Great Flood Site Still in Question,But Ancient Ship Found

Jan Igniting at ticnet.com
Sun Nov 5 09:04:54 PST 2000


Great Flood Site Still in Question,
But Ancient Ship Found
Friday, November 3, 2000 By Randolph E. Schmid
WASHINGTON — A team led by underwater explorer Robert Ballard has
discovered an "absolutely astounding" wooden ship — perhaps 1,500 years old
— in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey.

Artifacts recovered nearby that scientists hoped would date back to the
time of the biblical flood turned out to be disappointingly modern. But the
site itself may still show human habitation from that ancient date. "What
we saw was absolutely astounding," said nautical archaeologist Cheryl Ward.
The ship's mast is still standing and stanchions rest nearby, held together
with wooden pegs. "No archaeologist has even been able to study anything
like this," she said in a news conference at the National Geographic
Society. "We have never been able to look at the deck of an ancient ship."
The unique oxygen-free deep water of the Black Sea allowed the ship to be
preserved without the normal worm damage that affects wooden vessels, and
Ballard said they expect other such treasures to be found. The researchers
plan to return to the area near Sinop, Turkey next year and work in the sea
off the coast of Bulgaria. Dealing with such a well-preserved ship presents
a problem, Ballard said. In the past, shipwrecks of that age had all the
wood eaten away and only the contents remained. "We don't know what to do"
to study it, he said. "I think we're still numb." He said a meeting is
scheduled for next month to consider how best to deal with the ship. When
the ship was first seen the team thought it was modern because it was so
well preserved. But carbon dating of wood from the ship showed the vessel
to be about 1,500 years old, dating from between A.D. 410 and 520. "This is
a ship carved by hand 1,500 years ago, so beautifully preserved it looks as
if it had just got off the dock," Ward said. The vessel measures about 45
feet in length and has a 35-foot-tall standing mast, she said. It was found
in about 650 feet of water. "This ship came from a time of custom-built
ships, when you went to a shipwright and told him what kind of ship you
needed and how large." Ships in those times were built skin first, with the
outside structure crafted before the inside was filled in. "It's the
complete opposite of how we do it today," Ward said. Sediment covered much
of the ship and no cargo was visible. Ballard's team last month reported
discovering what appears to be a man-made building foundation beneath the
sea not far from the shipwreck. It is located in an area that was inundated
by a cataclysmic flood 7,600 years ago — perhaps the great flood told of in
the Bible and other ancient writings. But wooden artifacts recovered from
that site turned out to be only about 200 years old, and must have floated
to the spot, according to archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert of the University
of Pennsylvania. Large objects, including wooden logs and stones that
looked as if they had been worked into blocks, could not be raised with the
expedition's equipment. "We now need to go back to the Black Sea and expand
our efforts to prove or disprove that people once lived on land that's now
underwater," Ballard said. He noted that the site is unique and would have
been on a bluff, overlooking a stream before the sea rose. Hiebert said
some charcoal had been found in the mud at the site and there are what seem
to be worked stones there, indicating human habitation. Ballard, president
of the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Conn., said five to 10 years of
work lies ahead for the project while exploring more and more of the Black
Sea. Unlike other oceans, its deep water does not circulate and thus
contains no oxygen, preserving whatever falls there. In addition to the
preserved ship, three other wrecks were found in shallower water where
there is some oxygen and they had been damaged by worms. They were trading
vessels believed to date from the Roman or Byzantine period, probably built
between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. All three contained large
quantities of terracotta jars that carried wine, oil or other liquids. The
carrot-shaped design of the jars was used by artisans in ancient Sinop,
Ward said. "Investigating the contents of these shipwrecks could
significantly add to our understanding of the importance of the Black Sea
as part of the Classical world," Hiebert said.

http://foxnews.com/scitech/110300/blacksea.sml

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