Finally...
We find out how much wages a 2,400 year old Grecian Urns. (apologies to Morecombe and Wise)
A bunch of maritime archaeologists, scientists and surveyors have discovered at the bottom of the Black Sea what is thought to be the oldest intact shipwreck – at a whopping 2,400 years. Thanks to the lack of oxygen at its depth over 2km below the surface, the 23-metre (75ft) vessel is remarkably unscathed. The boat's mast …
They should also keep the exact location secret
Probably a bit late for that. I'd wager that a web based ship tracker would be able to give a fairly accurate
location based on the course of the survey vessel (perhaps cross referenced to the depth and a location reported as 50 miles off the Bulgarian coast).
But I don't think you need worry - souvenir hunters may be put off by six and a half thousand feet of water. That's well below the maximum depths of even modern military submarines, so any thieves are going to need a bloody great support ship able to operate down to the better part of two miles deep, and a submersible ROV with a pressure rating to withstand 200 bar, and the ability to identify, collect and recover loot (that may not actually exist).
The "loot" in this case is simply knowledge. For instance, how these sort of ships were built is largely conjectural. Direct investigation can provide some proof, which sets the historical record straight.
There is a possibility that some navigational materials such as instruments might be recovered, which might prove or disprove existing historical theory, and what the cargo is can provide information about the culture's trade links etc.
"Probably a bit late for that. I'd wager that a web based ship tracker would be able to give a fairly accurate location"
Most survey boats turn the gain on their AIS system to as low as they possibly can when they're at work to avoid just this scenario. It's possible that this survey boat isn't required to have an AIS system, or they just turned it off.
So you might be able to pick up their position, but it's not guaranteed.
"But I don't think you need worry - souvenir hunters may be put off by six and a half thousand feet of water. That's well below the maximum depths of even modern military submarines, so any thieves are going to need a bloody great support ship able to operate down to the better part of two miles deep, and a submersible ROV with a pressure rating to withstand 200 bar, and the ability to identify, collect and recover loot (that may not actually exist)."
Titanic is over twelve thousand feet deep, and has been scavanged of some items. Sure the depth may put off some people, but the difficulty in getting there may increase the appeal and the value of any retrieved items.
Assuming that the gold hasn't washed away, of course.
Tim Severtin recreated the Jason Voyage in 1984 and wrote a great book (1) on the subject. He had a master shipwright in eastern Greece build him a boat in the neotlithic style and he captained a crew that sailed the boat to then Soviet Georgia. And in the mouth of one of the rivers opening onto the Black Sea they came across locals who left sheepskins in the river to collect grains of gold as the river water washed through it.
(1) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jason-Voyage-Quest-Golden-Fleece/dp/0099461803
I disagree. We should bring it up (*), disassemble it and examine the pieces and how they fit together to perfect our knowledge of their level of shipbuilding. I think that would give valuable insight into why they did things the way they did. I'm sure we'd learn a lot from that wreck.
* - if feasible, obviously, and given the depth, there may be a bit a challenge.
Current archeological practice is to leave things as much in place as possible, if possible. Which is the case here.
The thing is that archeological technology, especially the underwater bit, is still rapidly developing. This means that we can always revisit the site with more accurate equipment in a decade or so, and get much better data on a site that's mostly undisturbed. Between GPR and sonar we can already visualise things that required actually digging up stuff two decades ago. Give it another decade or two, and we can have a much better look at the thing.
…why is it at the bottom of the sea? I mean, something must have compromised its buoyancy and, short of it being carefully filled with water by a capricious god, I’d have thought that same something would have broken its intactness. If I break the screen of my phone I wouldn’t describe it as intact - even if I keep all the shards with it and, from the picture, that boat looks rather broken (although, I admit, remarkably well preserved).
Okay, pedant mode off. This is an impressive find. I look forward to seeing what else they find on it.
I mean, something must have compromised its buoyancy and, short of it being carefully filled with water by a capricious god, I’d have thought that same something would have broken its intactness.
Before people got all logical about ship design, most were fairly open, had little freeboard (distance waterline to deck or openings), and were therefore incredibly vulnerable to heavy waves or wind. Or even an overly quick turn, as the Mary Rose illustrated in calm water over a thousand years later.
So it is very likely that most of the early vessels they've found are intact.
Don't spoil the Daily Mash's article with your so-called "facts"
"....…why is it at the bottom of the sea? I mean, something must have compromised its buoyancy and, short of it being carefully filled with water by a capricious god, I’d have thought that same something would have broken its intactness. If I break the screen of my phone I wouldn’t describe it as intact - even if I keep all the shards with it and, from the picture, that boat looks rather broken (although, I admit, remarkably well preserved).
Okay, pedant mode off. This is an impressive find. I look forward to seeing what else they find on it..."
Source: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/worlds-oldest-intact-shipwreck-cant-be-that-intact-or-it-wouldnt-have-sunk-20181023178595
"...You're correct- Yes, divers max out way before that. Even with "The Abyss"-style liquid-breathing systems you'd suffer neurological damage at those depths..."
Actually...the record on open circuit SCUBA equipment is deeper than 300m:
http://divemagazine.co.uk/skills/6777-scuba-diving-records
Not that you're incorrect about the physical and neurological risks these people expose themselves to.
perhaps the Antikythera Mechanism was much more popular than we know as the very widespread adoption of the larger cheap wooden Persian knock offs didn't last. The Persian Wars were likely started because the Xerxes model was being forcibly marketed to the Greeks and the introduction of either trade tariffs or an Intellectual Property Rights dispute over the rounded shape of the device being derivative of the Athenian Brass model...
Depends on the ROV(s) used, but it would be anyway very different from a true archeological excavation of the area, impossible at those depths. Sediments could have covered a lot of relics.
Anyway the uniqueness of Antikythera Mechanism IMHO doesn't make it a widespread device easy to find in other locations. Probably others existed, but still were special items.
Which is why no-one has ever found a trireme wreck. Those things really were buoyancy-positive. Even if you knocked a dirty great hole in the bottom, it wold just get rather swampy inside. (As contemporary Greeks demonstrated in a number of sea battles.)
OTOH, load a heavy cargo in the bottom, and if the ship stopped displacing water for any reason, and it would go down like a stone - which is why many merchant wrecks from the Roman period have been found.