News of ships found

[Lady Cassandra Seahawke]

here is a news article about a ship that was found off the coast of Namibia

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/namibiaportuga...aeologyshipping

[Mission]

"Namibia's notorious Skeleton coast"

That's neat. It sounds like there could be an opportunity for finding a lot of early 14th century personal items if they can take their eyes off the gold long enough to bother looking for them before they abandon the dig.

[roytheodd]

Booty "worth over 100 million dollars" and they're going to let it close down in a week and a half? I would think this is one of those things that pays for itself.

[Story]

Booty "worth over 100 million dollars" and they're going to let it close down in a week and a half? I would think this is one of those things that pays for itself.

An update from Oct. 2

ARCHAEOLOGISTS are racing against time to salvage a fortune in coins and items from a 500-year-old Portuguese shipwreck found recently off Namibia's rough southern coast.

The project, in a restricted diamond mining area, is costing a fortune in sea-walling, but the process of maintaining a dyke to keep the sea at bay will end next Friday, surrendering what is left to the sea again.

"The vast amounts of gold coins would possibly make this discovery the largest one in Africa outside Egypt," Lisbon maritime archaeologist Francisco Alves said.

"This vessel is the best preserved of its time outside Portugal. But the cultural uniqueness of this find is priceless."

Mr Alves is part of a multi-national team combing the seabed where the wreck was discovered in April. The 16th-century Portuguese trade vessel was found by chance as mine workers created an artificial sand wall with bulldozers to push back the sea for diamond dredging, Namibian archaeologist Dieter Noli told reporters invited to view the site.

"One of them noticed an unusual wooden structure and round stones, which turned out to be cannonballs," he said.

The abundance of objects unearthed where the ship ran aground along Namibia's notorious Skeleton Coast, where hundreds of vessels were wrecked over the centuries, has amazed experts.

Six bronze cannon, several tonnes of copper, huge elephant tusks, pewter tableware, navigational instruments and a variety of weapons, including swords, sabres and knives, have been pulled from the sand.

More than 2300 gold coins weighing about 21 kilograms and 1.5 kilograms of silver coins had been found, Mr Alves said. The ship's contents suggest it was bound for India or Asia.

"About 70% of the gold coins are Spanish, the rest Portuguese," he said. Precise dating was possible thanks to examination of the coin rims, showing some were minted in October 1525 in Portugal.

About 13 tonnes of copper ingots, eight tonnes of tin and more than 50 large elephant tusks together weighing 600 kilograms have also been excavated from the seabed.

"The copper ingots are all marked with a trident indent, which was used by Germany's famous Fugger family of traders and bankers in Augsburg who delivered to the Portuguese five centuries ago," South African archaeologist Bruno Werz said.

The team includes experts from the United States and Zimbabwe. The salvation efforts were made possible by the erection of sea walls to keep back the fierce Atlantic surf.

Namibia's Culture Ministry and Namdeb, the state diamond mining company, had shared the expense, said Peingeondjabi Shipoh, the ministry expert in charge of the recovery project.

But that was coming to an end, even though "I believe there is still more to be found", he told reporters.

"From October 10, the walls will not be maintained any more and the ship's remnants left to the elements again."

At one point it was thought the wreck was the ship of legendary Portuguese explorer Bartolomeo Diaz, the first known European to sail around the southern tip of Africa in 1488.

In line with the custom of Portuguese explorers of the time, Diaz that year left a huge stone cross to the glory of his country's king, called a "padrao", at what is today's harbour town of Luderitz, which Diaz baptised Angra Pequena, or "small cove", 750 kilometres south-west of the capital, Windhoek.

Around 1500, he and his sailing vessel went missing and were never found.

But hope that the Oranjemund find might resolve the mystery ended when it was established that the coins on the shipwreck were put into circulation 25 years after Diaz's disappearance.

[Salty]

" not all treasure is silver and gold" probably the only good quote from the movie....but an apt one.....when will the world see the good in the "not glamous side of archeaology"????????

[Lady Cassandra Seahawke]

10/31/08

VERMILION, Ohio (AP) — Two 19th century shipwrecks have been found at the bottom of Lake Erie.

OAS_AD('ArticleFlex_1'); Explorers say they believe the first wreckage belongs to the Riverside, a 133-foot, two-masted schooner built in 1870 in Oswego, N.Y., that was lost Oct. 13, 1893, about 25 miles north of Cleveland.

A second schooner also was found. Dive team member Dave VanZandt says said it could be the Plymouth, a 101-foot schooner built in 1847 in Huron, Ohio, that sank June 22, 1852, about 25 miles north of Lorain.

Investigators will try to confirm the names by looking for a number assigned by the government and carved into a midship beam.

The discovery by the Cleveland Underwater Explorers was announced Thursday in conjunction with the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermilion.

[Lady Cassandra Seahawke]

OSLO, Norway: The largest collection of antique shipwrecks ever found in Norway has been discovered under mud at the building site for a new highway tunnel in Oslo, the project's lead archaeologist said Friday.

Jostein Gundersen said at least nine wooden boats, the largest being 17 meters (56 feet) long, were found well preserved nearly 400 years after they sank at Bjoervika, an Oslo inlet near the new national opera house.

"For us, this is a sensation," he told The Associated Press. "There has never been a find of so many boats and in such good condition at one site in Norway."

The wrecks were remarkably well preserved because they had been covered in mud and fresh water, where river waters run into the sea, he said.

"We have a fantastic opportunity to learn more about old shipbuilding techniques and the old harbors," said Gundersen of the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo.

He said the wrecks are believed to have sunk sometime after a massive fire swept the wooden buildings of old Oslo in 1624. After that disaster, Danish-Norwegian King Kristian IV ordered the city center moved before reconstruction started.

The discovered boats were moored at the old port, which became a remote area after the city was moved. He said the boats may have been 30 or 40 years old when they sank.

"There is nothing to indicate that the ships were deliberately scuttled," said Gundersen. "They could have sunk one by one, because of sloppy mooring or poor maintenance, or maybe sank in a storm."

He said the wreckage will be charted and removed as quickly as possible, so construction of the undersea tunnel can continue. It will then take years, he said, to examine all the ship's remnants back at the museum.

Gundersen said the find will help fill gaps in knowledge between Norwegian Viking ships of roughly 1,000 years ago and more modern vessels.