Another rare and priceless find from the Antikythera shipwreck
Posted On: Jul 21st, 2016 at 11:50
Greece
The Antikythera shipwreck is famous for its amazing clockwork computer that predicts the movements of the planets with such astonishing accuracy it has been considered to be way ahead of its time. Nothing like it has ever been found.
Until now.
And, ironically, on the same shipwreck.
This time it’s not an advanced piece of science but something of simple science, something one of a kind, something that has never been found before despite it being mentioned in various ancient texts.
What the divers found was a large metal drum. Made of lead it was called a “dolphin” and was likely used as a defensive mechanism when the ship was attacked – the large drum was hoisted up and then dropped onto the enemy ship as it came alongside, thus creating a large hole that would cause the other ship to sink rapidly.
The Antikythera ship was vastly ahead of its time in so many respects – the Antikythera mechanism is one example. It also had a hull that was five inches thick, unheard of in those days, and was a whopping 180 feet long. The Antikythera ship was clearly a kind of travelling bank vault, designed to carry the most precious and most expensive artefacts across the Roman Empire.
I am sure many more amazing finds from the wreck will surface in the coming decades.
