September, 2021 - Hip Surfer

In short, archaeologists dedicate their lives daily to looking for things about the past. Thanks to these works, we know a lot about ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Europe in the Middle Ages and various periods of history. They revealed themselves through studies. In short, these professionals are all the time finding old objects or deciphering those that have already been found.

Now they have discovered the wreck of a 2,200-year-old Egyptian ship. Giant blocks from the famous temple of Amum hit the ship. It sank after that.

The ship, along with a cemetery, were discovered in the Mediterranean Sea at Thonis-Heracleion, which is a long-sunken city. You know the vessel as a fast crowd. She is a type of ship that has a large sail and would have been propelled at rather high speeds with the help of oars.

Discovery

This newly discovered galley is 25 meters long with a flat keel. This is a feature that is often seen on ancient ships that sailed down the Nile River.

“It sank after being hit by huge blocks of the famous temple of Amun, which was totally destroyed during a cataclysmic event in the 2nd century BC,” a team of archaeologists said in a statement.

The cataclysmic event that likely destroyed the temple may have been an earthquake, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The vessel is currently below approximately five meters of clay and temple rubble.

As the ship is buried, the researchers used a new type of sonar to be able to locate it. “Discoveries of fast galleys from this period remain extremely rare,” said Franck Goddio, president of the European Institute of Underwater Archeology.

Ship

The construction of the ship was done using the mortise-e-tenon technique. In it, you use pieces of wood with protrusions called tenons and put in pieces of wood with holes called mortises. As a result, you have a vessel made of wooden sections that intertwine like a jigsaw puzzle.

Even though the vessel has been discovered, archaeologists are still not sure what it carried, or if it carried anything at the time it sank.

Cemetery

In addition to the ship, archaeologists also discovered, in the region of this submerged city, a cemetery that had been in use for 2,400 years. They found finely decorated pottery. Plus pieces that seemed to have images of waves painted on them.

That’s not all archaeologists find. The team also found a gold amulet representing Bes. He was an Egyptian god related to childbirth and fertility. Ancient Egyptians sometimes used images of this god to protect the children and women who gave birth.

This cemetery was covered with a very large pile of burial stones. They were used a lot in the past to mark burial places.

City

The Egyptian inhabitants knew the city as Thonis. Already the Greek inhabitants, like Heracleus. Because of this, archaeologists named the city Thonis-Heracleion.

The flowering of Thonis-Heracleion came at a time when many Greeks were coming from Egypt and bringing their cultural traditions with them. This city was gradually falling into the sea due to a series of earthquakes. They kept happening until the city was completely submerged approximately a thousand years ago.

Archaeologists, along with the Ministry of Antiquities and the European Institute of Underwater Archeology, discovered the city between 1999 and 2000. Since then, they have been studying the remains.

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Iceland is a European island Nordic country which is situated in the North Atlantic Ocean. In short, its islands are located between continental Europe and Greenland. Furthermore, a small area is home to around 350 thousand inhabitants. Iceland’s largest city is its capital, Reykjavik, which is home to around 2 thirds of the national population.

The country’s landscapes are capable of taking anyone’s breath away. However, one other thing about Iceland might make people think. According to a new theory that an international team of geophysicists and geologists has proposed, Iceland may actually be the remnant of a continent nearly the size of Texas. This continent would have sunk in the North Atlantic Ocean approximately 10 million years ago.

Theory

This theory goes against the long-held idea of the formation of Iceland and the North Atlantic. However, researchers say this theory could explain both the geological features of the ocean floor and the crust beneath Iceland, which is much thicker than it should be.

Some experts not associated with the survey said they were skeptical of the evidence presented so far that Iceland would be a piece of a continent.

Even if geological studies support this theory, the entirely new idea of a submerged continent could have implications for the ownership of any fuel found on the seabed. This is because, according to international law, they belong to the country that manages to show that its continental crust extends to a certain place.

“The region that has continental material underneath extends from Greenland to Scandinavia. Part of it in the west and east has now sunk below the water’s surface, but it’s still higher than it should be. If sea level dropped 600 meters to 2000 feet, we would see a lot more land above the ocean’s surface,” said Gillian Foulger, lead author of “Iceland,” a chapter in the new book In the Footsteps of Warren B. Hamilton: New Ideas in the Science of Science Earth.

Lost continent

Approximately 335 million to 175 million years ago, this region of the North Atlantic was a totally dry land part of the supercontinent of Pangea. And geologists think the Atlantic Ocean basin was formed a long time ago when Pangea began to break up. This happened 200 million years ago. And Iceland formed approximately 60 million years ago on top of a volcanic plume in the center of that ocean.

However, for Foulger and his team the theory is different. They believe that oceans began to form south and north, rather than west and east, of Iceland. Instead, the western and eastern regions were connected to what is now known as Greenland and Scandinavia.

“People have this highly simplistic idea that a tectonic plate is like a dinner plate: it just splits in two and separates. But it’s more like a pizza or a piece of art made of different materials – a bit of fabric here and some ceramic there, so that different parts have different strengths”, pointed out Foulger.

Formation

According to this new theory, Pangea did not divide neatly. So the lost continent of Iceland remained an unbroken strip of dry land at least 300 kilometers across. And it stayed above the sea until approximately 10 million years ago.

Then eventually Iceland’s eastern and western ends also sank. Only Iceland is above sea level.

This theory would explain why the rocks in the Earth’s crust beneath present-day Iceland are about 40 kilometers thick instead of eight.

“When we considered the possibility that this thick crust is continental, our data suddenly made sense. This immediately led us to realize that the mainland was much larger than Iceland itself. There is a continent hidden right under the sea”, concluded Foulger.

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Archive September 9, 2021

2.2 Thousand Year Old Ship Was Discovered Wrecked In Egypt

Iceland May Be The Tip Of A Sunken Continent, According To This Bizarre Theory