Ten of the greatest: Maps that changed the world

From the USSR's Be On Guard! map in 1921 to Google Earth, a new exhibition at the British Library charts the extraordinary documents that transformed the way we view the globe forever

By PETER BARBER, Head of Map Collections at the British Library

1. BE ON GUARD! 1921

The infant USSR was threatened with invasion, famine and social unrest. To counter this, brilliant designers such as Dimitri Moor were employed to create pro-Bolshevik propaganda.
Using a map of European Russia and its neighbours, Moor's image of a heroic Bolshevik guard defeating the invading 'Whites' helped define the Soviet Union in the Russian popular imagination.

2. HENRICUS MARTELLUS WORLD MAP, c1490

It's said that Columbus used this map or one like it to persuade Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile to support him in the early 1490s.
The map was made by a German cartographer living in Florence and reflects the latest theories about the form of the world and the most accurate ways of portraying it on a flat surface.
It seemed to prove that, as Columbus argued, there wasn't a great distance between Europe and China by sea.
The map is also the first to record the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa by the Portuguese in 1488.
This proved that there wasn't a land link to Asia in the south - and that Europeans could reach the riches of the East Indies by sea without having to go through Muslim-held lands.

The Henricus Martellus World Map was the first to record the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa by the Portuguese in 1488

3. CHINESE GLOBE, 1623

Made for the Chinese Emperor, this is the earliest known Chinese terrestrial globe, and a fusion of East and Western cultures.
Its creators are thought to be the Jesuit missionaries Manuel Dias (1574-1659), who introduced the telescope to China, and Nicolo Longobardi (1565-1655), superior general of the China mission.
Both were respected scholars, and the globe's depiction of the coasts of Africa and Europe would have contrasted with traditional Chinese maps.
These exaggerated the size of China and placed it in the middle of a world that otherwise consisted mainly of small off shore islands.
In its treatment of eclipses and meridians and its information about magnetic inclination, however, the globe draws on ideas that were developed in China far earlier than in the West.

The Chinese Globe which was made for the Chinese Emperor in 1623

4. WALDSEEMULLER WORLD MAP, 1507

'America' is named and envisaged as a separate continent for the first time on this map, put together by a think tank in Saint-Dié in the Duchy of Lorraine.
The map itself was created by a skilled cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, and was accompanied by an explanatory booklet by one Matthias Ringmann. Impressed by the writings of Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci, Ringmann suggested that the Americas weren't part of Asia, as Columbus thought, but a continent in their own right.
So they should, like the other continents, have a female name - hence America, after Vespucci's first name. Perhaps to emphasise the independent existence of the Americas, the map shows what we now know is the Pacific lapping the western coast of South America, though its existence was only confirmed years later.

The Waldseemuller world map named and envisaged America as a separate continent for the first time

5. GOOGLE EARTH, c2005

Google Earth presents a world in which the area of most concern to you (in this instance, Avebury in Wiltshire) can be at the centre, and which - with mapped content overlaid - can contain whatever you think is important.
Almost for the first time, the ability to create an accurate map has been placed in the hands of everyone, and it has transformed the way we view the world. But it comes at a price.
There are few, if any, agreed standards about what should be included, and the less populated and 'less important' regions get ignored.

The ability to create an accurate map has been placed in the hands of everyone with Google Earth

6. DESCRIPTIVE MAP OF LONDON POVERTY, 1889

Businessman Charles Booth was sceptical about a claim in 1885 that a quarter of Londoners lived in extreme poverty, so he employed people to investigate.
They found the true figure was 30 per cent. The findings were entered onto a 'Master Map' using seven colour categories, from black for 'Lowest class, semi-criminal' to gold for wealthy.
The authorities were terrified into action, and the first council houses were built soon afterwards.

This map of London showed that 30 per cent of people lived in extreme poverty

7. 'RED LINE' MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, 1782-3

This map was used by British diplomats negotiating an end to the American War of Independence in Paris. Richard Oswald, secretary to the delegation, annotated it with coloured lines to show where it was thought past treaties established the U.S./Canada border.
In the event, when drawing the northern border the Americans asked for less than expected, and in the century afterwards they tried to renegotiate.
To prevent them from seeing this embarrassing map, it was removed from the British Museum, where it had been since the 1820s, and placed in the Foreign O ffice.

The 'Red Line' map of North America was used by British diplomats negotiating an end to the American War of Independence in Paris

8. LONDON TUBE MAP, 1933

Dismissed as too 'revolutionary' when it was first submitted in 1931, Harry Beck's Underground map solved the problem of how to represent clearly and elegantly a dense, complex interweaving of train lines.
Placing the stations at similar intervals regardless of their true locations amplifies the area of central London, increasing its clarity, while the straight lines and interchange symbols confer a simplicity and order on the network. A cartographic icon.

Harry Beck's Underground map solved the problem of how to represent clearly and elegantly a dense, complex interweaving of train lines

9. PETERS PROJECTION WORLD MAP, 1974

It's impossible to portray the reality of the spherical world on a flat map. The familiar 'Mercator' projection gives the right shapes of land masses (up to a point), but at the cost of distorting their sizes in favour of the wealthy lands to the north.
The German Arno Peters sought to correct this. His projection gets the proportions (roughly) right, and has the e ffect of emphasising the Third World. That said, it's no more 'true' than the 'colonialist' projection it seeks to replace.

The Peters projection world map got the proportions (roughly) right in 1974

10. EVESHAM WORLD MAP, c1400

Created for the prior of Evesham Abbey, this map marks the birth of modern English patriotism.
The top is a world map in the traditional medieval sense, with the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel below and a large multi-towered Jerusalem.
But at the bottom an enormous England stretches from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. The very large tower above the French coast is Calais, captured in 1347.
We are in the age of Henry V and Agincourt.

The Evesham World Map marks the birth of modern English patriotism

'Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art' opens at the British Library on April 30 (free admission); bl.uk/magnificentmaps

Brendan the Navigator (c. 484–577 c.e.) explorer and church leader

St Brendan and the whale from a 15th century manuscript

For centuries the legend of an Irish monk named Brendan (also called Brenainn, Brandan, or Borodan) circulated among explorers and navigators of late Middle Ages Europe. Some historians speculate that Christopher Columbus might have relied on maps with St. Brendan’s Isle on it, located somewhere in the Atlantic off to the far west. Others say that the 10th-century Hiberno-Latin romance called the Voyage of Brendan might have been on Columbus’s reading list before he did his travels to the New World. The life of Brendan is mostly based on legends and secondhand reports. Thus, it is difficult to state with confidence many of the facts of his life. He was a native Irishman, born at a time when Celtic Christianity was beginning to flourish as the Roman Empire receded. His mother supposedly was Ita, an Irish saint, in County Kerry on the west coast. He was educated by Irish saints and ordained by a famous Irish bishop around the year 512 c.e. Then he began his vocation as an explorer and missionary in Ireland and Scotland and the hinterlands of western Europe.

According to legend he founded many monasteries and achieved a high place in the honor roll of Celtic spirituality, which values its heroes on the basis of supernatural feats and sanctity. One of his monasteries was Cluain Fearta in Clonfert (559 c.e.), which reportedly had 3,000 members. His own home monastery was on Mt. Brandon, Ireland’s second highest peak, which today shows a ruined oratory and cells for monks.

Consistent with Celtic spirituality Brendan devised his own discipline and structure for his monasteries. He called his monks to a life of missionizing, seafaring, and exploring, an ideal for which the Irish were already known. One of the ancient Hiberno-Latin chroniclers, Adamnan (c. 10th century), corroborates this adventuresome spirit when he writes that Brendan was a fellow crew-member with Columba of Iona who sailed to the “Isles of the Blessed”—perhaps the Danish Faeroe Islands or Iceland. He is also mentioned in an ancient church litany of St. Aengus the Culdee (eighth century) as sailing with some (perhaps dozens) of his fellow monks.

The account mentioned above, Voyage of St. Brendan, is a travel adventure story like Sinbad the Sailor or the Odyssey. Historians have collected many such Irish tales and suggest that Voyage is a deliberate Christian imitation of the Virgil’s great travel adventure, the Aeneid. Most likely Voyage was originally written to teach Irish monks about discipline and monastic ideals but soon was translated into the European vernacular languages and read for entertainment.

The natural trajectory of his travels following winds and currents may well have landed Brendan in Canadian Newfoundland 1,000 years before Columbus. The types of adventures that the Voyage describes can easily be situated in the North Atlantic and in the New World. The trip was replicated in modern times with a boat built in Celtic fashion. Even more recently claims have been made that Celtic symbols and alphabetical characters were found in the New World farther south in New Hampshire, Vermont, and even West Virginia.

Further reading: Adam, David. Desert in the Ocean: The Spiritual Journey According to St. Brendan. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000; Severin, Tim. The Brendan Voyage. New York: Modern Library, 2000.

Tigerfish (Hydrocynus forskalii)

After seeing these pictures...

The Tigerfish (Hydrocynus forskalii) need no introduction with this species being the southernmost and second largest with the current angling record of 16.10kg. The largest species is the Goliath Tiger (Hydrocynus goliath) found in the Congo system.

“I have stated heretofore in print and am still ready to maintain my pronouncement, that the tigerfish of Africa is the fiercest fish that swims. Let others hold forth as advocates for the mako shark, the barracudas, the piranah of the Amazon, or the blue fish of the Atlantic. To them I say 'Pish and Tush'.” L. J. McCormick, 1949.

In this article I will be concentrating on the forskalii species which is mostly found in the Zambezi river system, Kariba Dam in Zimbabwe as well as many private dams in southern Africa. Other places to catch Tigerfish include The Gambia River in West African country, The Gambia.

Description of the Tigerfish:

The most obvious characteristic of the Tigerfish (Hydrocyus forskahlii) are the sharp very prominent teeth which are set in hard, very bony jaws. Other features are the reletavley small dorsal fin, the presence of the small adipose fin which is a flesh flap between the dorsal and tail fins (with no known function) and the tiger fishes attractive “rainbow” colouration.

Tigerfish belong to the family Characidae – Characids, which is a large and very diverse family of fish with over 1000 species occurring in Africa, South and Central America and into North America up to Mexico and South West Texas, with the well known Piranha of South America also belonging to this family. Characids have a chain of small bones linking the air bladder and their inner ear which enhances their sense of hearing and may explain why tigerfish and the related chessa and nkupe seem to be attracted to divers. Most fish in the Characidae family are predators but you also find some vegetarians as well as many omnivores.

Apart from the Hydrocyus forskahlii, there are three other species of Tigerfish that have been described, the Hydrocyus brevis a small species from North and West Africa, Hydrocyus goliath which is found only in the Congo River, it's major tributaries an lake Tanganyika and Hydrocyus tanzania occurring in Tanzania.

Distribution of the Tigerfish

For me growing up in Zimbabwe, the main places we would fish for tigerfish were Kariba dam and the Zambezi River, but where else can you find the Tigerfish (Hydrocyus forskahlii)? In Zimbabwe you can also find tigerfish in the larger tributaries of the Zambezi river, including the Manyame river as well as the Save and Rundle and the Limpopo river and its larger tributaries in the south of Zimbabwe. Elsewhere in Africa, they are found in the Nile river and the large rivers of West Africa as well as lakes Rudolf, Albert, Tanganyika, Mweru, Bangweulu and the river system in Zambia and the Congo including the Congo, Cuanza and the Okavango and south in the Pongola River. I have also traveled up the Gambia River where people fish for tigerfish.

When is a Good Time for Tiger fishing?

Though Tigerfish can be caught on bait or lure throughout the year, there appear to be two distance angling seasons. At the end of the rainy season, when tributary rivers or flood-plains release small and juvenile fishes back into the Zambezi river. This is usually in May and June when the water is still quite warm, the tigerfish appear to be in peak condition at this time.

May can be a good time to fish for Tigerfish as many water birds like cormorants, turns and gulls concentrate in areas where juvenile fish are forced back into the Zambezi due to the receding water levels on the floodplains. In these areas shoals of small Tiger patrol inshore in the shallower water with the larger tigerfish in deeper water. It seems also at this time of the year to be more common for the really large tigerfish to attack the smaller species that you have already hooked on your line! Apart from the bird indicators look for rapidly deepening water below a sandbank, look for shoals of small fish species, this is where you'll find small tigerfish and on the edge of that you can be assured this is where the heavyweights will be found!

After winter, when temperatures start rising, the second angling season starts and lasts until January.

Rod Fishing for Tigerfish

The Tigerfish (Hydrocyus forskahlii) is now officially classified as a game fish by the International Game Fish Association because of its reputation as one of the best freshwater fighters. The main methods of fishing for tigerfish are to spin or troll behind a boat using a lure, fillets of fish or a small whole bait fish like the Kapenta. Other methods include drifting with a fillet, bait fish and live bait, or another method known as 'doba-doba' where you lower and lift the bait slowly, trying different areas until the tigerfish is located. Most serious tiger fishermen will probably ground bait around or under the boat with kapenta.

After hooking a tigerfish, their initial run is strong and fast and is then often followed by a spectacular leap of up to two meters into the air where they will try to shake the hook and it is important to keep the line tight at this time. The tigerfish then often tries a series of strong deep runs, which will use up every last bit of strength that it has. After this you can usually bring this magnificent fish up to the side of the boat where it may try one or two final breaks for freedom. Most fights will last less than 10 minutes, but all will be completely exhilarating. I am a strong advocate for using relatively light fishing line of between one and four kilograms, that will give you a far greater sense of achievement when landing a tigerfish than the crane and cable fishermen out there!

Because of their sharp teeth, a steel trace is essential and you should also have a landing net. Popular whole baits include Kapenta, robbers, imberi, dwarf bream, parrotfish and bulldogs. Fillets from bream, chessa and nkupe as well as fish gills because they are bloody are also very popular.

In Shallower waters where large numbers of small tigerfish are found you can even use fly fishing as a much less common method of catching the fish and in 1971, an American Fly Fisherman, Ron Cordes, an authority on American trout fishing and contributor to an American magazine called the 'Fly Fisherman' visited Kariba with the intention of catching tigerfish using fly tackle. He succeeded and did manage to land a number of tigerfish, the largest of which weighed over 4kg.

How big do tigerfish grow?

Because female tigerfish live longer than males they grow to a much larger size. In Lake Kriba in Zimbabwe, the average maximum size is about 71cm and weigh around 7kg. The largest tigerfish ever caught in Kariba caught by J. H. Erasmus in 1962 weighed 15,507kg and measured about 80cm long. Male grow to about 55cm in length and weigh about 2,5kg. Female tigerfish live for around 7-8 years (max about 10 years) The Goliath Tigerfish of the Congo and lake Tanganyika apparently reach a weight of 45kg! Eating the Tigerfish

Tigerfish produce meaty but bony and slightly oily fillets, which does limit the ways in which you can enjoy the meat but for me there are not many finer meats, than the pickled white flesh of the tigerfish. Because the tigerfish is chunkier than many other common freshwater fish in Africa like the bream for example you can also use the cutlets as well as the fillets. One of the preferred methods to cook tigerfish is to finely mince the meat to create very tasty fish cakes. You can also pickle the fillets and cutlets. With smaller tigerfish (up to 1kg) you can fry them whole if you make a series of close together slits at right angles to the backbone all along the flank, cutting through the small bones. The fry them in very hot oil which will crisp the flesh. After this, split the fish open, sprinkle with salt and then smoke over a slow fire. You can then flake pieces of meat off making a very good snack during sundowners. Another method to cook tigerfish is to lightly boil the cutlets in water, then place in a baking tray with little oil and tomatoes, onions and seasoning and bake. The flesh will then easily fall away from the bones in flakes.

Are Tigerfish dangerous to Humans?

Not really, but there is a report of a well-known spear fisherman in Kariba once had to have 16 stitches after a wounded tigerfish gashed his side.

Houseboat Safaris on Kariba Dam Zimbabwe

You don't have to be a serious fisherman to enjoy a holiday safari on a houseboat on Kariba Dam. Whilst the fishing, especially for Tigerfish (Hydrocynus forskalii) and the many species of Bream (family CICHLIDAE) can be excellent, there are also many other reasons to enjoy a houseboat safari.

The game viewing can also be very rewarding and you will see large numbers of Elephants, buffalo, waterbuch and impala on the shoreline as well as Crocodiles and Hippos (sometimes at very close range) in the water.

On top of this it is an excellent place for bird watching with common sightings of African Fish Eagles (Haliaeetus vocifer), Many species of Kingfisher, Egyptian geese and many other species of water and land birds. References and Selected Reading

From the Safari-Guide

Kenmuir D. 1983. Fishes of Kariba. ISBN: 0 908310 38 2 Wilderness Publications, Zimbabwe. Kenmuir D. 1978. A Widerness Called Kariba. ISBN: 0 7974 0379 5 Wilderness Publications, Zimbabwe.

Indus Valley east theory challenged

G.S. MUDUR 

Mohenjodaro

New Delhi, April 5: A study of hundreds of ancient Indus Valley civilisation sites has revealed previously unsuspected patterns of growth and decline that challenge a long-standing idea of a solely eastward-moving wave of Indus urbanisation.

Researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), Chennai, combined data from archaeology, radiocarbon dating, and river flows to study how settlements around the Indus Valley region had evolved from around 7000 BC till 1000 BC.

Their analysis of 1,874 Indus region settlements has shown that the Indus urbanisation had three epicentres — Mehrgarh in present-day Baluchistan, Gujarat, and sites along an ancient river called the Ghaggar-Hakra in Haryana and Punjab.

The findings, published in Current Science, a journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences, dispute suggestions by international researchers that farming and urbanisation in the region was driven by a “wave of advance” moving eastward. 

“We’re looking at large-scale patterns of how the Indus civilisation changed over time,” said Ronojoy Adhikari, a theoretical physicist at the IMS, who led a team that analysed geographic movements of Indus region settlements over hundreds of years.

“It’s like looking at something from a mountain-top — you get a different perspective than from examining archaeological sites,” Adhikari told The Telegraph. The analysis has also bolstered evidence for the idea that the civilisation did not abruptly collapse. 

The 7000 BC site at Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, provides the earliest evidence for wheat and barley farming on the Indian subcontinent. But the new study and earlier archaeological data suggest that the Indus civilisation may have picked up rice cultivation from eastern India. 

“This work provides new evidence to suggest that the Indus Valley civilisation had influences from the west and from the east — it was not a one-way west-to-east flow,” said Vasant Shinde, an archaeologist with Deccan College, Pune, who was not associated with the study. 

Shinde said archaeological excavations had pointed to rice cultivation near present-day Gorakhpur in around 7000 BC — the same period as wheat and barley farming in Mehrgarh. Remains of burnt rice from sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, dated to between 4000 BC and 3500 BC, and signs of rice cultivation in the Indus Valley region around 2500 BC suggest an east-to-west flow of rice cultivation, Shinde said.

The analysis by Adhikari and his colleagues shows a dense distribution of Indus Valley sites around 2500 BC which marks the beginning of the mature period of the civilisation — lasting about 600 years until about 1900 BC. 

The researchers believe it is during this period of high stability that the civilisation’s culture matured, leading to its script, the design of seals, and weights and measures. Adhikari said it was still unclear what kind of political organisation contributed to this uniformity in culture. 

The study shows a “catastrophic reduction” in the number of sites in the Ghaggar-Hakra region around 1900 BC. Over time, the Indus sites moved upstream, but they were smaller in size and appear to show a breakdown in large urbanisation. But the decline around Mehrgarh and Gujarat occurred at a much slower pace. 

Gujarat remained relatively unscathed during the Ghaggar-Hakra collapse, Adhikari said. Archaeologists say the findings are consistent with the idea that a slow decline of the Indus urbanisaton eventually gave way to the growth of settlements along the Gangetic plain. “I think the most significant aspect of this work is its demonstration of a new way to look at the remote past,” Shinde said.

Several international researchers, including Stanford University geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, have argued that farming originated about 10,000 years ago in the region of West Asia known as the Fertile Crescent and radiated into Europe and Asia.

UM digs find 10,000-year-old Native oasis

Elaine Hale, Yellowstone National Park archaeologist, helps Montana-Yellowstone Archaeological Project students Andrew Bowen of Kent State University and Ryan Sherburne of the University of Montana excavate a feature at the Fishing Bridge Point Site. The large volcanic boulder was likely used as a table or work area about 3,000 years ago.

This large obsidian point was found near Lake Lodge in Yellowstone National Park in 2009. It’s 150 percent bigger than other spear points of the time, prompting researchers to believe it was used for ceremonial purposes. 


Thousands of years before Euro-Americans “discovered” the bubbling mudpots and eruptive geysers of what is now Yellowstone National Park, early Americans were spending part of their summer camping in the Yellowstone Lake area.

“It’s always been a destination resort,” said Elaine Hale, park archaeologist. “For at least 10,000 years people have been using the lake area.”

Thanks to archaeological digs around Yellowstone Lake last summer by University of Montana assistant archaeology professor Douglas MacDonald and 13 graduate and undergrad students, park officials are now getting a broader picture of early human use of the lake area.

“The lake may have served as a crossroads of sorts for Native Americans from multiple regions,” MacDonald said.

*****

Why here?
The reasons are several.

Obsidian, a valued rock used to create razor-sharp points for weapons and tools, is located about 20 miles to the northwest at Obsidian Cliff. The lake area contains a variety of flora – everything from camas to wild onions – that would have created a great stew or to create medicines. And there was plenty of wildlife in the region. One archaeological site turned up blood residue from bear, wolf and deer as well as rabbit sinew.
“The lake area was clearly an important warm-weather hunting and gathering grounds for Native Americans from all over the northwestern Great Plains, northern Great Basin and northern Rocky Mountains,” MacDonald said.

His group’s explorations are part of the university’s Montana-Yellowstone Archaeological Project, which is now entering its fourth year. The partnership offers students the opportunity to perform field work while Yellowstone receives inexpensive research help.

This past summer, MacDonald’s crew made some unique finds. Along the northeast shore, the crew uncovered the park’s first Early Archaic hearth, dating to 5,800 years ago.

“The feature indicates that Native Americans used the park during the hot and dry altithermal climate period,” MacDonald said.

The Altithermal Period followed the last ice age, after large mammals like woolly mammoths had become extinct. Yellowstone Lake, during that time, would have been a huge oasis drawing people, and wildlife, from throughout the region.

*****

Hale said analysis of campsites showed some visitors could have been small parties of male hunters, while others were families staying for longer periods.

“There are sites along the lake where there was extensive processing of hides,” Hale said. “We found sites where freshly quarried obsidian cobble had been transported to the area. This is a lithic workshop area.”
Another campsite was littered with about a dozen shaft abraders, used to smooth arrows and spears.
“That smacks of duration,” Hale said.

Another unique find was a large obsidian spear point. MacDonald theorized that the point was created for ceremonial purposes, since it’s 150 percent larger than other spear points of the same time.

The point was shaped in the style of the Hopewell Culture of about 1,500 years ago. The Hopewell Culture is known for being one of the first in North America to lead a more sedentary life that included farming, and metal working, and created burial mounds along the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. They also traded extensively.

“It is well known that Obsidian Cliff obsidian was traded eastward to the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys,” MacDonald said. “Some archaeologists also speculate that Hopewell Native Americans themselves actually traveled to Obsidian Cliff to collect obsidian.

“Our large spear point was likely a ceremonial item, as was much of the obsidian for Hopewell people,” he said. “Most of the obsidian at sites back east is found within burial contexts.”

The UM research also indicates that “most Native Americans using the northern end of the lake traded and traveled primarily to the north, east and west, rather than to the south,” MacDonald said. “Other work at sites along the south shore of the lake indicated that Native Americans in that area were focused more southward.”
So there seemed to be some reason, possibly a cultural one, for why the people traveling from the south into the lake area didn’t move farther north.

“It just so happens that Yellowstone Lake is at the edge of multiple different tribal territories,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald and a crew of 22 graduate and undergraduate students will continue their work in the park this summer, their fourth year, surveying other parts of the lake’s shore. By identifying important cultural resource sites, park officials can plan any development to exclude and protect those areas, Hale said. Four of the five sites uncovered last summer are being considered for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“This is a huge benefit to the park for very little cost,” Hale said. “It’s a huge benefit to the students, too, because they have a big area to do archaeology in.”

Hundreds of rare Roman pots discovered by accident off Italy's coast by British research ship

A British underwater research team has discovered hundreds of rare Roman pots by accident, while trawling the wreckages of ships on the sea bed.

The team had been using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to scour modern wrecks for radioactive materials.
They were amazed to come across the remains of a Roman galley which sank off the coast of Italy thousands of years ago.

The crew from energy company Hallin Marine International, based in Aberdeen, found a number of ancient pots lying in the mud 1,640ft below the waves.

After the first sighting the crew worked around the clock for two days to bring them to the surface without damaging them.

Supervisor Dougie Combe  said the team managed to recover five of the 2,000 year-old vessels intact. They cleared debris off them using water jets.

 

They were then handed over to an archaeology museum in the historic Graeco-Roman city of Paestum, in northern Italy.

Mr Combe, from Speyside, Scotland, said: 'They would have probably been loaded on some kind of merchant ship which sank all those years ago.'

He added: 'It was a big surprise when we came across the pots as we were looking for modern wrecks from the last 20 years or so.

'It's certainly the oldest thing we've come across on the seabed.

'We managed to get five up altogether, but there must have been hundreds of them there.'

The Mare Oceano was searching for low-grade radioactive material alongside Italian company GeoLab when they made the discovery.

They were trawling off the coast of Capo Palinuro, near Policastro, Italy.

The jars that were found are believed to be ancient Greek or Roman and are thought to date back at least 2,000 years.

Parthenon yields clues to quake-proof design

ATHENS: Japanese scientists will next month look into seismic resistance secrets in the design of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon which has withstood scores of quakes.

"The Parthenon had great resilience to earthquakes, as did most classical Greek temples," said Maria Ioannidou, the archaeologist in charge of conservation of the ancient Acropolis citadel where the Parthenon stands.

"The ancient Greeks apparently had very good knowledge of quake behaviour and excellent construction quality," she added.

Toshikazu Hanazato, a professor of engineering and an expert in post-quake reconstruction, at Japan's Mie University, heads the research team which is visiting Greece next month to study the famed marble temple.

"Excellent construction"

Both countries have high levels of seismic activity and the Japanese believe there are common elements between ancient Greek temples and their own monuments, Ioannidou said.

The Parthenon has sustained significant damage in its long history but most of it was caused by man.

The temple is partly built on solid rock but also has stone foundations going 12 metres deep, and its walls were held together by metal joints coated in lead to prevent rust, Ioannidou said.

It withstood a 373 BC quake that destroyed the city of Elike in the Peloponnese and a subsequent 226 BC temblor that toppled the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic bronze statue numbered among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

More recently, a 5.9-Richter earthquake in 1999 that killed 143 people around Athens shifted some of the Parthenon's architectural elements, but caused no major damage.

MEENAKSHI TEMPLE

Sri Meenakshi Temple (built 1623-59 onward)

Sri Meenakshi is Hindu temple constructed in the early 17th century for Shiva and his wife, Parvathi (also known as Sundareshwara and Meenakshi, respectively). In a typical style for this area, the temple's precincts are defined by a square outer wall pierced by 12 gopuras (gates), with one major gopura facing each of the four directions.

This is one of the most incredible structures I've ever encountered.

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