18th-century shipwreck discovered by chance at "Game of Thrones" filming site in Croatia
What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks
What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks
What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks
A sunken 18th-century boat has been discovered by chance near the majestic stone walls of Croatia's medieval city of Dubrovnik.
Ivan Bukelic was working on a water pipeline in Dubrovnik's old port back in April when he found a wooden structure buried in the seabed.
"I can now say I discovered a boat at the Old Town Dubrovnik," said Bukelic, who is a diver and undersea builder from Dubrovnik.
He added the vessel was less than three feet inches under the sea bottom.
A key trade port in the Adriatic Sea in medieval times, Dubrovnik has been declared a UNESCO protected heritage site. It attracts huge crowds of tourists, especially during the summer, and is also known as a filming site for HBO's "Game of Thrones" series.
The remains of the boat in Dubrovnik's old port have been protected for further examination.
"We still cannot speak of the type of vessel or its dimensions but we can say for certain, based on the results of radiocarbon analysis that it was from late 18th century," marine archaeologist Irena Radić Rossi said.
Radić Rossi said the aim is to continue with the research in cooperation with Croatia's Ministry of Culture: "We must protect it for the future."
This Sept. 4, 2018 photo shows the harbor in the old town of Dubrovnik from a hill above the city.
Darko Bandic / AP
Known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic," Dubrovnik became an important Mediterranean sea power in the 13th century onwards, according to UNESCO. The city was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1667, but was able to preserve its ancient churches, palaces and fountains.
The discovery marks the second time this month that authorities have announced a chance discovery of a centuries-old shipwreck in Europe.
Earlier this month, archaeologists said they discovered by chance what they say are the remains of a 16th-century merchant ship more than 1.5 miles underwater off southern France. The wreck is the deepest such find in its section of the Mediterranean or any other French waters.
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Newsweek
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Temple of Civilization That Mysteriously Vanished 1,000 Years Ago Revealed
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CBS News
15 hours ago
- CBS News
18th-century shipwreck discovered by chance at "Game of Thrones" filming site in Croatia
What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks What technology could change the way we learn about shipwrecks A sunken 18th-century boat has been discovered by chance near the majestic stone walls of Croatia's medieval city of Dubrovnik. Ivan Bukelic was working on a water pipeline in Dubrovnik's old port back in April when he found a wooden structure buried in the seabed. "I can now say I discovered a boat at the Old Town Dubrovnik," said Bukelic, who is a diver and undersea builder from Dubrovnik. He added the vessel was less than three feet inches under the sea bottom. A key trade port in the Adriatic Sea in medieval times, Dubrovnik has been declared a UNESCO protected heritage site. It attracts huge crowds of tourists, especially during the summer, and is also known as a filming site for HBO's "Game of Thrones" series. The remains of the boat in Dubrovnik's old port have been protected for further examination. "We still cannot speak of the type of vessel or its dimensions but we can say for certain, based on the results of radiocarbon analysis that it was from late 18th century," marine archaeologist Irena Radić Rossi said. Radić Rossi said the aim is to continue with the research in cooperation with Croatia's Ministry of Culture: "We must protect it for the future." This Sept. 4, 2018 photo shows the harbor in the old town of Dubrovnik from a hill above the city. Darko Bandic / AP Known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic," Dubrovnik became an important Mediterranean sea power in the 13th century onwards, according to UNESCO. The city was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1667, but was able to preserve its ancient churches, palaces and fountains. The discovery marks the second time this month that authorities have announced a chance discovery of a centuries-old shipwreck in Europe. Earlier this month, archaeologists said they discovered by chance what they say are the remains of a 16th-century merchant ship more than 1.5 miles underwater off southern France. The wreck is the deepest such find in its section of the Mediterranean or any other French waters.
Yahoo
a day ago
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Incestuous ‘god-kings' may not have ruled Stone Age Ireland after all
In 2020, archaeologists in Ireland first announced a startling find at Newgrange, a giant Neolithic burial chamber 30 miles north of Dublin. Genetic analysis of the 5,000-year-old human skull fragments indicated that the man was the product of an incestuous relationship, either between siblings or a parent and their own child. Experts offered a headline-grabbing theory: Neolithic Ireland was ruled by incestuous royal dynasties, or potentially even 'god-kings' similar to those documented in ancient Egyptian and Incan empires. Dating back roughly 500 years before both Stonehenge and the Giza pyramids), the UNESCO World Heritage Site contains the remains of numerous Stone Age individuals. Combined with evidence of genetic relations in other passage tombs on the island, according to another team led by researchers at the University College Dublin, the Newgrange god-king hypothesis doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny. Their argument is laid out in a study published on June 22 in the journal Antiquity. Constructed around 3100 BCE, Newgrange includes a massive burial mound built from an estimated 196,000 tons of layered earth and stone. The site has featured prominently in Irish culture for millennia, with folklore eventually ascribing the chambers as home to the region's chief god Dagda and his son Aengus. Antiquarians first rediscovered Newgrange in 1699 CE, but the most thorough excavation work at the site began in 1962. Experts have continued exploring the Stone Age trove—including the controversial skull fragment known as NG10. Dating between 3340 and 3020 BCE, NG10 potentially offered, 'far-reaching consequences for our understanding of prehistoric population movement and the structure of that ancient society,' according to the 2020 study's accompanying report in Nature. 'Socially sanctioned matings of this nature are very rare, and are documented almost exclusively among politico-religious elites—specifically within polygynous and patrilineal royal families that are headed by god-kings,' the authors noted at the time. Archeologist Jessica Smyth disagrees. As one of the latest study's co-authors and an associate professor at University College Dublin, Smyth has serious doubts about NG10's royal pedigree. 'People were definitely being selected for burial in passage tombs—the whole community does not end up in these monuments,' Smyth explained in a statement. 'However, we don't know the reasons behind this selection, and why they were thought to be special.' Smyth and her colleagues argue that many of the site's other skeletal remains simply don't support the idea of pervasive incest among those buried at Newgrange. Instead, they say the genetic clustering found amid bones in specific passage tombs more typically reflects distant biological relations such as second cousins and even great-great-great-grand parents. With this knowledge, Smyth and co-authors believe the burials weren't solely determined by lineage or royal dynasty, but potentially along more communal, egalitarian lines. 'We now have some really great examples of monuments elsewhere in Europe that contain people with very close biological ties—parents, children, grandparents, etc.,' said Smyth. 'This sort of [ancient DNA] evidence is much closer to the idea of a lineage or dynasty. [But] we do not see this evidence in Irish passage tombs.' What's more, a deceased person's remains were treated differently during Neolithic Ireland than they are today. 'Unlike today, bodies don't tend to be buried 'whole' or 'intact' in this time period. Before they end up in megalithic monuments, bodies are broken down, sometimes cremated and even circulated around their communities,' added Smyth. Until recently, archaeologists have largely examined Irish megaliths and their passage tombs individually from each other, instead of in a broader context of the communities that surrounded them. Taken altogether, the team believes it remains difficult to extrapolate dynastic dynamics from a single skull fragment. 'A one-off example of incest is a shaky foundation on which to reconstruct an elite, let alone a specific social [hierarchy],' the study authors contend, adding that doing so may incorrectly further the myth that only important males were socially relevant. '[It] doesn't make sense to continue to focus so exclusively on forms of stable, individual rule, in Neolithic Ireland and elsewhere, when the evidence is insufficient to support such claims,' they wrote. 'It downplays the contribution made by collective action in the prehistoric past.'
