7 ms·

Shipwrecks Under Istanbul

paganel 11y ago
> That’s when they found the remains of a Neolithic dwelling, dating from around 6000 B.C. It was previously unknown that anyone had lived on the site of the old city before around 1300 B.C. (...) In the Stone Age, the water level of the Bosporus was far lower than it is now; there’s a chance that the people who left those prints might have been able to walk from Anatolia to Europe. That part is really interesting. For those HN-ers not interested in those times, there is the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis) which says something like this: > The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus strait
- gerbal 11y ago
  Doggerland[1] and Sundaland[2] were also above the sea at that point. I wonder if there were neolithic cities, the precursors to Uruk, that are lost beneath the sea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland
gkya 11y ago
I'm a Turkish citizen, Istanbulite, now 23 years old. I have happened to witness all of this in person in this city. I wear two identities, if I can say so, one is that I'm from the bosphorus, Bogazici, and the other is that I belong to the near east. This sort of findings delight me a lot. It proves that at the end of the day the human is to measure, that he be the one to be measured, and that after tens of thousands of years all we have been able to do is better tools, nothing more. Regarding the Erdogan and the rest, he's just the tip of the iceberg. The Turkish have been miserable all the time, and recently more, because, as a turkish proverb proceeds to say, the feet became the head. If it wasn't him to be made so powerful by the crowd of angry ignorant fundamentalists, it would be someone else. In this country of genocides, now one is active against the population of reasonables.
- afsina 11y ago
  What makes you the "reasonable" and others "ignorant fundamentalists" again? The hubris of elitism has never ceased to amaze me.
  - acqq 11y ago
    "Fundamentalist" as in "religious fundamentalist." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism Compare their goals to then successful work of Ataturk in 20th century in Turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk's_Reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk's_Reforms
    - afsina 11y ago
      My problem is not on the definitions, but the "name calling".
      - acqq 11y ago
        I agree that calling the leaders of fundamentalists "ignorant" is surely wrong and hugely underestimates their capabilities, as it's known that a lot of planning is involved in their work: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-file... And we also see how effective in working towards their goals they can be.
        afsina 11y ago
        Ok, perhaps there is a misunderstanding here. Why are you referring ISIS here? You were talking about Turkey and Turkish people I thought.
        acqq 11y ago
        Using the example of extreme fundamentalism we can see that the successful leaders and their close supporters shouldn't be considered "ignorant" even if we are aware how dangerous they are. I also don't claim that they are the only kind of fundamentalists possible. And if you look at the map, ISIS isn't that far from Turkey.
kirk21 11y ago
"Byzantine shipwrecks found during the construction of the first-ever tunnel under the Bosporus held up work for years." Why does it have to take that long to dig up these ships and start the works?
- gkya 11y ago
  Man, it's tedious work to unearth those stuff. One cannot use big shovels and machines, sometimes you have to work with fingertips and painting-brushes. And the so-called old-city (what I hate to call Fatih) is, I mean whenever you dig a hole you find something. By my school there is the constructions site for another entrance to the already-existent metro station, and it is still not completed after maybe two years. And all they wanted was to dig down a single storey entrance that then linked to the one that already was there. Then they found some 2500 yrs-old Byzantine sarcophagi, and, you may guess the rest...
prawn 11y ago
Only part way through, but what an incredible story, both from the perspective of the historical findings and the modern progress in transport for locals.
leaveyou 11y ago
The ridiculous lack of pictures in this article makes Jules Verne books feel like albums.

> That’s when they found the remains of a Neolithic dwelling, dating from around 6000 B.C. It was previously unknown that anyone had lived on the site of the old city before around 1300 B.C. (...) In the Stone Age, the water level of the Bosporus was far lower than it is now; there’s a chance that the people who left those prints might have been able to walk from Anatolia to Europe. That part is really interesting. For those HN-ers not interested in those times, there is the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis) which says something like this: > The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus strait

gerbal 11y ago
Doggerland[1] and Sundaland[2] were also above the sea at that point. I wonder if there were neolithic cities, the precursors to Uruk, that are lost beneath the sea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland

gkya 11y ago

I'm a Turkish citizen, Istanbulite, now 23 years old. I have happened to witness all of this in person in this city. I wear two identities, if I can say so, one is that I'm from the bosphorus, Bogazici, and the other is that I belong to the near east. This sort of findings delight me a lot. It proves that at the end of the day the human is to measure, that he be the one to be measured, and that after tens of thousands of years all we have been able to do is better tools, nothing more. Regarding the Erdogan and the rest, he's just the tip of the iceberg. The Turkish have been miserable all the time, and recently more, because, as a turkish proverb proceeds to say, the feet became the head. If it wasn't him to be made so powerful by the crowd of angry ignorant fundamentalists, it would be someone else. In this country of genocides, now one is active against the population of reasonables.

afsina 11y ago
What makes you the "reasonable" and others "ignorant fundamentalists" again? The hubris of elitism has never ceased to amaze me.
- acqq 11y ago
  "Fundamentalist" as in "religious fundamentalist." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism Compare their goals to then successful work of Ataturk in 20th century in Turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk's_Reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk's_Reforms
  - afsina 11y ago
    My problem is not on the definitions, but the "name calling".
    - acqq 11y ago
      I agree that calling the leaders of fundamentalists "ignorant" is surely wrong and hugely underestimates their capabilities, as it's known that a lot of planning is involved in their work: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-file... And we also see how effective in working towards their goals they can be.
      - afsina 11y ago
        Ok, perhaps there is a misunderstanding here. Why are you referring ISIS here? You were talking about Turkey and Turkish people I thought.
        acqq 11y ago
        Using the example of extreme fundamentalism we can see that the successful leaders and their close supporters shouldn't be considered "ignorant" even if we are aware how dangerous they are. I also don't claim that they are the only kind of fundamentalists possible. And if you look at the map, ISIS isn't that far from Turkey.

kirk21 11y ago

"Byzantine shipwrecks found during the construction of the first-ever tunnel under the Bosporus held up work for years." Why does it have to take that long to dig up these ships and start the works?

gkya 11y ago
Man, it's tedious work to unearth those stuff. One cannot use big shovels and machines, sometimes you have to work with fingertips and painting-brushes. And the so-called old-city (what I hate to call Fatih) is, I mean whenever you dig a hole you find something. By my school there is the constructions site for another entrance to the already-existent metro station, and it is still not completed after maybe two years. And all they wanted was to dig down a single storey entrance that then linked to the one that already was there. Then they found some 2500 yrs-old Byzantine sarcophagi, and, you may guess the rest...

prawn 11y ago

Only part way through, but what an incredible story, both from the perspective of the historical findings and the modern progress in transport for locals.

leaveyou 11y ago

The ridiculous lack of pictures in this article makes Jules Verne books feel like albums.