Tamerlane’s Curse- Don't Disturb My Tomb

Timur or Tamerlane was a brutal leader (1336-1405) of Turkish who established a empire in Central Asia with a capital in Samarkand (now- Uzbekistan) in the 1300s after the destroy of the Mongol empire. 

Tamerlane was called as Timur and Tanburlaine because Tamerlane is a conjunction of "Tamer the Lame," a name he received because of a limp he received from a wound in his leg and the word "Timur" means "iron" in Turkic language.

Tamerlane was a Muslim and a great hero across Asia and the Muslim world in his time. During a 19-year campaign between 1386 and 1395, he conquered many countries like presently Iran, Iraq, Syria, eastern Turkey, the Caucasus, northern India, with his home base in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.  

Tamerlaine once reportedly said: "There is only one God in the sky, and there should be only one king on the earth, the whole world do not deserve to have more then one king".

In the life time of Tamerlaine, he conquered many countries from Eurasia from Delhi to Moscow, from the Tien Shan Mountains of Central Asia to the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia. Though Tamerlane's empire was large it only occupied the southwesterly quarter of the realm of the Mongols when they were at their peak.  

Tamerlane defeated many historical most famous armies namely the Mongols, the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Turks. His military was composed of 'tumen' military units of a 10,000 made of soldiers from conquered territories. 

In 1398, Tamelane invaded India and sacked Delhi and massacred thousands of Hindus. In a key battle there Tamerlane faced Sultan Mahmud Khan's army, which had 120 war elephants armored with chain mail and with poison on their tusks. 

Tamerlaine military forces were afraid of the elephants, Tamerlane ordered his men to dig a trench in front of their positions. Timur then loaded his camels with as much wood and hay as they could carry. 

When the war elephants charged, Timur's army set the hay on fire and prodded the camels with iron sticks, causing them to charge at the elephants howling in pain. 

Timur had understood that elephants were easily panicked. Faced with the strange spectacle of camels flying straight at them with flames leaping from their backs, the elephants turned around and stampeded back toward their own lines. 

Timur capitalised on the subsequent disruption in Mahmud Khan's forces, securing an easy victory. Tamerlane claimed the sultan's elephant corps and took them back to Samarkand to build mosques and tombs. 

Tamerlane's Tomb:

Tamerlane died suddenly of pneumonia at Otyrar in Kazakhstan 1405, while on his campaign to conquer China. By that time he was an old man at the age of 69. His body was transferred to Samarkand and buried in mausoleum Guri-Emir Gur-Emir (one kilometer southwest of the Registan) is a mausoleum where Tamerlane, two of his sons, two of his grandsons (including Ulugbek) and other descendants are entombed.

In 1941, Soviet anthropologists opened Tamerlane's grave and confirmed that Tamerlane was in fact lame and that Ulughbek was beheaded. According to an often told story the anthropologists uncovered an inscription on his tomb that said, "When I rise from the dead, The world shall tremble." Inside his casket was a note that said "whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I." The next day, June 22, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. 

 Sources:

>  Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#Exhumation_and_alleged_curse

> Facts And Details

http://factsanddetails.com/asian/cat65/sub424/item2681.html  

Lake Baikal, Russia- SHOCKING ALIEN HUMANOIDS! In Deep Lake (Yet to be known)

Russia is always a place to great number of mysteries!!

 Military Divers in Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, encountered "a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits"

The story started thousands of years ago-

In 1930s, Ilya Grabovsky, a Russian researcher of the paranormal was exploring strange happenings around Lake Issik Kul, a deep body of water located in the Northern Tian Shan Mountains. "Issik Kul" means “Warm Lake”, a  the lake never freezes, despite being surrounded by icy mountains.

 

Grabovsky had heard legends about hidden caves in the area so he contacted a local who had inadvertently stumbled into one. He told Grabovsky that he and his friends were fishing on the lake's northwestern shore when they saw a cave. It was inaccessible so they resolved to return the next day with ropes, torches and pickaxes.
 

The following day, the men began exploring the cave and made a startling discovery inside its innermost sector. They discovered three human skeletons, each one measuring more than ten feet tall. Around their necks, each skeleton had a silver amulet in the shape of what the men described as "bats".

Galvanized by the fisherman's admission, Grabovsky decided to dig deeper into the mystery. Rummaging through local archives, he stumbled upon the earliest mention of similarly-gigantic creatures, dating back to the mid 1800’s.

A group of Georgian boys ( Georgia was part of the Russian Empire) were diving for mussels in Lake Issik Kul when they happened upon the underwater entrance to a cave inside the nearby mountain.  

Despite his best efforts, Grabovsky never found this cave. Or maybe he did but kept silent. Either way, the official version is that he died without sharing the results of his work with the rest of the world.

But this isn’t the end of the story... It was just the Beginning of the story!!!!-----

In the 1980’s, Lake Issik Kul became the place for Soviet testing of torpedoes, underwater missiles and military diving equipment. It was also one of the places where the Soviet military conducted periodic training of the recon divers known as "frogmen." Another location was the already infamous Lake Baikal.

In 1982, during a frogmen training exercise in Lake Baikal, the divers encountered a group of strange underwater swimmers. The aquatic humanoids were enormous (more than ten feet tall) and, despite swimming in frigid waters, they wore nothing but tight-fitting silver suits.  

Although the beings were spotted at a depth of over 150 feet, these silvery suits didn't look like anything the Soviets were using. They only had sphere like helmets concealing their heads.

Irkutsk fishermen mentioned that Soviet divers were being thrown out of the water at heights between 30-50 feet above the waters surface. With the decompression this led to many of the Soviets contracting aeroembolism (caisson disease) also known as "The bends".

This encounter determined the Soviet military leaders to attempt an expedition to catch one or all of the underwater humanoids and a group of seven frogmen was assembled and dispatched to the area.  

Former Afghan War veteran and author Mark Shteynberg, who has extensively researched this case, remembered the case and he said like this-

    “As the frogmen tried to cover the creature with a net, the entire team was propelled out of the deep waters to the surface by a powerful force. Because autonomous equipment of the frogmen does not allow surfacing from such depths without strict adherence to the process of decompression stops, all of the members of the ill-fated expedition were stricken by aeroembolism, or the Caisson disease. The only remedial treatment available consisted of an immediate confinement under decompression conditions in a pressure chamber.


    They had several such pressure chambers in the military region, but only one in working condition. It could contain no more than two persons.Those local commanders had forced four frogmen into the chamber. As a result, three of them (including the CO of the group) perished, and the rest became invalids.”

Not long after that, the Engineer Forces of the Ministry of Defense issued a bulletin addressed to the staff headquarters of the Turkmenistan military region. The bulletin noted many other lakes where similar aquatic humanoid sightings had been reported, alongside the usual flying disks and spheres ascending from and diving into the deep.
 

The admissions of retired high-ranking military officials, such as Col. Vladimir Azhazha seem to suggest that there is something lurking in the unexplored depths of our planet.

Old Hyderabad’s Famous Tunnels Which Leads To Hidden Treasures- Yet To Be Found

In India , during the Mughal rule, usually Mugal kings make hidden tunnels to store treasures and also for emergency escapes from the kingdom. So far we heard about many secret tunnels made by Mughal emperors. In my previous post on  Mughal Hidden Treasure of Alwar we have seen about the hidden treasures in Alwar fort.

Have you ever visited Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, It's been found that there are hidden tunnels connecting the Charminar and Golconda fort is believed to have hidden treasures which were kept there by Nizams, for emergency exits at several places. 

These tunnel, were constr­ucted by Sultan Moham­med Quli Qutub Shah, 500 years ago, to provide a safe pass­age to the royal family from Golconda fort to Char­minar, in case of emergencies.

Khaja Moinuddin, retired assistant director census opera­tions, who conducted a comprehensive survey of Hyderabad in 1962 said that the tunnel which still exists between the two historical structures is believed to have treasures at various places.

To locate the tunnel, the excavation work was started from a place near Nawab Saif Nawaz Jung’ Deorhi palace and after digging about 10 feet, they found a  huge granite slabs were found.

After removing the slabs, they found the tunnel, which was 30 feet deep and 15 feet wide and the depth of the tunnel at some places is about 40 feet. 

Excavations were also carried out near the locality known as Doodh Khana Allah Rakhi Begum and the tunnel having the same dimension was found. 

It was revealed in the excavati­ons that the tunnel had at least two branches, one from Saif Nawaz Jung-ki-Deorhi to Mitti-ka-Sher and from Jameelaki-Deorhi to Doodh Khana Allah Rakhi Begum passing through Sahr-e-batil Kamaan. 

Khaja Moinuddin also said that, as the tunnel was constr­ucted mainly for the use of the royal family during emergencies, there was a possibility that treasures were stored in it at secret places. 

It is said that there was also a secret tunnel from the durbar hall of the Sultans in the Golconda Fort to the Gosha Mahal near the Charminar.

In the early 1950s, under the orders of the Nizam’s grandson Prince Mukarram Jah, efforts were made to clear the tunnel from the Golconda Fort. But the workers found that the tunnel had collapsed in many places due to non-use and they had to abandon the efforts.

Hyperloop One- We can travel more than the speed of a plane!!!(Dubai to Abu Dhabi in 12 minutes)

Have you traveled more than the speed of a plane?....

Hyperloop One is reinventing super-fast tube transportation which can transport passengers in an lighting speed. It can reach a top speed of 800 miles per hour (1,300 km/h) with a yearly capacity of 15 million passengers.

It was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, who said-

"It could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes a plane.

It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum.The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes."

This system uses electric propulsion to accelerate a passenger or cargo vehicle through a tube in a low pressure environment. The autonomous vehicle levitates slightly above the track and glides at faster-than-airline speeds over long distances. 

How Hyperloop one works:

The Passengers make  a reservation on their phone, an autonomously driven, box-shaped Pod would show up at their location. This pods would drive through the city alongside regular car traffic and also be able to operate autonomously away from the pressurized tubes, meaning they could travel on regular roads. 

 (Image Courtesy:  Hyperloop One/Bjarke Ingels Group)

"Pods have room for 6 people. The pods are contained within a transporter, a pressure vessel attached to a chassis for levitation and propulsion that can accelerate the transporter to 1,100km/h. Pods will have Different interior environments and seating arrangements offer passengers, a travel experience tailored to their needs, whether traveling solo or in groups, for business meetings or casual trips."

Pods reaches to a station called Portals.All departure gates are immediately visible upon entering the portal, and a simple numbering system allows passengers to quickly identify them. 

At the Portal, there will be Hyperloop's control room from where all the sytems will be controlled from a central location.

At the portal, your pod docks together in a transporter, a  pressure vessel attached to a chassis for levitation and propulsion that can accelerate the transporter to 1,100km/h with other pods carrying more passengers or maybe cargo.  Then they are fed into a vacuum-sealed tube, where you’ll zip along at hundreds of miles per hour to your destination.

Hyperloop One will build the first Hyperloop system to go from Dubai to Abu Dhabi which is 99 miles (159.4 km) long and normally takes about two hours by car but Hyperloop One promises it would take a mere 12 minutes in the hyperloop.  

Hyperloop One's first open-air test in the Nevada desert in May featured a metal sled shooting down a train track at a little more than 100 mph. Hyperloop One says in 2017, it plans to show off the full-scale prototype it’s building in Nevada.

Magical Flying Carpets- ( Myth or Real? )

                 We all have heard and seen about this Magical Flying Carpets in the stories of  "Sinbad and the 1001 Arabian Nights" and later seen in the television for the first time in more modern versions of the tale, most visibly Walt Disney’s 1992  'Aladdin and the Magic Lamp'.

These carpets are known also as Magical flying carpets, as they transport their owners from one place to another through the air.

Making of Real Magical Flying Carpets:

                               A group of university graduates from Princeton in America recently managed to create a technology called 'Ripple Power' which was able to make a small piece of material float. By driving air under a thin sheet of plastic using an electrical current they can make it move at around at a rate of around one centimetre per second. 

This doesn't seem much at the moment, but its inventor thinks with more research they might be able to introduce more expansive movements to the prototype, so perhaps seeing a real magic carpet isn't fantasy after all.

Using Of Name "Operation Magic Carpet":

The name 'operation magic carpet' has twice been used in history for ferrying large numbers of vulnerable groups to safety. 

> The first occasion, which coincided Allied victory in World War Two, saw over 8 million American military personnel being transported home from Europe and various Pacific locations. Over 370 navy ships were used during this enormous procedure which wasn't completed until September 1946. 

> The second time, the term was actually a nickname for a similar process officially called 'Operation On Wings of Eagles' which saw 50,000 Jews relocate to Israel from deprived parts of Yemen.

  

History of Flying Carpets: Real Evidence

Factual evidence for what was a long-standing myth has now been found by a French explorer, Henri Baq, in Iran. 

Baq has discovered scrolls of well-preserved manuscripts in underground cellars of an old assassin castle at Alamut, near the Caspian Sea. Written in the early thirteenth century by a Jewish scholar named Isaac Ben Sherira,these lost manuscripts shed new light on the real story behind the flying carpet of the Arabian Nights.

The discovery of these artefacts has thrown the scientific world into the most outrageous strife. Following their translation from Persian into English by Professor CGD Septimus, the renowned linguist, a hastily organised conference of eminent scholars from all over the world was called at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. 

Baq’s discovery came under flak from many historians who insisted that the manuscripts were forgeries. 

M. Baq, who could not attend the conference because of the birth of his child, was defended by Professor Septimus, who argued that the new findings should be properly investigated. The manuscripts are now being carbon-dated at the Instituto Leonardo da Vinci, Trieste.

According to Ben Sherira, Muslim rulers used to consider flying carpets as devil-inspired contraptions. Their existence was denied, their science suppressed, their manufacturers persecuted and any evidence about incidents involving them systematically erased. 

Although flying carpets were woven and sold till the late thirteenth century, the clientele for them was chiefly at the fringe of respectable society. 

Ben Sherira writes that flying carpets received a favourable nod from the establishment around 1213 AD, when a Toranian prince demonstrated their use in attacking an enemy castle by positioning a squadron of archers on them, so as to form a kind of airborne cavalry, the art otherwise floundered, and eventually perished in the onslaught of the Mongols.

The earliest mention of the flying carpet, according to Ben Sherira’s chronicle, was made in two ancient texts. 

The first of these is a book of ancient dialogues compiled by one Josephus and the other is a book of proverbs collected by Shamsha-Ad, a minister of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. 

None of these works survives today, however, with their aid, Ben Sherira compiled a story relating to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon that is not found elsewhere. 

Located at the southern tip of Arabia, the land of Sheba occupied the area of present-day Yemen, although some geographers claim that Ethiopia or ancient Abyssinia was also part of its territory. 

This country was ruled by a beautiful and powerful queen who is remembered in history as the Sheba of the Bible, the Saba or Makeda of the Ethiopian epic Kebra Negast, and the Bilqis of Islam.

At the inauguration of the queen in 977 BC, her alchemist-royal, a Talmudist, demonstrated small brown rugs that could hover a few feet above the ground. Many years later she sent a magnificent flying carpet to King Solomon. 

A token of love, it was of green sendal embroidered with gold and silver and studded with precious stones, and its length and breadth were such that all the king’s host could stand upon it. 

The king, who was preoccupied with building his temple in Jerusalem, could not receive the gift and gave it to his courtiers. When news of this cool reception reached the queen, she was heartbroken. 

She dismissed her artisans and never had anything to do with flying carpets again. The king and the queen eventually reconciled, but the wandering artisans found no abode for many years, and eventually had to settle near the town of Baghdad in Mesopotamia in c. 934 BC. 

Making Of Historical Magical Carpet:

In the Ben Sherira chronicle, certain passages describe the workings of a flying carpet. Unfortunately, much of the vocabulary used in these parts is indecipherable, so little has been understood about their method of propulsion.

 What is understood is that a flying carpet was spun on a loom like an ordinary carpet; the difference lay in the dyeing process. 

1. Here, the artisans had discovered a certain clay, ‘procured from mountains springs and untouched by human hand’, which, when superheated at ‘temperatures that exceeded those of the seventh ring of hell’ in a cauldron of boiling Grecian oil, acquired anti-magnetic properties. 

2. Now the Earth itself is a magnet, and has trillions of magnetic lines crossing it from the North to the South Pole. What the scientists did was to prepare this clay and dye the wool in it before weaving it on a loom. 

3. So, when the carpet was finally ready, it pulled itself away from the Earth and, depending on the concentration of clay used, hovered a few feet or several hundred feet above the ground. 

4. Propulsion went along the magnetic lines, which acted like aerial rails. Although they were known to the Druids in England and the Incas in South America, only recently are physicists beginning to rediscover the special properties of these so-called ‘fey-lines’.

References: 

> Ancient Origins

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/history-magical-flying-carpets-006064?page=0%2C1

> Rug Doctor

https://www.rugdoctor.co.uk/about-us/news/a-history-of-magic-carpets

> The Secret History of the Flying Carpet 

http://secrethistoryflyingcarpet.blogspot.in/ 

The Great ShipWreck Of The Grosvenor- 4 August 1782(Legendary Story)...

English East Indiaman ship named Grosvenor  was one of the fleet of great ships belonging to the East India Company got wrecked when it got hit to the Wild Coast of South Africa.

The East India Company’s Grosvenor was a three-masted, square-rigged, frigate-built vessel. It was built by Wells of Deptford and set off on her maiden voyage to India in 1770. 

Twelve years later, on her fourth and last voyage from Madras to England, it plowed straight into the African continent in the early hours of a stormy, misty morning.

The Company’s ships used to return laden with the wealth of the Orient; everything from silk, spices, coffee and tea to precious stones. 

 ( Star pagodas, silver coins and a gold swivel from the wreck of the Grosvenor.)

The Grosvenor had set sail from Ceylon in June with a cargo of general merchandise plus coins and diamonds about £80,000 in value. This sum would be worth far more today, but it was not a colossal amount by treasure-ship standards at that time. 

Cause For Wreckage:

On land, the cattle owners living along the coast had been burning their winter grasslands to stimulate summer growth.

Through the spray and bad weather, these fires were spotted by those aboard in the early hours of the next morning and interpreted as ‘lights in the air’. And because Captain John Coxon believed the Grosvenor to be at least 300km out to sea, he reckoned them to be ‘something similar to the Northern Lights’ and the ill-fated ship continued on its course into the rugged, rocky coastline of south-eastern Africa.

When land was finally sighted it was already too late. At 4.30 a.m. on 4th August, 1782, in a rising gale, the Grosvenor ran headlong on to the rocks and the captain eventually gave the orders to turn the ship about – but it was too late. The Grosvenor hit an outer reef, about 400m from the beach.

Of the 150 crew and passengers, 123 people reached the beach alive.

STORY DIDN'T END HERE...... IT'S A BEGINNING.....!!!!
(Source- Taken from Look And Learn    )

               Almost a century passed. Then, in 1880, an expedition sailed to the site of the wreck, spurred on by reports of gold coins being picked up in the area by a Captain Bungay. 

The Grosvenor’s hull was still on the rocks, and, using dynamite to help them, the salvage team, led by a man named Turner and a Lieutenant Beddoes, recovered some gold and silver coins and a few other valuables. 

They also found nine cannons lying among the rocks, and local Kaffirs told them of a box of treasure rumoured to have been buried on the coast by the survivors of the wreck.

Before he left, Turner drew a map of the site of the wreck, a copy of which came into the hands of Alfred Raleigh of Durban, who persuaded a man said to have second sight to visit the wreck with him. The man went into a trance and saw 22 boxes of gold, but, alas, they were never found!

From then on the hunt was really on, though nothing turned up at first except a few coins. Then a sensational development occurred.

No one knows who started the story, but around 1900 the word went round that the jewel-encrusted Peacock Throne of the Mogul of India was aboard the Grosvenor, together with his Imperial regalia. 

Actually, the throne was – and is – in Tehran in Persia. It was looted from Delhi by Persians in 1739, and the Shah of Persia still officially sits on the Peacock Throne. Two golden peacocks, their wings outstretched, are behind the seat.

But there is no stopping a treasure rumour and suddenly the wreck of the Grosvenor seemed one of the most exciting spots in the world.

The first major expedition to find these new treasures was in 1905, but the wreck had now disappeared in the sands. A dredger was hired, but when a diver was drowned the search was abandoned. The First World War held up operations, then, in 1921, the Grosvenor Bullion Company was formed.

It was proposed that a tunnel should be dug under the sea-bed to reach the ship’s strong room which now was alleged to contain nearly ¬£2 millions! 

The Company’s prospectus even listed items like 720 gold bars and 19 boxes of precious stones, claiming that “old manuscripts” had been found in the India Office in London about these treasures. It was all pure fantasy, but the Company raised the money it needed!

Next, news of the Peacock Throne got into print and so did the discovery of the alleged ship’s log of the Grosvenor. The India Office denied all knowledge of either, but who cared? Certainly not treasure-hunters!

The Bullion Syndicate started its tunnel, dug 280 ft. but with only 150 more to go ran out of money. A newspaper then whipped up interest by admitting that the throne was safely in Persia, but that the golden peacocks were in the Grosvenor still and worth over £2 millions. 

They were apparently safely embedded in concrete and in iron chests, so were quite safe! But the Syndicate ceased to function.

The master story-teller, Conan Doyle, added to the legend by mentioning it in a book in 1923. He had heard it when in South Africa during the Boer War. 

Then an American millionaire named Pitcairn, who felt the peacocks should be returned to their rightful owners, reached a point 50 ft. from where the wreck was thought to be but never quite made it.

In 1938, another company proposed to put a breakwater round the wreck, then build a dyke within it and pump the area dry, but the Second World War halted the project. 

In 1945, someone suggested a huge grab-crane to seize the wreck, but the same year Professor Kirby of the University of Witwatersrand flatly stated in an article that the Grosvenor was not a treasure ship. 

He even discovered that a forged document had been placed in a book in the British Museum to whip up public interest!

Yet still the hunters went on, one actually finding a wreck in 1951, 450 yards south of where it should have been. 

Finally, in 1951 Professor Kirby wrote A Source Book on the Wreck of the Grosvenor, which should have finished off the myth for ever. But it is still being told, Peacock Throne and all! The Professor has rightly said that people prefer a mystery to the truth.

Strangely, one man did find a fortune. In 1927 a prospector named John Bock found 1,038 diamonds on the beach near the wreck and was sent to prison for his pains. 

He reported his find and despite the evidence of experts that the diamonds were not typically South African – in other words they almost certainly came from India via the wreck – he was given three years for having placed stones where they were not normally found. 

As for his diamonds, they were confiscated. Whether these came from the Grosvenor or from the pockets of a passenger who brought them ashore will never be known. 

"**What is certain is that Bock was one of the unluckiest men in the whole history of treasure-hunting.**""

Sources-

> South Africa Inspiring New Way
http://www.southafrica.net/za/en/articles/entry/article-southafrica.net-wreck-of-the-grosvenor

> TRACYLOVESHISTORY
https://tracyloveshistory.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/the-shipwreck-of-the-grosvenor-4-august-1782/

> LOOK AND LEARN
http://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/28979/did-the-peacock-throne-of-the-mogul-of-india-sink-with-the-grosvenor/ 

Over 40 Ancient Rare Collection of Shipwrecks Discovered In Black Sea

State of the Art Maritime Archaeology Expedition Conducted in Black Sea, it is an expedition mapping submerged ancient landscapes, the first of its kind in the Black Sea while surveying they made an exciting discoveries of over 40 ancient rare shipwrecks including those from the Ottoman and Byzantine Empires.

An international team, involving the University of Southampton’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology (UK) and funded by the charitable organisation for marine research, the Expedition and Education Foundation (EEF) made this discoveries.

The team was surveying the Bulgarian waters of the Black Sea,  to know how thousands of years ago large areas of land were inundated as the water level rose following the last Ice Age.

Professor Jon Adams, Founding Director of the University of Southampton's Center for Maritime Archaeology and Principle Investigator on the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea MAP) said-

" We're endeavouring to answer some hotly-debated questions about when the water level rose, how rapidly it did so and what effects it had on human populations living along this stretch of the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea. 

As such, the primary focus of this project – and the scope of our funding from the EEF – is to carry out geophysical surveys to detect former land surfaces buried below the current sea bed, take core samples and characterise and date them, and create a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of Black Sea prehistory.  "

Expedition:

The archaeological team launched their expedition from the Stril Explorer, an off-shore vessel equipped with some of the most advanced underwater survey systems in the world, including a Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) optimized for high resolution 3D photogrammetery and video, and another equipped with geophysical instrumentation and a laser scanner.   

Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Surveyor Interceptor:

 Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Surveyor Interceptor flies at 4-6 knots, 3-4 times as fast as conventional ROVS. It carries multibeam and sidescan sonar, sub bottom profiler, HD cameras, powerful lights and a laser scanner.  Surveyor was developed by the advanced offshore survey companies MMT and Reach Subsea.  MMT are project partners of Back Sea MAP and it was the principal survey tool in 2016 operating at depths down to 1800m (over a mile down).  

Survey:

During the surveys, members of Black Sea MAP have also discovered and inspected a rare and remarkable collection of more than 40 shipwrecks, many of which provide the first views of ship types known from historical sources, but never seen before. The wrecks, which include those from the Ottoman and Byzantine Empire.

Ottoman shipwreck discovered in 300m of water. The carved tiller lies by the stern post and rudder. The astonishing preservation of organic materials is shown by the coils of rope still hanging from the timbers. (picture below)

A shipwreck from the medieval period of a type we know from history and a few fragmentary archaeological finds but never before seen so complete- photogrammetric model constructed from 4,500 high resolution photographs taken by cameras on the ROV.(picture below)

A photogrammetric model of a Byzantine wreck discovered in 95m of water illustrating the Surveyor ROV passing over it gathering 3D data. Constructed from photographs taken by cameras on the ROV. (picture below)

 

Professor Adams  also said-

"The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery, found during the course of our extensive geophysical surveys. They are astonishingly preserved due to the anoxic conditions (absence of oxygen) of the Black Sea below 150 metres.

Using the latest 3D recording technique for underwater structures, we’ve been able to capture some astonishing images without disturbing the sea bed. We are now among the very best exponents of this practice methodology and certainly no-one has achieved models of this completeness on shipwrecks at these depths."

Sources:

> Newswise
http://newswise.com/articles/state-of-the-art-maritime-archaeology-expedition-conducted-in-black-sea

> Ancient Origins
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/rare-collection-over-40-shipwrecks-revealed-mapping-black-sea-landscape-021022

> NDTV
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/over-40-ancient-shipwrecks-discovered-in-black-sea-1522412

> For more information about "Black Sea M.A.P"
http://blackseamap.com/