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Exceptionally Preserved Ancient Ships Discovered in the Black Sea
- fairpx 9y agoFascinating. Would love to see Google (who's mission is to collect the world's information) start 3d scanning and mapping the world underwater in a more detailed way.
- 201709User 9y agoThey don't have tech to blur fish faces yet.
- cromulent 9y agohttps://www.google.com/maps/@-8.7370392,119.412259,2a,82.2y,228.56h,100.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRi71LYeNvGsAAAQW4U3bQQ!2e0!7i9500!8i4750 https://www.google.com/maps/@-8.7370392,119.412259,2a,82.2y,...
- tantalor 9y agohttps://www.google.com/streetview/#malaysia-highlights/tedau-bay https://www.google.com/streetview/#malaysia-highlights/tedau...
- KGIII 9y agoI don't know if it remains true, because they had started an underwater mapping by drone project. But, until recently, or perhaps still, we had more accurate maps of the surface of the moon than we had maps of the bottom of the oceans. There is a bunch of stuff we have left to do. There's still a constant stream of discoveries being made in the depths of the oceans. The science is hardly settled and, I suppose, that's what makes it so exciting. We have critters we can't even fully understand how they survive, and then we have all sorts of smaller mysteries. Like eels... We only first observed them mating just a couple of years ago, and that was just a single species.
- roywiggins 9y ago> But, until recently, or perhaps still, we had more accurate maps of the surface of the moon than we had maps of the bottom of the oceans. I believe this is still true. The search for the missing Malaysian airliner ended up producing way better maps of the seafloor in the search region than had ever been done before. That search region is a teeny tiny portion of the entire seafloor and it took years. https://eos.org/project-updates/geological-insights-from-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search https://eos.org/project-updates/geological-insights-from-mal... Meanwhile the entire moon has been mapped down to 328 feet resolution: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2110.html https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2...
- jack6e 9y agoI remember reading somewhere about some organization (not Google) hoping to map the entire ocean floor by sometime in the 2020s, but it is truly a gargantuan undertaking. As you say, we have far better mappings of the moon than we do of the ocean, and for good reason. The data report [0] from the MH370 search offers good insight for how little we know of the ocean, and why it is so difficult to map in its entirety. Two points really stood out to me from their findings: 1) the current quality of our topographical maps and other images are low quality and mostly unhelpful for any sort of real research or analysis; 2) it took 3 years of dedicated masses of search teams from multiple countries just to produce quality maps of a tiny stretch of one part of one ocean. To put numbers behind it, the MH370 report referenced above calculated their entire mapping efforts this way: "The search for MH370 collected 278,000 square kilometres of bathymetry data within the search area and 710,000 square kilometres of data in total, which includes the data acquired in transit between port and the search area. It is one of the largest marine surveys ever conducted." That's a lot of time (3 years), money ($160M, granted not all spent on mapping), and people, for a good chunk of sea floor. But the oceans comprise 360,000,000 square kilometers. Three years of dedicated, coordinated searching in the "largest marine survey" ever only mapped 0.2% of the ocean floor. So who knows what sort of motivation, incentives, time, and organizations it will take to get 100%. [0] https://geoscience-au.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=038a72439bfa4d28b3dde81cc6ff3214 https://geoscience-au.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.htm...
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- ivan_at_hn 9y ago"The wrecks survive in such good condition because at a certain depth the Black Sea has anoxic, or oxygen-free, conditions preventing decay. Many of the ships sit at the bottom of the sea with their masts upright, their rudders still at the ready and their cargo bays full of untouched goods." As far as I know, this oxygen-free water layer below approximately 150 meters from the surface makes Black Sea unique. Virtually anything drowned in it from the beginning of marine history is in perfect condition. If I was a beginner archaeologist who dreams of big discoveries then I'd look at the Black Sea in the first place.
- meric 9y ago> If I was a beginner archaeologist who dreams of big discoveries then I'd look at the Black Sea in the first place. While being careful to avoid adding to the collection, of course.
- tomascot 9y agothe poor man's cryogenic
- hanniabu 9y agoYeah it kind of boggles my mind that this isn't a well explored area due to its preservation characteristics
- amelius 9y agoPerhaps because distributing our efforts over different areas gives us a broader view of history?
- ivan_at_hn 9y agoI think that it is because most archaeologists tend to explore places where they live and where they know something about. And where they can get funding. Like Mediterranean sea. Underwater archaeology is very expensive. There are guys who explore shipwrecks to sale treasures from them, you can look at their financial reports here (it is not easy for them): http://www.odysseymarine.com/ http://www.odysseymarine.com/
- meigwilym 9y agoPrevious discussion on a NYT article on this subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12936511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12936511
- fenollp 9y agoThis is awesome, now where are the 3D scans? Their website seem down [0]. Here a cute video though [1]. Some nice pictures [2]. > All of the artefacts that were found by the team have been 3-D printed using one of the most detailed 3-D printers in the world. Next time just create a .torrent file... [0] http://blackseamap.com http://blackseamap.com [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWtX233YQNc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWtX233YQNc [2] http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/incredible-ship-graveyard-discovered-in-black-sea-features-2500-years-of-perfectly-preserved-ships/all/ http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/incredible-ship-grave...
- coheeman 9y agoThose pictures and 3D models look extraordinary. According to that iflscience article, there will be a documentary about these findings soon. I can't wait.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThe Smithsonian Magazine still has some of the most atrocious mobile ads I see on any website today. They really make me never want to click their links from a phone, even though I know it's stuff I would find fascinating.
- gulperxcx 9y agoThe ads where you have to scroll to make them go away are the worst
- empath75 9y agoIt'll be interesting to see if there are any other antikythera mechanisms buried down there.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoThat would be a good place to search for such things.
- joshuaheard 9y agoThere is a theory that the Black Sea was created cataclysmically when a natural dam broke holding the waters of the Mediterranean back. This is supposedly the source of the Great Flood myth. The article mentioned some flooded villages. I wonder if they will find any evidence in this regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> This is supposedly the source of the Great Flood myth It might be the source of a flood myth. But such myths are pervasive, you can find them in nearly every culture on Earth. Surely such a story has originated more than once.
- neffy 9y agoGiven the age of the myths a better hypothesis is that they go back to the sea level rises that accompanied the end of the last ice age.
- twic 9y agoAllow Stanisław Szukalski to explain [1]: "When the Secondary Globe (the lavaic ocean bottoms) began to submerge in the beginning of the last Farsolar Epoch, the global seas were forced to glide off the Primary (Geologic) Globe": And that's why people paint their faces. Also, yetis. Okay, zermatism is controversial, but he produced some very good art and sculpture from it. [1] http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermatism/ http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermati...
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoYeah, that's bullshit, sorry.
- joshuaheard 9y agoI believe DNA research has traced human origins down to 50,000 people living in the Levant, near the Black Sea, many thousands of years ago. So, the flood myth later manifested by many cultures could have a common source.