alexa
somewhere in time
Hello Juan,
I hope your first week at the hospital wasn't too difficult !
Sorry, I do not have Nova. I did a quick research on the net for Bob Ballard and I found an article on National Geographic. I'll post as it is for future conversation, if necessary.
I didn't have the time for Morton yet. I have to finish my own research about the evolution of the languages in my previous posts.
So here you have Bob Ballard and his discoveries at the Black Sea :
[url="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/flood.html"]http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/flood.html[/url]
Almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story. Details vary, but the basic plot is the same: Deluge kills all but a lucky few.
• The story most familiar to many people is the biblical account of Noah and his ark. Genesis tells how “God saw that the wickedness of man was great” and decided to destroy all of creation. Only Noah, “who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” his family, and the animals aboard the ark survived to repopulate the planet.
• Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, a king who embarked on a journey to find the secret of immortality. Along the way, he met Utnapishtim, survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, Utnapishtim built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with artisans, animals, and precious metals.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans grew up with the story of Deucalion and Pyhrra, who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a vessel shaped like a giant box.
• Irish legends talk about Queen Cesair and her court, who sailed for seven years to avoid drowning when the oceans overwhelmed Ireland.
• European explorers in the Americas were startled by Indian legends that sounded similar to the story of Noah. Some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted such stories in the Indians’ minds to confuse them.
Columbia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman wondered what could explain the preponderance of flood legends. Their theory: As the Ice Age ended and glaciers melted, a wall of seawater surged from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea.
• During the Ice Age, Ryan and Pitman argue, the Black Sea was an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland.
• About 12,000 years ago, toward the end of the Ice Age, Earth began growing warmer. Vast sheets of ice that sprawled over the Northern Hemisphere began to melt. Oceans and seas grew deeper as a result.
• About 7,000 years ago the Mediterranean Sea swelled. Seawater pushed northward, slicing through what is now Turkey.
• Funneled through the narrow Bosporus, the water hit the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. Each day the Black Sea rose about six inches (15 centimeters), and coastal farms were flooded.
• Seared into the memories of terrified survivors, the tale of the flood was passed down through the generations and eventually became the Noah story.
Maritime explorer Bob Ballard is combing the floor of the Black Sea in search of the remains of ancient dwellings, which would buttress a new theory that a cataclysmic flood struck the region some 7,000 years ago—swelling the sea and eventually becoming the basis of the Noah story.
• If the thesis is correct, signs of human habitation should lie beneath the Black Sea. A 1998 expedition, says Ballard, reported “a series of features that appear to be man-made structures.”
• Ballard’s 1999 expedition revealed an ancient shoreline. Also found were shells from freshwater and saltwater mollusk species. Their radiocarbon dates support the theory of a freshwater lake inundated by the Black Sea some 7,000 years ago.
• “Now we’ve got to take it to the next level,” says Ballard. Ballard and his team will use sonar and remotely operated vehicles to search for evidence of human inhabitation, including buildings, pottery, and ships.
• Nationalgeographic.com producer Sean Markey is searching along with Ballard. Join him on the Black Sea via dispatches on the expedition's progress
Dispatch 11: Ancient Shipwrecks - September 12, 2000
[Note: Nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]
On Sunday, the long-awaited replacement sonar for Argus arrived. Total installation time? “Oh, about 10 minutes. Maybe five,” ROV engineer Craig Elder tells me.
The team wastes little time putting it to work. Following a scheduled personnel transfer at Sinop, the Northern Horizon transits back to the expedition search site, specifically to an area about 8-10 miles [13-16 kilometers] off the coast. The team dives on it’s selected target, deploying the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) Argus and Little Hercules. The vehicles now operate in tandem for the second time and are performing splendidly, 100 meters [328 feet] below the surface.
As Little Hercules skims above the sea floor, video cameras mounted on Argus, traveling above, display a birds-eye view of the ROV. The smaller Little Hercules, trailing its fiber-optic tether like a leash, looks like a headlight-equipped computer mouse navigating a foggy green sea floor.
At 12:57 a.m. the team spots the tell-tale signs of amphorae-carrying ship wreck. Some 350 clay amphorae—the tin cans and glass bottles of antiquity—lie scattered on the sea floor like an upturned box of Legos. The shipping vessels’ distinct, tapering shape (like carrots with round mouths and handles) inform the archaeologists that the ship originated in the nearby ancient trading center of Sinop. (“We’ve got the kilns [on land]” observes Dr. Fredrik Hiebert.)
Nautical archaeologist Cheryl Ward, who has joined the expedition team for four days, makes a preliminary estimate. The wreck is a 4th century, late Roman ship roughly dating to 350 A.D.
The watch is ecstatic. In the control room, Ballard congratulates his crew. “Alright. Not bad,” he says. “A little too recent. 400 [sic] A.D.”
The team logs and videotapes the site, then moves on to investigate other targets. (The wreck will be more closely investigated at a later time.)
Two-and-a-half hours later, the team finds yet another wreck. This ship appears smaller than the first, but—surprisingly—a number of wooden timbers from the hull remain. [The team has not yet plumbed the wood-preserving anoxic depths.] Ward, the nautical archaeologist, makes a preliminary estimate that the wreck is a Byzantine amphorae-carrying ship dating sometime around 550 A.D.
The shipwreck finds are significant. [“They have the potential to educate us a great deal,” Ward tells me later.]
The archaeologists are thrilled. Ballard doesn’t quite share their enthusiasm. “Rats,” he says. “It was supposed to be a house.”
I hope your first week at the hospital wasn't too difficult !
Sorry, I do not have Nova. I did a quick research on the net for Bob Ballard and I found an article on National Geographic. I'll post as it is for future conversation, if necessary.
I didn't have the time for Morton yet. I have to finish my own research about the evolution of the languages in my previous posts.
So here you have Bob Ballard and his discoveries at the Black Sea :
[url="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/flood.html"]http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/flood.html[/url]
Almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story. Details vary, but the basic plot is the same: Deluge kills all but a lucky few.
• The story most familiar to many people is the biblical account of Noah and his ark. Genesis tells how “God saw that the wickedness of man was great” and decided to destroy all of creation. Only Noah, “who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” his family, and the animals aboard the ark survived to repopulate the planet.
• Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, a king who embarked on a journey to find the secret of immortality. Along the way, he met Utnapishtim, survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, Utnapishtim built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with artisans, animals, and precious metals.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans grew up with the story of Deucalion and Pyhrra, who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a vessel shaped like a giant box.
• Irish legends talk about Queen Cesair and her court, who sailed for seven years to avoid drowning when the oceans overwhelmed Ireland.
• European explorers in the Americas were startled by Indian legends that sounded similar to the story of Noah. Some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted such stories in the Indians’ minds to confuse them.
Columbia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman wondered what could explain the preponderance of flood legends. Their theory: As the Ice Age ended and glaciers melted, a wall of seawater surged from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea.
• During the Ice Age, Ryan and Pitman argue, the Black Sea was an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland.
• About 12,000 years ago, toward the end of the Ice Age, Earth began growing warmer. Vast sheets of ice that sprawled over the Northern Hemisphere began to melt. Oceans and seas grew deeper as a result.
• About 7,000 years ago the Mediterranean Sea swelled. Seawater pushed northward, slicing through what is now Turkey.
• Funneled through the narrow Bosporus, the water hit the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. Each day the Black Sea rose about six inches (15 centimeters), and coastal farms were flooded.
• Seared into the memories of terrified survivors, the tale of the flood was passed down through the generations and eventually became the Noah story.
Maritime explorer Bob Ballard is combing the floor of the Black Sea in search of the remains of ancient dwellings, which would buttress a new theory that a cataclysmic flood struck the region some 7,000 years ago—swelling the sea and eventually becoming the basis of the Noah story.
• If the thesis is correct, signs of human habitation should lie beneath the Black Sea. A 1998 expedition, says Ballard, reported “a series of features that appear to be man-made structures.”
• Ballard’s 1999 expedition revealed an ancient shoreline. Also found were shells from freshwater and saltwater mollusk species. Their radiocarbon dates support the theory of a freshwater lake inundated by the Black Sea some 7,000 years ago.
• “Now we’ve got to take it to the next level,” says Ballard. Ballard and his team will use sonar and remotely operated vehicles to search for evidence of human inhabitation, including buildings, pottery, and ships.
• Nationalgeographic.com producer Sean Markey is searching along with Ballard. Join him on the Black Sea via dispatches on the expedition's progress
Dispatch 11: Ancient Shipwrecks - September 12, 2000
[Note: Nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]
On Sunday, the long-awaited replacement sonar for Argus arrived. Total installation time? “Oh, about 10 minutes. Maybe five,” ROV engineer Craig Elder tells me.
The team wastes little time putting it to work. Following a scheduled personnel transfer at Sinop, the Northern Horizon transits back to the expedition search site, specifically to an area about 8-10 miles [13-16 kilometers] off the coast. The team dives on it’s selected target, deploying the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) Argus and Little Hercules. The vehicles now operate in tandem for the second time and are performing splendidly, 100 meters [328 feet] below the surface.
As Little Hercules skims above the sea floor, video cameras mounted on Argus, traveling above, display a birds-eye view of the ROV. The smaller Little Hercules, trailing its fiber-optic tether like a leash, looks like a headlight-equipped computer mouse navigating a foggy green sea floor.
At 12:57 a.m. the team spots the tell-tale signs of amphorae-carrying ship wreck. Some 350 clay amphorae—the tin cans and glass bottles of antiquity—lie scattered on the sea floor like an upturned box of Legos. The shipping vessels’ distinct, tapering shape (like carrots with round mouths and handles) inform the archaeologists that the ship originated in the nearby ancient trading center of Sinop. (“We’ve got the kilns [on land]” observes Dr. Fredrik Hiebert.)
Nautical archaeologist Cheryl Ward, who has joined the expedition team for four days, makes a preliminary estimate. The wreck is a 4th century, late Roman ship roughly dating to 350 A.D.
The watch is ecstatic. In the control room, Ballard congratulates his crew. “Alright. Not bad,” he says. “A little too recent. 400 [sic] A.D.”
The team logs and videotapes the site, then moves on to investigate other targets. (The wreck will be more closely investigated at a later time.)
Two-and-a-half hours later, the team finds yet another wreck. This ship appears smaller than the first, but—surprisingly—a number of wooden timbers from the hull remain. [The team has not yet plumbed the wood-preserving anoxic depths.] Ward, the nautical archaeologist, makes a preliminary estimate that the wreck is a Byzantine amphorae-carrying ship dating sometime around 550 A.D.
The shipwreck finds are significant. [“They have the potential to educate us a great deal,” Ward tells me later.]
The archaeologists are thrilled. Ballard doesn’t quite share their enthusiasm. “Rats,” he says. “It was supposed to be a house.”
