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Treasures Recovered From Sunken Egyptian City
Markgor writes "Found an interesting article on the recovery of treasures from the sunken Egyptian city of Herakleion. The city, along with the cities of Canopus and Menouthis, sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea after a massive earthquake. The cities were only known through Greek tragedies, travel logs, and legends until last year when they were rediscovered." As a kid, I always wanted to be in archeology - things are different obviously. This city is interesting - I've seen shots of it found by using satellite photos of the seabed.
No, not Atlantis.
The Atlantis legend was first written down, as far as we know, by Plato, who claimed that the story came from Egypt.
However, these sunken cities are not ancient Egyptian cities, they are Greek cities that were built after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and most of the middle east and established Greek cities all over the middle east and Egypt - including Alexandria (partially sunken now) and this other sunken city, Herakleion. You can tell these are Greek cities in part because of their names: Alexandria = city of Alexander, Herakleion = Herakles, aka Hercules.
These cities were built after Plato, and were sunk many centuries after Plato.
So, no, nothing to do with Atlantis.
Of course, they won't pay you anything to raise sunken stuff. They just want the booty. "Wow, great job, now fuck you and get your hands off of our gold." WTF?
Is it any wonder that people see the government as a thief they want to keep guns pointed at?
I was amazed when that segment finished without even remotely relating the city to Atlantis. Then I come here and see this, and, once again, no mention of Atlantis, by whom, of ALL the news sources, but /.?
I won't say anything here because I don't want attention to my post, but SOMEONE is trying to prevent this from appearing too obvious, that is, to make this "coincidence" beliable.
Hey this article is just in time for The Walt "bought a 50 years copyright extension" Disney corporations release of Atlantis.
Gee just coincidence right, archeologists knew about this city for years, but noone hears about it till Atlantis comes out.
Bleh.
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Rumour has it that SETI@Lantis only sunk half-way.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
no, it's coincidence only unless you believe in Providence.
-l
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No, I reckon they perpetrated this hoax to gain publicity :)
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What "mysterious circumstances" are they talking about? The main facility was destroyed during one of the Roman civil wars, and the secondary facility, located in the temple of Serapis, was ransacked and burned by a mob of fanatical Christians. Moreover, all this happened in the closing years of the third century AD, not the first century BC.
You'd think the author's hometown library had been burned to judge from this shoddy article.
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This article has actually been posted twice.
As someone stated in the earlier article, the stone objects has been in the water for 2000 years, and when they come in contact with air, they will rapidly crumble. They have to desalinate them if they want to bring it up to the surface.
"The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages." - Tao of Programming
If they don't desalinate them, they will crumble to dust in just a few years. The alternative is to just let them lie in the water. But since they have held 2000 years in the water already, it can't hurt with some thousand years more ;)
They bring it up to the surface for they scientists and tourists watch them and study them. But I've got a much better idea: Underwater Safari!
Wouldn't it be amazing floating round in a large, complete, 2000 year old city, which was a famous port, and legendary from antic history? They could use small submarines with large windows we could see through.
And the best part is that it will be saved from the hands of the evil scientists ;) They should have learned from the early 20th century archaelogy-methods.
"The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages." - Tao of Programming
I don't get it. What would you want them to do with the stuff they found?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Well.
When statues made of stone, which is a porous material, lay underwater for centuries they are bound to absorb some of the minerals in the water. Being an art and cs major, I spent many of my classes learning about our ancient works of art and where they came from.
Many objects found underwater, such as bronze and stone sculptures, become covered in salt, organic materials, etc. If you put a rock in salt water for a week when you take it out and let it dry in the air it will have a patina/covering of salt residue on it.
This desalinization treatment more than likely progresses the work of art through a process that removes the salt from inside the stone. This will take out the excess minerals and allow us to see the actual stone as it was carved.
The term desalinization refers to removing salt from any material, not just water. In case anybody was wondering.
-Scott
Scott Ruttencutter
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Several have answered the "how" part already, but as for the "why" ...
Common stones used for statues were sandstone, limestone and marble, all of which are rather porous. Leaving them soak for a few thousand years in water will likely dissolve some of the stone, leaving it rather fragile.
To keep these treasures from further damage, they must be carefully cleaned, and likely then they'd need to be further stabilised in some fashion. In lapidary work, a clear liquid epoxy is commonly used - I have no idea what might be used here.
Lemon curry?
And you didn't tell anyone!?
:)
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Interestingly enough, in the Disney movie 'Mulan', some of the scenes included the names of the animators, rendered into archaic forms of the chinese pictographs.
(I read this somewhere on the web - one of those sites that have Disney 'Easter Eggs' - I've never personally seen Mulan...)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
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You do realize that this is all just promotional material for Disney's Atlantis movie?
According to the article, the city was sunk about 1200 years ago, ca. 800 CE. Plato was born in 427 BCE and died in 347 BCE. This puts Plato's career almost as far back from the sinking of the city as the sinking of the city is from now.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Instead of sending these subs filled with humans (big insurance risk, plus as others have noted, the subs can't get close, and visibility is limited), what if you set up "simulator" pods, that look like the interior of a sub, with "infinite distance" projection systems, and place small remote-controlled subs with video cameras feeding the image back to the projector. Add proper lights, etc to keep the tourist entertained, maybe even pipe in sound. Make the subs wired back to a support raft/barge (using some communication cable/link system - 100baseT ethernet would work fine), not radio (doesn't work that well under water).
Heck, this could be done as cheap or as expensive as you want - on the cheap end you could build these machines out of sewer pipe and such (don't believe me? Look up "radio controlled submarine howto" on google), or as expensive as using one of the various underwater exploration systems out there...
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As the know-it-all showoff I am...
my particular area was medieval/postmedieval Northern European shipwrecks
But that's one of the most interesting parts of the field. The Baltic sea has too little salt for most ocean life, and too much salt for most lake life. In particular, nothing that eats sunken wood can live there. So the Baltic is pretty much the only place in the world to find ancient ships. Most of them aren't even discovered yet, much less taken ashore.
This story from a few days ago is very similar, but a different source and different info.
Wouldnt an UPDATE be more appropriate?
Mark Duell
Just thought I would let you know that this is a link to that horrendous fucking image of some complete looser's asshole, in case you don't want to see it - I know I sure never want to see it again.
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The stelae and three statues were to be taken to the government antiquities laboratory in Alexandria for desalinization treatment before being sent on an international tour at the end of 2003
Does anyone know how you desalinate stone objects like statues? And why it is necessary?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Well. I was wondering when something like this might roll along my way.
I was an underwater archaeologist in a past incarnation. While it makes for fabulous cocktail conversation, and I wouldn't be the same person had I not pursued it, archaeology is a bit like the larger picture of academics as viewed by the corporate married with children set (which I am now among):
looks great and romantic and carefree on paper, but the reality is there are fiefdoms and unchecked politics to deal with, and every month in the field is two years in a blinky fluorescent 8 X 8 lab room.
Unless you love the subject (my particular area was medieval/postmedieval Northern European shipwrecks. How's that for obscure?), and I mean love in the "religious exctasy...hold me down before I evanesce" sort of dedication, your interest becomes a soul-crushing, only-eating-mac-and-cheese-this-month (or "how far can stretch $500"), no-personal-life grind, particularly if it involves endless graduate school. I have friends still pursuing a Master's after 7 years.
bleah. Though I'd like to be a dig bum for a summer again!
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I like to watch.
My S.O. is an archaeologist too, she loves it. Right now she's leading an excavation of a Mayan household group in Belize, Central America, and yeah we get a kick out of those kinds of movies too :). She's in graduate school right now and going for her PhD (kind of a requirement in that field), only 6 more years to go! It kinda sucks that she has to be down there for 2 or 3 months at a time during the summer, but I try and go down and visit for a week or so at least if I can. Archaeology is actually very interesting and gives you quite a different perspective on things (at least it did for me).
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
The article states that "An earthquake 1,200 years ago sent the ancient port city of Herakleion crashing to the Mediterranean floor." That would place the event at roughly 800 AD, which can't possibly be the case. It didn't seem to be a typo either, since they gave this figure twice in the article.
So i guess this means that now Egyptians won't have to go to the British Museum to study their culture
Do you think Disney Payed off these guys to wait for ATLANTIS?
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
If any sunken city is nominated as Atlantis it should be this one:
t reasure_dc_1.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010514/lf/cuba_
2000 Feet under water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
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I remember from geology lessons some figures in the range of centimeters per century for northern Italy. Any geologists here?
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It must be difficult to police a 1 square mile area of sea 6 miles from shore, and prevent looters from making off with stuff. Now that the site has been found, there's sure to be treasure hunters after relics they can sell.
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I am looking at the pictures and I am wondering why they don't look like they have been at the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years. They look better than ones on dry land. I am not making a claim about any sort of conspiracy or anything. It's just that they look damn good for being through an earthquake and hundreds of years in the sea.
a troll? WTF?
um.. are you aware of how shallow the surrounding water is in SF? Apparently not. Think before you troll please.
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Virtually no one volunteers to dig up all of these treasures. Virtually no one donates the gear and supplies necessary to recover these treasures. It's impossible to recover them in this world for "free."
So which is better? To leave them buried? What about all of those grave robbers that come from Egypt and surrounding areas? The "capitalists" do not only come from Europe.
So yes, to remain somewhat honest, it some MUST be sold. It is better to be sold and held privately than to be taken in secret or left to rot over time. But not ALL of it will be held privately anyway...
This is the lesser of the other evils.
Hmmm. I'm thinking about going into the field myself, actually. D'you have any good dirt on the grad program at ECU?
Hapi, the god of flooding.
Is that irony or what?
.... is an archaelogist, and we just had a laugh at The Mummy Returns last week. Sorry, I had a drink.
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Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Please mod the parent up; I'm not trying to be a Usian basher, but this does deserve +2: insightful, at least.
A word can paint a thousand pictures
Why is it that the first thing that they do upon finding this wonderful relic of the past is take the treasures to, undoubtedly, sell them to the highest bidding museum? This just disgusts me. Thank God that Egyptians have some strict laws about where things discovered in their country can and can't go.
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