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By All Hungary News

Archaeologists searching the Danube for important shipwrecks have found what they believe may be the vessel which carried Queen Mary of Hungary (Mary of Habsburg) to Vienna after the disastrous Battle of Mohács against the Ottoman Turks in 1526.

According to stop.hu, the 15-meter-long wreck, which is buried in gravel and mud in the Danube "bend" north of Budapest, may contain gold and jewelry, and the team which located it is currently looking for sponsors to excavate the site.

Attila J. Tóth, associate of the National Office of Cultural Heritage, said that a team of 30 divers started scouring the Danube Bend for historical relics buried under the mud a few months ago.

Initial funding of $10,000 (€6,600) was provided by the American Hungaria Nostra Foundation, which allowed for the purchase of boats and a sonar device.

To excavate the wreck, the team estimates it needs a further Ft 5 million (€21,000).

While sponsors could benefit from an association with the enterprise, they should not expect any treasure, as any relics found would belong to the Hungarian state.

By Tim Chitwood


Columbus' National Civil War Naval Museum slowly is recapturing the USS Water Witch, the Union warship Confederate commandos seized on June 3, 1864, in Georgia's Ossabow Sound.

The museum is building a replica from the waterline up. And when the ship's up and running in place, paddlewheels will spin, smoke will drift from its stack and sails will blow in the wind.

Built in 1851, the Water Witch had both sails and steam -- masts about 90 feet tall, a 5-foot-wide smokestack rising 40 feet from a deck that at its widest spanned 24 feet between twin paddlewheels.

Each side paddlewheel was 6 feet wide and in a wheelbox 25 feet tall. The ship was 160 feet long.

It's now taking shape again outside the 1002 Victory Drive museum. The masts and smokestack are up; the hull is framed out and filling in; the paddlewheels await installation.

By Kay Dibben


Two men who convinced Australians to invest $600,000 in an unregistered scheme to recover sunken treasure are now behind bars.

One, Christopher Paul Woolgrove, had been convicted over another fundraising venture to locate a Spanish galleon years earlier.

He was permanently banned in 1995 from acting as an investment adviser.

Investors in the latest scheme, Hatcher Unit Trust, were promised returns of 1365 per cent if treasures from three shipwrecked vessels in Asian waters were salvaged.

Brisbane District Court last month heard 130 Australians invested a total of $US590,490 ($614,140) in Hatcher Unit Trust, and none of the money had been recovered.

"Many investors were easily lured by the prospect of substantial returns," Judge Tony Rafter said, when he jailed Woolgrove and Lawrence James Phillips.

Potential investors were told "15 per cent of all gold found by man over the past 6000 years is lying at the bottom of the ocean".

Read more...

By Graham Tibbetts

Marine archaeologists who explored the 600-ton vessel off Dorset believe it may have been as luxurious in its day as the Titanic.

Among the treasures they have retrieved is a statue of a merman whose eye sockets would have held precious stones.

The 4.5ft wooden figure was one of a number of statues that would have adorned the stern of the vessel.

At 130ft long, the oak-timbered ship would have been one of the largest of its kind on the seas when it sank in around 1620.

Its identity is not known but it is likely to be British or Dutch.

The wreck was found half a mile from the Sandbanks peninsula during recent dredging work of Poole harbour.

Marine archaeologists have carried out a series of dives on the vessel, which lies in 23ft of water.

By Richard Giedroyc


The Solomon Islands aren't the only place making numismatic news recently regarding odd and primitive money.

A yet to be identified 15th or 16th century shipwreck encountered off the coast of Namibia in Africa was apparently carrying both coins and odd and curious items meant for barter with the local inhabitants.

Archaeologist Dieter Noli is associated with the excavation being undertaken by Namdeb Diamond Corporation, a joint venture of the government of Namibia and the De Beers diamond mining company from South Africa that discovered the wreck by accident.

Noli was quoted in a May 1 Associated Press article as saying, "Sending a ship toward Africa in that period [14th to 15th centuries], that was venture capital in the extreme."

Namdeb Diamond Corporation had been clearing and draining an area of seabed in search of diamonds when they unexpectedly uncovered what was left of the unidentified ship.

At first the team found some partial sphere-shaped ingots that they were unable to identify. This was followed by finding cannons, which were much more easily recognized.

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By Michael Peltier


Private treasure hunters are squaring off with state historic officials over a new proposed set of rules to govern the salvaging of sunken ships and the financial and historic troves they bear.

At a workshop held last week at the state museum and archives, salvers, academic archaeologists and rule makers expressed dramatically different concerns over a proposed set of rules that would place tougher restrictions on the recovery of artifacts from historic shipwrecks.

Backers of the proposed changes say they would enhance the protection of cultural artifacts in state waters, bringing Florida into compliance with other states and foreign countries that have drastically limited or eliminated the private excavation of historic underwater sites.

“It is wrong and it has always been wrong,” said William Lees, an archaeologist at the University of West Florida, echoing scores of other researchers who sent letters and e-mails.

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By Alan Brook

American scientists searching for the wreck of an 18th century warship say they have found four possible sites.

The team from the Ocean Technology Foundation in Connecticut are being helped in their search for the Bonhomme Richard which sank somewhere off Flamborough head in 1779, by the US Navy who are using a unique 150ft long nuclear powered submarine to scour the sea bed.

It is their third expedition to find the remains of the vessel captained by John Paul Jones who is credited as being the father of the American Navy.

Melissa Ryan, project manager for the team who have been on board the sub's mother ship at a location several miles off Flamborough Head for almost two weeks, said: "Much like our last survey in 2006, we have discovered four shipwrecks which we think could potentially be the Bonhomme Richard.

By Erica Blake


Loaded with passengers and a cargo of liquor and wine, the Anthony Wayne had not traveled far on its voyage from the docks of Toledo to a port in Buffalo, when an inexplicable explosion occurred - one that sent it to the depths of Lake Erie.

Now, more than 150 years later and two years after it was first discovered deep beneath the Lake Erie waves, underwater archaeologists are studying the sidewheel steamboat in its final resting place.

Believed to be the oldest steamboat shipwreck in the lake, the Anthony Wayne is broken up and buried in the lake's muck.

It's cold down there - hovering at about 50 degrees - and the murky water makes visibility tough.

Despite the less-than-ideal research environment, archaeologists are working to preserve Great Lakes history by measuring and recording every detail of the vessel to re-create how it was built.