Babel News Network

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what they think was a large shipyard at Porto in Italy, a few miles south of Rome and once an important harbour of the ancient city. The ruins were once a massive building that covered an area larger than a football field, and contained eight parallel bays that they believe were used to build and maintain warships and cargo vessels.

The building was uncovered on the site of the former imperial port of Portus, established by the Emperor Claudius and expanded during the reign of Trajan in the 2nd Century. The dig team initially thought the building was a warehouse, but their investigations indicate it may actually be the largest Roman ship building facility yet discovered.

Portus was Rome’s main harbour for more than 500 years and the conduit for the wealth of the empire, including slaves and wild animals shipped to the capital for games in the Colosseum.

Source: University of Southampton press release

The military zeppelin USS Macon was meant to be a floating American aircraft carrier over the Pacific Ocean — but it crashed, sank and has been lying on the ocean floor for more than 70 years. Now scientists have discovered and documented the unique wreck off the coast of California.

Uncovering the USS Macon: The Underwater Airship

The Antikythera Mechanism turns out to be a complex mechanical planetarium – accurate enough to predict eclipses. The operator could dial in a date and determine the location of sun, moon and five planets. It uses an astronomical model settled by Apollonius. Not bad for something like 200 BC. It seems there may have been workshops in Greece (and/or Hellenistic Egypt) churning out these and other highly technical machines — such as those described a century later by Hero of Alexandria. This one may have been intended as a gift for Julius Caeser – if only because it dates from that time, and was found in the remains of a Roman shipwreck on the Greek coast.

Cold-War copies of American computer parts: In Soviet Russia, mouse clicks you.

A group of divers from Poland have located the wreck of the Kreigsmarineschiff Graf Zeppelin on the floor of the Baltic Sea. The ship, the only German aircraft carrier ever built, went AWOL at the end of World War II. It had been scuttled by its crew in August 1945 but was salvaged by Soviet forces, who used it to lug captured factory equipment back to Russia, and later for target practice.

The Polish divers were taking depth soundings, looking for potential oil sites on the sea floor, when they detected the 260 metre-long ship sitting in 250 metres of water near the Bay of Gdansk. The area is littered with the wrecks of warships.