Shipwreck may yield secrets of antiquity

4th century B.C. merchant vessel carried ceramic vases

By Clara Moskowitz

updated 10/6/2010 10:27:18 AM ET

The examination of a Mediterranean shipwreck from the 4th century B.C. could shed light on ancient sea routes and trade, researchers say.

The remains of a merchant vessel, full of amphoras that probably had been filled with wine, were discovered in 2006 on the seafloor south of the island of Cyprus. A team has been excavating the site, diving and dredging up important pieces, since then.

The wreck was first discovered in 2006 by fishermen. One of the ship's anchors was also uncovered.

The particularly well-preserved remains, especially the amphoras, which

were oval, narrow-necked vases, reveal many clues about the ship's story, the research team says in a new paper.

"We know by having studied a lot of these ceramic containers — we have created catalogs with different shapes — we know where they come from and where they date," said Stella Demesticha, a professor of maritime archaeology at the University of Cyprus, who is leading the shipwreck research team.

The amphoras found at this site, she said, are very typical of those made on the Greek island of Chios in the Aegean Sea.

"We know the red wine from Chios was praised," Demesticha told LiveScience. "It was very good quality, very expensive."

A large collection of olive pits was also discovered at the shipwreck site. The scientists don't know whether the olives were packed as a source of food for sailors or were a commodity to be sold.

The archaeologists aren't sure what caused the vessel to sink, but said the fact that it was found pretty far offshore suggests it was probably downed by a storm or a fire.

"There's a lot to learn from this wreck," Demesticha said. "We know that wine commerce was flourishing in antiquity. But because we haven't excavated many shipwrecks, we don't know many details about how exactly this was happening."

For example, she said, researchers would like to know how cargo was stowed on ships, as well as how trade deals were brokered and how many transactions took place, particularly between people from the Aegean (between Greece and Turkey) and the rest of the Mediterranean, including Cyprus.

"By studying the cargo of the ship, we're going to find more details about contacts between the two areas in that period," Demesticha said.

The findings so far are detailed in a paper in the December 2010 issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

Meeting Location Change

Salve!

The location for today's meeting has changed.

Today, we will meet in the shade between Main Building and JPL Library. We will be outside the doors that are directly across from the elevators in the Main Building.

Please email me if you have any questions or get lost:

spartacurtus@yahoo.com

Update : Roman remains at risk from Turkey's dam building

Roman remains at risk from Turkey's dam building

Conservationists argue that development of archeological site would be more beneficial than irrigation plans

• Guillaume Perrier
• Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 5 October 2010 13.59 BST
• larger | smaller

Well preserved mosaics with geometric forms and figures at Allianoi. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features

Several metres of sand now cover the second-century Roman baths at Allianoi, the largest in Asia Minor. The wall paintings and columns, a few kilometres from the ancient city of Pergamon in western Turkey, have been buried and may soon be submerged beneath 17 metres of water.

"It has become a political issue and the government is trying to get rid of Allianoi. We want to avoid a massacre," said Güven Eken, head of the Doga Dernegi conservation group. Last month Eken and a handful of activists chained themselves to the cranes on the construction site to draw attention to "a massacre of nature and a violation of the law".

Protesters say the layer of sand, which is supposed to protect the ruins, is ill-suited to the job, and cement containing brick dust is being used. The feasibility of the project itself, which involves building a dam and reservoir for irrigation of local farms, is open to doubt. "The river has run completely dry," Eken said, "and there is no certainty there will be enough water to fill the reservoir."

He added: "The government refuses to admit that Allianoi is an exceptional site and that the problem of water for farmers can be solved without wrecking our heritage."

The Yortanli scheme, started 15 years ago, disregards Turkish law on the protection of natural and historic heritage. A dozen or so court rulings have already sought to stop construction. The Allianoi ruins, if properly exploited, could have attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

The minister of culture and tourism, Ertugrul Günay, said that alarmist calls to save the ruins were "exaggerated". He maintained that the historic heritage would not be damaged in any way by the work. His counterpart at the environment ministry, Veysel Eroglu, was less diplomatic in his treatment of the popular singer Tarkan, who campaigned to save the Roman baths. "He shouldn't poke his nose into issues he doesn't understand," Eroglu said.

"Allianoi is being sacrificed for the sake of Eroglu's policies," Eken said, drawing attention to the many conflicts of interest involved. The minister, previously head of the state hydraulic works, which is responsible for supervising dam building, has launched a large number of irrigation and hydroelectric power projects since his appointment in 2007. Another reservoir, to be built on the Tigris at Ilisu in south-east Turkey, has stirred up wide opposition. It threatens to engulf the ancient town of Hasankeyf.

This article originally appeared in Le Monde

• guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Ancient Roman spa awaits flooding in Turkey

• 
  

  
  

AFP/File – A visitor exits a gallery in the historical city of Allianoi, in Izmir, western Turkey in 2008. The old …

by Nicolas Cheviron – Fri Oct 1, 12:01 pm ET

ALLIANOI, Turkey (AFP) – Under a mild autumn sun, workers bustle about like bees at a Roman bath complex sprawling over a green plain in western Turkey in what looks like a regular excavation site.

But the fate awaiting the impressive ancient spa of Allianoi is dark: the workers here are tasked with burying the site and not digging it out to reveal its secrets.

Much to the consternation of archaeologists and civic bodies, the Turkish government has said it will go ahead with flooding the valley the site sits in to serve as a dam reservoir with a capacity to irrigate 8,000 hectares (19,760 acres) of farmland.

The work now underway is an effort to preserve the complex for future generations, before officials allow water to accumulate in the reservoir for the Yorganli dam before the end of the year.

As archaeologists -- denied entry to the site -- mourn the loss of a significant treasure, workers dump wheelbarrows of sand over the foundations of the hospital of Galen, a prominent Roman physician born in the 2nd century AD in the nearby city of Pergamon, or modern-day Bergama.

Soon the thermal bath -- with its five metre-high (17 feet-high) walls and a pool still powered by a hot spring -- will disappear under the sand, after being covered with a pinkish protective coating, along with buildings looking out over a columned courtyard, rooms covered with mosaics and paved walkways.

It is a sad sight for Professor Ahmet Yaras who excavated Allianoi for nine years and who says 80 percent of the site has yet to see the daylight.

"Normally, cultural treasures need to be examined and registered before any action is taken on a site. Here, flooding the site before the excavation is complete is a massacre," lamented the archaeologist.

"There is no other warm bath, health center in the world as well preserved as this... Unfortunately, all this will be abandoned forever," he said.

Furthermore, Yasar expressed doubt that the sand will be enough to preserve the site under 30 metres of water.

"Even if the site were protected, the sedimentation brought by the dam will reach 15 or 16 meters in 50 years time. It would be crazy to try to excavate the complex again at such a depth," he added.

But the fate of the site is not much of a concern for the farmers at the nearby village, who see the Yorganli dam -- completed in 2007 -- as the answer to their irrigation problems.

"They exaggerate, I do not think there is much of the ancient there. It is just a hot spring," said Mehmet Aydin, 52, who grows cotton, tomatoes and corn on his plot.

His remarks almost echo the views of Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu who said in late August: "Allianoi does not exist, it is an invention... There is just a hot spring like many others across Turkey."

His remarks were roundly criticized while the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the European non-governmental preservation organization Europa Nostra and archaeologists from the European Union urged the Turkish government in a letter to preserve the "common heritage" at Allianoi.

But the game seems to be over: Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay quashed hope of saving Allianoi last week when he dismissed the idea of questioning the local archaeological commission's decision in late August to bury the site for preservation.

"After all, Allianoi remained underground for a long time and it surfaced only during drilling works," he said.

Lecture : Classical Kevlar: Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Greek Linen Armor

SPECIAL BONUS LECTURE
Friday, October 22, 2010
4:30pm

Chapman Auditorium, Trinity University

Classical Kevlar:
Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Greek Linen Armor
(THE UWGB Linothrax Project)

For nearly 1,000 years, one of the most common forms of protection used by ancient Mediterranean warriors, including the armies of the Greeks and Alexander the Great, was the linothorax, a type of body armor apparently made out of linen. Due to the perishable nature of its material, however, no examples have survived, and today it is poorly understood, and is known only through fragmentary descriptions in literature and images on pottery and in sculpture. Employing only the materials and techniques that would have been available to the ancient Greeks, the UWGB Linothorax Project is investigating this mysterious armor by reconstructing and wearing examples of the linothorax, as well as subjecting test samples to attack with ancient weapons in order to determine the characteristics and protective qualities of this type of armor. This presentation will not only describe the project’s findings, but will also display a reconstructed linothorax and test samples for the audience’s examination.

Project website: http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax.html

More about the speaker: http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/

Roman Bacchanal @ Texas Renaissance Festival

November 6-7

Texas Renaissance Festival presents Roman Bacchanal.

This will be held outside of Plantersville, Tx, which is North East of Brenham.

I have attached their flyer at the end of this post.

The flyer states that they will have contests to win valuable prizes. The competitions are Bocce Ball Contest, Toga Contest, and a Spaghetti Eating Contest.

They will have a Roman Basillica, "The Roman invaders erected this temple to Venus, the Goddess of Beauty and Love. White columns and Italian Cypress trees surround this sacred space."

Their entertainment combines the sights and sounds of Ancient Rome.

The flyer says that they have all the most authentic Ancient Roman food and drinks, including pizza by the slice, spaghetti and meatballs, and Italian Icees.

Anyone interested in going?

For more info, click here

Google launches Latin translation tool

Google Translate, a service that can instantly translate entire web pages or chunks of text in to another language, has added Latin to its list.

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor
Published: 11:07AM BST 30 Sep 2010

4 Comments

Google has added Latin to its list of languages on Google Translate

Google Translate supports more than 50 languages, including minority languages such as Welsh and Haitian Creole, and the addition of Latin is sure to please scholars and traditionalists.

In a blog post, written entirely in Latin, Jakob Uszkoreit, a senior engineer at Google, said that Latin was far from a “dead language”.

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“There are many Latin language learners,” he wrote. “Over 100,000 American students take the National Latin Exam every year and many more learn Latin all of the world. And there is a wealth of information originally written in it.”

He said that while Google recognised that the Latin translation tool would rarely be used to decipher emails or captions on YouTube videos, it would enable web users to read many of the crucially important philosophical and scientific texts originally written in this language.

“There are tens of thousands of scanned books written in Latin on Google Books, and many more contain Latin quotes and proverbs,” he wrote.

Google expects translations to and from Latin to be among the most accurate offered by its Google Translate tool.

“Unlike any of the other languages Google Translate supports, Latin offers a unique advantage: most of the text that will ever be written in Latin has already been written, and a comparatively large part of it has been translated in to other languages.

“We use these translations, found in books and on the web, to train our system.”

Google has also added a Latin text-to-speech function, too, to help people with their pronunciation.