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From Famagusta Gazette


The first amphorae from a 4th century BC ship have been brought to the surface by a team of Cypriot experts.

It is believed that the commercial vessel, possibly carrying wine from the Greek island of Chios, sunk off Cyprus’ southern coast. It is said to have been carrying about 500 amphorae.

Dr. Stella Demesticha, Visiting Lecturer of Underwater Archaeology at the University of Cyprus, in charge of the research programme, has said that the wreck lies at a depth of 45 metres and the apmphorae had to be brought to the surface for study.

We cannot be sure of its journey, nor of its destination but we believe it has passed by Chios and other islands in the Aegean around the middle of the 4th century BC and then arrived in Cyprus, she explained.

She noted that so far scientists have not located anything else in the shipwreck except amphorae, adding that the shipwreck is under guard.

Wine from Chios was believed to be of excellent quality. Of course no wine has been found but we are almost certain that the amphorae were filled with this very good quality red wine, she said.

By Emily Zeugner


Last summer Roy Evans, history buff, outdoorsman and "amateur treasure hunter," set off in search of buried riches.

Five hours a day, he scoured the fine, white sands of Georgia's Tybee Island and within a week he'd struck gold: 23 separate pieces including two crosses, 12 rings, a handful of medallions and broaches and one chain necklace — a bounty worth several thousand dollars at least.

Roy Evans switched entirely to beaches for his treasure hunting about 15 years ago, when he 'just got too old to fool around with picks and mosquitoes and snakes' on Revolutionary War battlefields.

The change has proved to be a lucrative one: all told he's found 150 diamond rings on beaches, including two that were appraised for nearly $4,000 each.

"It was amazing, what I found that week," said Evans, of Greer, S.C. "It might have been a new record for me."

But the loot wasn't buried by pirates.

The jewelry, like countless other valuables all over the country, was lost by distracted and forgetful sunbathers, tucked into a shoe or under a corner of a beach blanket before a swim only to be misplaced in the confusion at the end of the day.

To cash in, Evans needed only luck, a little patience and his trusty MineLab metal detector.

This summer, amateur treasure hunters predict the beaches will be filled with people just like Evans.

Lured by the skyrocketing price of gold — now well over $900 an ounce — and the thrill of serendipity, new would-be treasure diggers are joining the ranks of experienced beach "metal detectionists," as they call themselves, in what might be a modern-day gold rush.

By Lewis Smith


The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.

When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.

Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.

Dr Ballard, an oceanographer, has admitted that he located and inspected the wrecks for the US Navy in top secret missions before he was allowed to search for the Titanic.

Only once he had used his new underwater robot craft to map the submarine wreck sites was he able to use it to crisscross the North Atlantic seabed to pinpoint the last resting place of the luxury liner. It meant he had only 12 days to find the Titanic.

By Jeff Hecht


Robot submarines designed to hunt for underwater mines showed potential as underwater archaeological treasure hunters last week, turning up several new artefacts off the coast of Rhode Island, US.

Several military AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) took part in the archaeological treasure hunt as part of a US Navy event called AUVfest. The contest suggests that robotic submersibles could find many non-military applications as they become cheaper.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sought to test the ability of navy subs to investigate shipwrecks and inspect undersea cables and pipelines.

During the event, the subs discovered eight previously unknown objects associated with the wreck of 18th century frigate, HMS Cerberus, which was scuttled by its British captain in August 1778 during the American Revolution.
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From UCLA Institute and other sources


It is with deepest sadness that we mourn the untimely death on May 14, 2008 of UCLA Art History alumna Dr. Roxanna M. Brown, 62, world-renowned expert on SEA ceramics, curator of the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum at Bangkok University and editor of their excellent newsletter.

She died in Seattle reportedly of an infection brought on by a perforated ulcer while in federal custody on a very dubious indictment.

She had gone to Seattle to present a paper on SEA ceramics at a conference co-sponsored by UCLA and the University of Washington.

An Asian-antiquities dealer arrested in Seattle on wire-fraud charges died in federal custody from infection and inflammation caused by a perforated gastric ulcer, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

Brown had been arrested a week ago by federal agents on an grand-jury indictment in Los Angeles. She was charged with wire fraud and was a key figure — and the first arrest — in a long-running investigation into alleged Asian-antiquities smuggling and fraud, according to court papers.

By Julia Thompson

Remains of a 238-year-old shipwrecked Spanish galleon named “Our Lady of the Good Council and San Leopoldo” have been discovered on the coast near the Chilean town of Curepto, located in Chile's Region VII. Oriflama S.A., the private archaeological excavation firm that discovered the galleon, is now grappling with Chilean authorities for permission to continue their excavation efforts and receive part of the estimated US$30 million in booty.

The Chilean National Monuments Council insists the ship and its treasures are state property under terms spelled out in Chile’s national monuments law N. 17.2888. Even so, the Council has agreed to grant the company 25 percent of the loot.

“Because the ship was embedded in the sand rather than deep under the ocean 'Our Lady of the Good Council and San Leopoldo' is property of the private business that found it,” the Republic's Comptroller's Office told the Santiago Times.

Most archaeologists expected to find the remains of the ship deep on the ocean floor. But fragments of the 41-meter x 11-meter ship have been discovered embedded in the sand under fairly shallow waters near where the Huenchullami River flows into the ocean.

The once ornate vessel was built by the French in the mid 1700s and, loaded with 56 canons, was used by their military until the ship fell into Spanish hands. The Spaniards revamped the ship into a merchant vessel and set it sailing to New Spain.

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From This Is Cornwall


Falmouth diver Peter Devlin and a friend from Truro have been given less than a fortnight to face trial in Spain, accused of plundering treasure from a sunken wreck.

The friend, father-of-four Malcolm Cubin, was suddenly told to prepare a defense to face trial in 10 days after the matter had hung over himself and Mr Devlin for more than six years.

The case was delayed, but the two men now face a nervous wait to find out if they will spend up to six years in a Spanish prison.

Self-employed commercial diver Mr Cubin, 37, of Truro, said: "The first I heard about it was from the TV news so I was stunned and shocked.

"Then the panic set in and I called our investors who confirmed it. I contacted our lawyers in Spain who got a stay of execution.

It's hard to know what to do with it always in the back of your mind. You wonder what's going to happen to your family if you get carted off to jail. We did nothing wrong and no-one has convinced us otherwise."

A team including Mr Cubin was licensed by the Spanish government to recover 220 tonnes of tin from Dutch cargo vessel the Friesland, which sank off the port of Corrubedo, Galicia, in 1877, and hand over 23% of the expected £650,000 value.

From Yahoo! News


Divers trained in archeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France's Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.

The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles — founded by Caesar.

Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects is a 5.9 foot marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after Christ.

Two smaller statues, both in bronze and measuring 27.5 inches each also were found, one of them, a satyr with his hands tied behind his back, "doubtless" originated in Hellenic Greece, the ministry said.