What happened when a team of scientists went out on a mission across the Black Sea? Who could have thought that this vast sea was hiding something this big that could change everything about the past. The Black Sea has always been an intriguing place for scientists from all over the world. There are still so many unsolved mysteries hidden deep in the water. This team on their research ship was sailing across the Black Sea when they spotted something and little did they know, the team's life was about to change forever.
Let's begin this amazing adventure and see what did they find that people all over the world were talking about it.
The scientists knew that there are still so many mysteries that are hidden in the depths of the sea but they weren't expecting to find this piece of history that was lost in time only to be found by this team. This discovery became one of the world's most extraordinary discoveries, that would tell the world about the past that was never be heard or told by any human. But the discovery was kept as a secret until they felt that the world was ready to hear about it.
Professor and archeology expert, Jon Adams from the University of Southampton in England was leading the team. His team headed out to the Black Sea to acquire information about the survey they were doing on submerged landscapes. After the continental shift that took place billions of years ago many places were flooded by water. What we see today isn't the way it looked in the past. The continents were separated and there were lots of places that were forgotten and the future generation never got the chance to learn about it. The survey was about making them aware of the past but instead, it was the team who met the strangest part one could meet. What was it? You'll find out soon...
Adam's team has been working hard on the survey since 2015, and each member of the team was passionate and excited because in their heart they knew they would soon create the history that would change the way we saw the world. Their quest was simple and clear. The team was given the opportunity to explore the Black Sea and find out about the lost landscapes. They had the best equipment with them that could explore the 6,000 feet below the surface of the earth. But instead, they found something else.
The research was special in all sense because of the fact that since the Ice Age it was only this team that stepped foot in this place. Adam made sure that he has all the equipment which he might need during the exploration as they didn't know how deep they had to go before they could find something for the survey. Humans have a limit as they aren't capable of traveling any deeper than 130 feet inside the water.
The equipment which this team used was the most expensive in the business of underwater exploration. Adam needed the best and he was sailing with the best team and best types of equipment. The team's vessel was installed with the finest underwater technology there was. The team operated with two ships, one was working from the off-shore through which they controlled two Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs). Two ROVs rode in the sea bed and sent data back to the team about the surroundings.
The two ROV's were different and had two very different purposes to fulfill. One was equipped with UHD cameras, bright lights that gave the team a better chance to see the surrounding. The other was installed with a laser scanner to send the data collected from the bed of the sea to the main ship to see what they were actually looking at. It was that one moment when they spotted something. Unable to believe what they were looking they decided to move forward with the investigation.
Adam's team knew about their mission which was to go out and discover the areas that were once part of the Black Sea. However, there were other scientists too that researched the areas but this team became the first to explore it through advanced technology and with a team of researchers actually present there. Adam was looking for that clue which other scientists missed in the past. The team knew that this voyage could turn into their worst nightmare but they had to try and little did they know they found the most amazing piece of the history.
As they say, there is no certainty about life, the team was about to experience personally. The dream was about to become reality and they had every reason to enjoy because they found the most incredible thing that no other human was able to find in these years. The Black Sea which is famous for its mysterious nature was holding one more but this time it was destined to be found by this specific team who had sailed to find the lost areas but found something much more amazing.
This mission started in 2015 and for straight three years team was working hard to find some evidence so that their mission could get some start. The team almost covered 800 miles of the sea floor and during this period of time, at some marked locations, they had collected around 330 feet of sediment core evidence, but they wanted more because this wasn't something they could tale back to the lab as it won't prove anything. The team was exhausted from all the work and they almost decided to give up. However, they changed their mind when they saw something lying on the bed of the sea. Nothing like this has ever been found.
No, they didn't find any treasure map but it's the name of the project, the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP) which is still in process. The main focus of this mission is to find unearthed evidence of the areas that were there before the Black Sea took over them. The team was hoping to find something valuable and that could lead the mission to some direction because it was already three years now and there was nothing concrete the team has found yet. But that morning their life was changed forever.
The ancient Greeks named this sea as "Inhospitable Sea." The sea was difficult to travel and due to its bad reputation and several hostile tribes who inhabited its shores made the sea almost unapproachable. But, after the Greeks took over the sea and its nearby areas they changed its name to "Hospitable Sea." With the depth of almost 150 meters, its waters are filled with hydrogen sulfide which spread for almost 2 kilometers. There are no living organisms present in this area and hence the name. But something was there which proved why the Black Sea is also counted as the most mysterious place on the planet Earth.
After the Ice Age came to an end which almost drowned every other area. The scientists have no answer to the question of what exactly happened to the human civilization that lived along the edges of the sea? And there are no ways to find it out unit the MAP mission started. The project is finding the answers to some really hard questions that revolve around the Black Sea and about its past. The mission was simple, use the most advanced technology to discover former land surfaces but who knew that there was something else which was buried below the sea bed.
Professor Jon Adams is a Professor of Archeology at the University of Southampton. He is an expert in maritime archeology, and in the field of archeology in the coastal zone and underwater. He has studied the waters almost all his life. It was his experience and research that led to this mission to explore the most adventurous waters on the earth. Adams was sure that this would mission would change his life, indeed it did, but for some other reason.
In the year 2015, the mission took a first step towards making the history that would soon change the past forever. After the discovery was made public there was a huge wave that shocked the whole world. It began with a simple sediment collecting mission and as it proceeded there was a time when they had nothing to collect. At some places, they found data but there were places too when nothing could be seen no matter how deep you went.
It doesn't matter how passionate you are about doing something, there comes a time that you get exhausted because nothing seems to go right for you. The same exhaustion was felt by this team which was working day and night to make the mission a success. Three years is a very long to time and continuing on the same path for that much amount of time things get really disturbed. The team felt like they should leave everything behind and head back home. Indeed the Black Sea was mysterious. But then everything changed...
Adams and his team almost lost every hope of finding anything. All they had some not so useful sediment samples and water which was all around them. Adams was feeling that his team was getting frustrated with the everyday routine. He decided to explore the spot which was not marked by any other scientists before. It was his last, he knew that after this there won't be any further research and they might head back from this place back to their daily lives. It was that one unmarked spot that changed their lives forever.
The team was not convinced but they could see how serious was Adams was. With all the preparations done they moved to that life-changing spot. The two ROVs were in place and the exploration to find the most amazing thing in the world started. It was Adams' intuition that he was able to see that there was something in this spot that changed everything for the team.
As they moved one of the ROVs to the bed of sea they looked around and they were taken aback when they spotted something which was still not clear because of the dark and the light wasn't even able to reach that thing which was lying there. As they moved closer to the location they were taken aback by the discovery. There were around 60 different ancient shipwreck sites, surprisingly each one of them dating back to a different time period. These shipwrecks were a complete mystery as there was no information about them. But soon they found out which came as another surprise for the team.
When researched about them a little further the team found out that these sites were from the Roman, Hellenistic, and Byzantine periods. The best thing about the discovery was its present condition. Due to a little oxygen which was present in the waters, the treasure survived for this long period. The team couldn't take their eyes off from the amazing discovery. There was this sudden feeling of excitement that took over the team and Adams' hunch changed their lives forever.
Now, the team had every reason to stay at this place until they don't find out everything about these shipwrecks. What was their history? Are there any buried treasures inside one of the shipwrecks? The team stayed there for two seasons and when everything came to an end they found the shipwrecks. During the additional course of their mission, they found out 20 other shipwrecks scattered all over deep inside the bed of the sea.
The ships were in very condition and some of them even had crew equipment resting there on the deck of the sea. With mast standing as it has never seen the low and rudders still in place, they found the lost pieces of history. The team wanted to know more about it and as the investigation proceeded more and more baffling information was out in the open.
The investigation made them aware of the other features of the discovery. The structures and uninjured fittings, with the most of these ships which have only been seen in the drawings by famous artists. Though this discovery was incredibly amazing, there were also other things that made their find much more interesting. What they found next helped the world to look at history from a different angle.
That was an unusual sighting which made the discovery more interesting. Adams' team saw an oddity that was there in a 75-foot-long ship. Though the whole shipwreck wasn't visible as the other parts were buried under sand, the half part was telling them a very amazing story about the past. Along with other wrecks that were scattered all over, this particular ship has been preserved and the team knew the reason behind that.
The rowing benches were visible on the ship and mast was in a nearly perfect condition and in order to understand the reason behind it, Brendon Foley explained it, “The usual critters that eat wood and other organics elsewhere… cannot live in these anoxic waters, so shipwrecks… are preserved as if they were in a… big pickle jar.”
The team investigated each shipwreck one by one, and they made sure that they capture every detail through images and videos. While they were doing that the team spotted something inside the ship. The team believed that this ship was a Greek ship. And how did they reach that conclusion? There was a carving on that Greek trading vessel and also found the Siren Vase, which was sent to a British museum in London.
Back in the past, Greece was considered one of the most important places in the world. The place was filled with not only knowledgeable traders, but also skilled writers, athletes, and much more. At that time, they were called the Hellenes, which was changed after the arrival of the Romans who started calling them the Greeks.
The Greeks who spent a lot of their time on the water, exploring the unseen areas across the Black Sea. Their economy was built on trade and due to that they found many unoccupied lands and made it theirs. Greece is one of the oldest cities in the world. People have been living there for more than 40,000 years. But that's not it there were several other new information the team was able to find out about the ancient ships and about Greeks.
The Vase is considered as one of the most amazing finds of the greek era. Homer's poem "The Odyssey" where there is the painting (shown above) and the carvings on the ship which is shown in the painting is similar to the carvings found on the discovered ship. The vase has been dated back to around 480 B.C. The mystery behind the creator of the vase still continues and the researchers wanted to know that one connection which linked the vase and the ship.
Even if they wanted, the shipwreck couldn't be moved from its original place where it was found as they had no idea what all damage it has suffered in all these years. Because of that, the team managed to secure small evidence from the ship and with the use of radiocarbon dating they would be able to find how old this ship actually was. The result was just as astonishing as this discovery.
Results from the test proved how important this discovery was. The carbon dating test revealed that the ship was from 400 B.C., meaning that this ship has been lying on the bed of sea for amazing 2,400 years. Surprisingly, the ship was in good condition even after all these years. The simple mission of looking for the lost lands was turned into a treasure hunt which was far more interesting than finding a lost land.
The test told them how old this discovery was and it was time to tell the world about this amazing find that was found in the Black Sea. Adams shared his experience saying, "A ship, surviving intact, from the Classical world, lying in over two kilometers of water, is something I would never have believed possible."
"This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world," Adams added further. Along with him, the team consists of Lyudmil Vagalinsky of the Academy of Science and Kalin Dimitrov from the Center of Underwater Archeology. For all of them, this discovery has given their careers a new height and new path to follow.
One thing that we know from this discovery is that Greeks trades across the sea and after finding a case it was pretty much obvious that this was ship was used for trading with the other parts of the country. According to the scientists, there could be numerous numbers of shipwrecks still lying on the bed of the sea. But would we ever be able to find them all? Nobody can say for sure.
As they continued their research they looked into the history of the ship, they suggested that there would have been a crew of 15 to 25 men and back then they didn't have the advanced technology where we are able to bail the water overboard because in the past they needed a big crew to do that as the ship was handled by a person and not by machine like the way we do it.
"The new systems reduce the costs of deep ocean survey and search and increase the area that can be investigated in a given time. Now it’s becoming possible to map an entire basin (think: the whole Black Sea) and discover every shipwreck on the seafloor," explained Foley. Because of the help of today's advanced machinery they were able to discover something this big that changed everything.