Word: mediterraneans
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...Mediterranean yields a vessel sunk perhaps 3,400 years...
That surreal image, which might have come from a Magritte painting, was how a young Turkish sponge diver from a small Mediterranean village described some curious objects he had spotted lying near a sunken shipwreck. When George Bass, a nautical archaeologist who had been rummaging around the floors of the Mediterranean coast for 25 years, heard that description in the summer of 1982, he thought-he hoped-that he might be on to something...
...make the bronze that gives the era its name), scattered pottery, gold objects, amphoras filled with glass beads, and some ivory from an elephant tusk and a hippopotamus tooth. Says Bass: "I can say without hesitation that this is the most exciting and important ancient shipwreck found in the Mediterranean...
...characteristic handles, which resemble one drawn on an Egyptian tomb at Thebes dating from 1350 B.C. The nationality of the vessel is suggested by the discovery of a miniature seal, no larger than a button, with markings similar to those used by the Greek merchants who dominated the ancient Mediterranean trade routes. Bass speculates that the ill-starred voyage had picked up tin in Syria and sailed west to acquire copper in Cyprus before heading for either Greece or Turkey...
...multitude of artifacts already examined are invaluable, not simply for their rarity but for what they will reveal about the seagoing life of the Mediterranean 34 centuries ago. Before the advent of marine archaeology, notes Bass, "we knew more about the safety pins and sewers of Athens than we did about the ships that made Athens great." The hull of this wreck, for example, tells much about shipbuilding techniques. Apparently the vessel was constructed by building the outer shell first, then adding ribs for reinforcement, the same method utilized 1,000 years later. Bass surmises that the wreck will disclose...