aim of the voyage is to find out where the ancestors of Polynesian culture originated.

Dr Dobney said that the migrants left the South East Asia mainland in their canoes around 4,500 years ago and crossed vast distances to settle in most of the Pacific islands. “It was one of the most remarkable human migrations in history, not least in terms of the distance travelled,” said Dr Dobney.

“It is hard to imagine how far these people travelled. It is phenomenal.”

The key to plotting the migration route is through the plants and animals which the travellers took with them.

The Durham scientists will take thousands of genetic samples on hundreds of islands from pigs, dogs, chickens and Pacific rats which are the descendants of those animals which accompanied the original migrants.
 

From Today's Zaman


Artifacts discovered in the wreckage of the world's oldest-known seafaring ship, discovered in 1982 near Uluburun on the southern coast of Turkey, are traveling to New York City this month for a special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Artifacts from the Uluburun wreck will be featured in an extensive collection titled "Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.," set to go on public display on Nov. 18.

In addition to pieces from Uluburun, the show will feature nearly 350 objects coming from places such as royal palaces, temples and tombs, highlighting a sophisticated network of interaction among kings, diplomats and merchants in the Near East at the time.

It will begin with the Middle Bronze Age, in which a rising elite class sought valuable objects in foreign lands along with the objects from Babylon in Mesopotamia.

It will continue with the palatial centers of the Late Bronze Age -- including the sites of Qatna and Ugarit in Syria, featuring Aegean-style wall paintings, royal archives and an intact royal tomb.

By Andrew Roberts


‘Such is the U-boat war:’ Winston Churchill told the House of Commons on 26 September 1939, ‘hard, widespread and bitter, a war of groping and drowning, a war of ambuscade and stratagem, a war of science and seamanship.’

It was also a war of survival or surrender for Britain, which could not feed herself on her agricultural production alone and had to import all the oil that fuelled her tanks, warplanes and industry. 

The continued prosecution of the Second World War therefore hung on the Battle of the Atlantic. Churchill’s mention of ‘science’ pointed to a providential opportunity, which when allied to the professionalism of the Royal Navy and the bravery of the Merchant Marine gave Britain the key to victory in the battle of the Atlantic.

For the most important scientific development by far was the cracking of the German Enigma code by cryptographers working at Bletchey Park in Buckinghamshire. Material codenamed ULTRA, from its security classification, was invaluable in affording the Allies information about where the U-boats were meeting their mid-oceanic supply submarines. 

During the battle of Britain, ULTRA decrypts warned the RAF where German bombers were headed for, at El Alamein Montgomery was pre-warned of Rommel’s capabilities and intentions, at D-Day it was known that the Germans had fallen for the deception campaign that pointed to the Pas de Calais as the invasion point rather than the Normandy, and so on.

The military historian Professor Sir Michael Howard has likened the Allies’ possession of ULTRA to ‘playing poker with marked cards, albeit against an opponent with a consistently better hand than you’.

Other scientific and technical developments that helped the Navy during the war included the sonar device ASDIC, airborne radar and improved depth charges.

By Molly Kavanaugh


A ship sunk by a fierce autumn storm 115 years ago has been discovered in Lake Erie, 25 miles north of Cleveland.

The 133-foot schooner Riverside was among a dozen sunken vessels and more than 50 deaths left in the wake of the storm, which blew across the Great Lakes in 1893. 

"It's in remarkable condition," said Tom Kowalczk, a diver with Cleveland Underwater Explorers Inc. 

The nonprofit group, in collaboration with the Great Lakes Historical Society, found the shipwreck last year. Members delayed announcing their find until they could photograph the site.

An estimated 1,700 shipwrecks lie at the bottom of Lake Erie; fewer than 300 have been found. 

Riverside, built in 1870, left Kelleys Island with 670 tons of stone on Friday, Oct. 13, 1893, headed for Tonawanda, N.Y.