We recently posted about a press release by Sub Sea Research (SSR) claiming to have located the wreck of a British cargo ship sunk in June 1942 by the German submarine U87. Sub Sea Research claims that the ship was carrying 70 tons of platinum … Continue reading →
As Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas departed Port Everglades, Florida last week, the hydrodynamic response of the ship as it interacted with the surrounding tidal areas left beach-goers puzzled, and for [...]
In May of 2007, Odyssey Marine Exploration, a privately owned marine treasure-hunting company, discovered a Spanish shipwreck somewhere on the Atlantic seabed. Odyssey refused to divulge the exact location or the name of the ship. They ultimately recovered 17 tons of silver coins, plus almost 100,000 gold coins and a number of other artifacts from [...]
On Friday morning, a British passenger was seen falling overboard fell from the balcony of his cruise ship cabin on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, the Allure of the Seas, while cruising off the coast of Mexico, near the island of Cozumel. The Allure of the Seas with a capacity of … Continue reading →
A treasure hunter and his crew have found the wreckage of the SS Port Nicholson, and believe it may contains $3 billion worth of platinum. The merchant ship was sunk by a German U-boat back in 1942, but the British government says that it’s not so sure that it actually contained the treasure — thought [...]
A substantial piece of the Jennie and Annie, a schooner which sank 140 years ago, has washed ashore on a Lake Michigan beach. Sleeping Bear Dunes historians believe the schooner fragment, estimated to be about 40-feet long and peppered with twisted metals spikes, is part of the ship’s bilge keelsons, which the Oxford Handbook of [...]
A Viking axe head found in Gloucestershire may be evidence of a bloody battle fought 1,100 years ago. According to historians King Alfred the Great fought the Vikings in a bloody battle at Minchinhampton, about 10 miles from Slimbridge, in 894 AD. Three Viking princes were killed in the battle, and fighting could have ranged [...]
A number of Japanese land mines installed during WWII have been found dotting the coastline of Kawit Island in the Philippines. Bersales related that at the Talisay City landing on March 26, 1945, the American forces were surprised that there was no resistance or gunfire from the beach. But the coastline was lined with land [...]
Between 5 and 6 AM Thursday morning, the passenger ferry, MV Rabaul Queen, capsized about 10 miles off Finschhafen on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The ferry had a capacity for 300 people, but as many as 350 people are believed to have … Continue reading →
A Byzantine cemetery in Istanbul’s Çatalca district has been repeatedly plundered for years. Who knows what history has been lost as a result? “Grave diggers have swarmed into the region when the excavation work in the cemetery came to an end in 1995 upon the order of the Archeology Museum. Unlicensed excavations take place inside [...]
This week Germany returned some ancient artifacts that were looted from Afghanistan’s National Museum during their civil war. “This is a masterpiece … I am optimistic that in the future we will get the other artefacts back,” said Omara Khan Massoudi, the director of Afghanistan’s National Museum, which housed the sculpture before it was stolen. [...]
The remains of 17 women killed under General Francisco Franco’s regime in 1937 are being exhumed from a mass grave in Spain. Since the exhumation began last week, the remains of 14 of the 17 women have been discovered at the cemetery in the southwestern town of Gerena, said 25-year-old Lucia Socam, whose great-aunt Granada [...]
A kiln which was used by the Zapotec 1,300 years ago has been found in the Atzompa Archaeology Site in Oaxaca, Mexico. “Preliminarily, it was assumed that it might date from the first occupation years of the site, between 650 and 900 of the Common Era, more than 1,300 years ago, parting from associated ceramic [...]
Ancient pottery and artifacts have been uncovered on the island of Tinian which could help researchers learn how people first came to the area. As the theory goes, about 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, sea levels around Asia began to drop, Peterson said. The main road in Tumon, for example, would have been completely under [...]
Prostate cancer has been discovered in an Egyptian mummy which dates back 2,200 years. AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties. She said this was the second oldest known case of [...]
LiveScience has posted an interesting article about how archaeologists are using digital technologies to document excavations. In previous eras, researchers logged their data in notebooks, which were preserved along with photographs, maps and objects, in a physical archive. Rabinowitz can still access the notebooks and negatives of people who conducted research more than a hundred [...]
Archaeologists working in Sudan have found a long-lost temple which dates back to the Meroe period. The large temple compound is situated 130 km northwards of Khartoum. European travellers saw the remains of the temple in the early 19th century but then the temple disappeared in the desert, said Onderka who leads the Czech archaeology [...]
For years the hill-fort known as the Mound of Down in Ireland has been hidden because of the trees growing across its surface. Now it is being cleared of those trees to expose the fortifications. The enclosure is defined by a massive bank and ditch that encircles what was once a drumlin island in the [...]
One of the busiest slave ports in the Americas has been uncovered in Rio de Janerio after being buried for almost 200 years. Not far from here at least 500,000 Africans took their first steps into slavery in colonial Brazil, which took in far more slaves than the United States and where now half of [...]
Britain’s oldest house, found at the Star Carr Mesolithic site in North Yorkshire, is being threatened by its deteriorating surroundings. “The water table has fallen and the peat is shrinking and it is severely damaging the archaeology,” she said. “The water keeps the oxygen and bacteria out and because they are now going into these [...]
Researchers believe a mass grave found in Cambridge in 2009 contains the bodies of 54 decapitated viking mercenaries. Unlike the frenzied mob attack that took place at Oxford, all the men were murdered methodically and beheaded in an unusual fashion from the front. The Cambridge academic said she believed the skeletons belonged to a group [...]
Late in this past Thursday’s sun-drenched afternoon, the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain arrived in Ventura County’s Channel Islands Harbor, following their passage north from Oceanside Harbor. Both ships finalized their arrival with single shot cannon salutes, their reports echoing through the harbor. The two, full-scale reproduction tall ships are here as part of [...]