An international research team has discovered a human skeleton during the ongoing excavation of the famous shipwreck of Antikythera (ca. 65 BC).
1. Backgrounds
The shipwreck, which
contains the remains of a Greek trading or cargo ship, is located off the Greek
island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea.
The first skeleton
recovered from the wreck site at the time of the DNA analysis., this discovery
could provide insight into the lives of people who lived 2100 years ago.
Led by technical experts and
archaeologists from the Hellenic Ministry of the WHOI: Culture and Sports and
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.,
The team recovered and
excavated a human skull including long arm and leg bones, jaw and teeth, ribs,
besides other remains.
Other parts of the
skeleton are still embedded in the seafloor, awaiting excavation in the next
phase of operations.
2. An amazing object
It should be noted that no
object of the same age and technical complexity as the Antikythera machine is
known in the world.
The first comparable
mechanisms appeared at least a thousand years after the sinking of the Roman
ship.
If this machine had not
been found, historians and archaeologists would never have imagined such a
mechanism possible at such a remote time.
Around 1905, Albert Rehm,
a German philologist (specialist in ancient writings), was the first to
understand that the Antikythera machine was an astronomical calculator.
Half a century later, when
the British historian of science Derek de Solla Price described the mechanism
in an article in the journal Scientific American., he was still far from having
solved everything.
3. How Antikythera machine works
According to Price, the
machine was operated by a hand crank.
The machine was asked an astronomical or
calendar question, and the answer was displayed by hands on the dials on the
front or back.
By turning the crank, the
user could set the machine to a date indicated on a 365-day calendar dial
located on the front panel.
At the same time, the
crank operated gears to produce information about the selected date.
It was also possible to
rotate the calendar dial to add a day once every four years, on the same
principle as our leap years.
A second dial, with the
same center as the calendar, is located on the front.
The 360 degrees of the
circle and the 12 symbols of the constellations of the zodiac were shown on it.
The zodiac is the area of
the celestial sphere where the Sun, Moon and planets of the Solar System move
relative to the fixed stars as seen from the Earth.
This area extends 16
degrees on either side of the ecliptic plane, the plane defined by the Earth's
orbit.
Brendan Foley, a marine
archaeologist with WHOI. Said that "Archaeologists
study the human past through the objects created by our ancestors,"
"With the wreck of
Antikythera, we can now connect directly with that person who sailed and died
aboard the ship of Antikythera."
The wreck of Antikythera
is the largest shipwreck ever discovered, possibly a large grain carrier.
It was discovered and
recovered in 1900 by Greek sponge divers.
In addition to dozens of
marble statues and thousands of antiquities, their efforts resulted in the
creation of the Antikythera mechanism., an amazing artifact known as the
world's first computer.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau with
the CALYPSO team, nn 1976, returned to the wreck and recovered nearly 300 more
artifacts., including skeletal remains of passengers and crew.
The skeleton discovered on
August 31, 2016 is the first to be recovered from a shipwreck since the advent
of DNA studies.
The expert in DNA, Dr.
Hannes Schroeder, from the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen,
rushed to Antikythera to view the remains.
Once permission from the
Greek authorities is obtained, samples will be sent to his laboratory for a
full suite of analysis.
If sufficient viable DNA
is preserved in the bones, we could identify the geographic origin and ethnic of
the shipwreck victim.
Schroeder said that against
all odds, the bones have survived on the sea floor more than 2,000 years… and
they appear to be in very good condition, which is incredible.
The Antikythera research
team generates accurate three-dimensional digital models of each artifact.;
Allowing the findings to be
shared instantly and widely even if the objects remain on the sea floor.
Several 3D models of the
skeletal remains are available to researchers and the public on the Antikythera
Projectweb page.
"Our reality captures
technology not only helps share the amazing story of Antikythera with digital
models and 3D printed artifacts.
But it also enables
important research. Jonathan Knowles of Autodesk Explorer in Residence said
4. Project Overview
This project is supported
by corporate partners:
Hublot, Autodesk, Cosmote,
Jane and James Orr, the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, the Domestic Property
Committee of Kythera and Antikthera.
The Municipality of
Kythera and Costa Navarino Resort and private sponsors Swordspoint Foundation .
The research team consists
of archaeologists, Dr. Theotokis Theodoulou and Dr. Dimitris Kourkoumelis
(Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports);
Research Specialist, Dr.
Brendan Foley (WHOI); archaeologist Alexander Tourtas.
professional technical divers Edward O'Brien
(WHOI), Philip Short, Alexandros Sotiriou, Nikolas Giannoulakis and Gemma
Smith; videographer Evan Kovacs; documentary filmmaker Michalis Tsimperopoulos;
supported by Michalis
Kelaidis, Dimitris Romio and Dimitris Manoliades. Stefan Williams, Oscar
Pizarro, and Christian Lees., of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at
the University of Sydney led the robotic mapping study.
Brett Seymour, an
underwater photographer with the U.S. National Park Service, and David Conlin,
an archaeologist, are providing their time and expertise.
The project of return to
Antikythera is supervised by the director of the Ephorate of Underwater
Antiquities, Dr. Aggeliki Simosi.
Under the aegis of the
President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos.
