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

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.

Divers with an archaeological expedition to the sunken Egyptian city of Alexandria viewing a statue of the god Hapi, in the ruins of the Temple of Heracles. The expedition was led by Frenchman Franck Goddio, who has spent more than 10 years exploring the underwater city. Artifacts from the site are on display in Berlin. More photographs at Spiegel Online.

Over the years, Goddio and his team have used hot-air balloons to extract algae-encrusted sphinxes from the waters of the Mediterranean and cranes to lift steles and decaying door hinges, coated with barnacles, from the ancient site.

The artifacts pulled to the surface are the remains of the most astonishing city of the ancient world — a city dubbed the Pearl of the Mediterranean with a population of almost 600,000. It was a magnificent world as much as it was a setting for bloody royal dramas. The lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, rose 130 meters (426 feet) into the sky, its wood fires, amplified by mirrors, shining far out into the Mediterranean. In the first century B.C., the writer Diodor raved about Alexandria, whose “beauty, size and riches far surpassed those of all other cities.” The city’s diverse population included Jews and Egyptians, Gallic mercenaries, Nubians and Persians.

The 2006 shortlistfrom the BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition has been published, and the technical section has this great sidescan sonar image of the wreck of a German U-boat lying on its side on the sea floor at a depth of 225 metres, submitted by Ernie Tapanes of Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.

“I would like to send to my family in Bassada a sum of money. Please excuse me and goodbye. This is the end of my life in this big Moroccan sea.”