HOT NEWS !

By Jasper Copping


Divers are plundering the wrecks of British vessels sunk during the Second World War in an area known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic".

Merchant ships and Royal Navy vessels are among the wrecks lying off the coast of America which were sunk by German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic. 

The stretch of seabed off North Carolina and Virginia contains up to 90 wrecks, most lying at relatively shallow depths, offering divers and maritime historians unique opportunities for exploration. 

However, experts have warned that the wrecks are increasingly being disturbed by divers, some of whom are removing items to keep as souvenirs. 

Weapons and other artefacts have been looted and divers are even said to have removed the skeleton of a German sailor from a sunken U-boat in the area. 

On one British wreck, the remains of a sailor who went down with his ship have recently been exposed by the seabed's shifting sands and historians are concerned they could be targeted by souvenir hunters.

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By Jonathan Leake


Britain's great seafaring tradition is to provide a unique insight into modern climate change, thanks to thousands of Royal Navy logbooks that have survived from the 17th century onwards. 

The logbooks kept by every naval ship, ranging from Nelson’s Victory and Cook’s Endeavour down to the humblest frigate, are emerging as one of the world’s best sources for long-term weather data.

The discovery has been made by a group of British academics and Met Office scientists who are seeking new ways to plot historic changes in climate. 

This is a treasure trove,” said Dr Sam Willis, a maritime historian and author who is affiliated with Exeter University’s Centre for Maritime Historical Studies.

“Ships’ officers recorded air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and other weather conditions. From those records scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate.

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By Neil Stratton

To get a true picture of what Houston diver Terry DeWolf was trying to do when he lost his life exploring the wreck of the Andrea Doria this week, think of touring a museum at least 230 feet from the nearest breathable oxygen and at least 50 miles by water from the nearest hospital.

The site, deep in the Atlantic Ocean south of Nantucket, Mass., is the grave of 51 people who lost their lives when the luxury liner collided with another ship and went down more than 50 years ago.

 It is also considered the Mount Everest of diving, a perilous plunge of more than 200 feet to the seabed that now, with DeWolf's death, has claimed the lives of 15 divers.

"It's a pretty dangerous dive," said Capt. Ed Ecker of the East Hampton Town Police Department. "I don't want to speculate, but what generally happens is that they either get the bends or something goes wrong with the equipment."

On Monday, the dive boat John Jack sailed out of Sportsman's Dock in Montauk, N.Y., ferrying DeWolf and nine other divers to the site of the wreck as part of the 2008 Andrea Doria Expedition, a charter led by Richard Kohler, a famous diver and television personality who gained fame on The History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives program.

From The Gazette


Archaeologists hope tests will determine age of Amerindian dugout canoe found at bottom of Quebec lake in 1986.

Since its discovery on the bottom of a lake north of Montreal more than 20 years ago, an amazingly well-preserved and possibly prehistoric dugout canoe has sparked debate among archaeologists.

The debate has focused on whether the vessel was hollowed out of a massive white pine by Amerindians using stone tools and fire in the 1400s, making it a rare example of dugout technology in the St. Lawrence River valley before the European conquest.

Or whether the five-metre-long vessel was made later, in the 1500s to 1600s by Amerindians, perhaps using technology and metal tools belonging to French colonists who had a history with dugouts in Europe.


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By Nevine El-Aref


Visitors to the Giza Plateau will be able to view Khufu's second solar boat through a tiny camera 4,500 years after it was buried to ferry the king to eternity.

On the southern side of Khufu's Great Pyramid, a hundred journalists, photographers, cameramen and television presenters gathered inside a five-metre-long metal hanger padded with black fabric.

Inside the hanger were 10 leather chairs and an LCD screen showing scenes of Khufu's solar boat in situ.

From last Saturday, Khufu's second solar boat is on show to the public for the first time since its discovery by Egyptian architect and archaeologist Kamal El-Mallakh with Zaki Nour in 1954. 

At that time El-Mallakh and Nour found two boat pits during routine cleaning at the southern side of the Great Pyramid.

The first pit was found under a roof of 41 limestone slabs, each weighing almost 20 tonnes, with the three westernmost of the slabs being much smaller than the others leading them to be interpreted as keystones.

On removing one of the slabs El-Mallakh and Nour saw a cedar boat, completely dismantled but arranged in the semblance of its finished form.

Also inside the pit were layers of mats, ropes, instruments made of flint and some small pieces of white plaster along with 12 oars, 58 poles, three cylindrical columns and five doors.
 

From RIA - Novosti


As Russian scientists descend in mini-submarines to previously un-explored parts of Baikal, the world's deepest lake, national media have pointed to possible treasure finds including Imperial Russian gold and silver.

The expedition in the vast Siberian lake, which started on Tuesday and will run for two years, is focused on studies of the lake's unique ecosystem, but researchers have also said they will be looking for 'archeological artifacts'. 

Among the many 'artifacts' rumored to have disappeared into Baikal's depths are several sacks of gold, taken from the Imperial Russian reserves and carried across the ice by Admiral Alexander Kolchak's White forces fleeing the Bolsheviks in the winter of 1919-1920.

Some of the officers reportedly froze on the ice in 60 degrees of frost, and the treasure sunk when the thaws came. 

Although the Kolchak story is unproven, several other cases of lost treasure have been documented.
 

From the Times Online


Researchers believe the vessel's fate was sealed when its mainly Spanish crew could not understand the orders of their officers.

For generations, the reason why the Mary Rose sank during a battle with a French invasion force has divided historians.

Now a new theory can be added to the list of suggestions about why the pride of Henry VIII's navy was lost: two thirds of its crew were foreigners who failed to understand orders.

Forensic science examinations of the 16th-century crew's skulls have revealed that the majority were not British but southern European, most probably Spanish.

Researchers believe that the vessel's fate was sealed because of their inability to understand their officers' orders when it began taking on water in the Solent, off Portsmouth, in 1545.

By Paul Wallis


A device for computing the calendar called the Antikythera Mechanism was found on an ancient shipwreck over 100 years ago.

Reexamined using modern technology, an advanced mechanism has been deciphered and its functions reconstructed. One look at this mechanism is impressive.

It becomes more so, as you discover it uses gears and dials, a whole new class of technology, and complexity, in the world of 100 B.C.

Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse and died in 212 B.C., invented a planetarium calculating motions of the Moon and the known planets and wrote a lost manuscript on astronomical mechanisms.

Some evidence had previously linked the complex device of gears and dials to the island of Rhodes and the astronomer Hipparchos, who had made a study of irregularities in the Moon’s orbital course.


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