Sixty ancient shipwrecks found in the Black Sea

Scientists who took part in an expedition of marine archaeology, called Black Sea Maritime Archaeological Project, have found ships used in antiquity at the bottom of the Black Sea.

The wrecks, which include vessels from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, were spotted by researchers who had been studying the effects of climate change along the coast of Bulgaria.

"Some of the ships we discovered had only been seen on murals and mosaics until this moment," said Black Sea Maritime Archaeological Project CEO Ed Parker. "There's one medieval trading vessel where the towers on the bow and stern are pretty much still there."

"It's as if you are looking at a ship in a movie, with ropes still on the deck and carvings in the wood."

It is thought that the environment of the Black Sea, which is unable to support the types of organisms that typically feed on wooden shipwrecks, has played a major role in the preservation of the vessels.

Another scientist involved, Dr. Krum Bachvarov from the University of Connecticut said the ship’s mast was broken but its lower part was left. “There is a full load of amphorae. We saw at least two types of amphorae and we found ceramics, kitchen ceramics and part of the galley.”

Processing all samples found and analysing all the data will take years.

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The Ghost Of Dorothy Durant

In 1665, a bright 16-year-old schoolboy named Bligh suddenly became depressed and withdrawn. His friends, observing the change without being able to find the cause, attributed it to laziness, an aversion to school, or to some other motive which he was ashamed to avow. He was led, however, to tell his brother, after some time, that a ghost was troubling him. Twice a day, while walking to and from school through a field in Launceston, England, the ghost of a late neighbor named Dorothy Durant (who had been dead about eight years) would silently follow him. 

Ridicule, threats, persuasions, were alike used in vain by the family to induce him to dismiss these absurd ideas.Only his headmaster, Mr. Ruddle, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The next morning, walking together with his pupil in the field, Mr. Ruddle was shocked to see Durant pass them by. He would see her spirit several more times after this.

On a morning in late July, Mr. Ruddle encountered the ghost again and tried to talk to her. At first, the apparition was reluctant to speak. Her voice was hard to hear, and her words were unintelligible, but Mr. Ruddle had a conversation with her that lasted 15 minutes. In the evening, Durant’s ghost met the headmaster on his way home. This was the last time she ever appeared but after exchanging a few words it vanished into thin air.

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550 million-year-old creature mystery solved

A Dickinsonia fossil was first described in 1947.

Scientists believe that they have finally worked out what type of creature 'Dickinsonia' actually was.

Resembling a strange cross between a fungus, a lichen, a worm and a jellyfish, this peculiar organism was first described back in 1947 and has remained something of an enigma ever since.

Dickinsonia lived hundreds of millions of years ago on the sea floor and ranged in size from a few millimeters across to around half a meter. What's particularly intriguing about the species is that it was one of the earliest known organisms to move around rather than simply staying rooted to the spot.

Now a new study conducted by researchers from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol, and the British Geological Survey has determined that Dickinsonia was most likely to have been an animal as oppose to a plant or a fungus.

The research involved analyzing the 'units' that run down the length of the creature's body and comparing them to those of other specimens to determine the rate of growth over time.

"When we combined this growth data with previously obtained information on how Dickinsonia moved, as well as some of its morphological features, we were able to reject all non-animal possibilities for its original biological affinity and show that it was an early animal, belonging to either the Placozoa or the Eumetazoa," said Dr Renee Hoekzema, a PhD candidate in Oxford University's Mathematical Institute.

"This is one of the first times that a member of the Ediacaran biota has been identified as an animal on the basis of positive evidence."

Dr Liu added: "This finding demonstrates that animals were present among the Ediacaran biota and importantly confirms a number of recent findings that suggest animals had evolved several million years before the "Cambrian Explosion" that has been the focus of attention for studies into animal evolution for so long.

"It also allows Dickinsonia to be considered in debates surrounding the evolution and development of key animal traits such as bilateral symmetry, segmentation and the development of body axes, which will ultimately improve our knowledge of how the earliest animals made the transition from simple forms to the diverse range of body plans we see today."

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Mysterious Medieval grave on channel island puzzles archaeologists

Archaeologists excavating a historic religious retreat have found the grave of a medieval porpoise.

The unusual discovery, was made after three weeks digging on the small island of Chapelle Dom Hue off the coast of Guernsey. , 

The team found evidence of a grave due to a change in the soil and unearthed a skull and other skeletal remains, but were left puzzled when it became clear they were not human.

Quite why the porpoise was buried so carefully on the island, which is thought to have been used by monks seeking refuge, is a mystery.

Dr Philip de Jersey, a research associate at Oxford University who works at Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery, said he estimates that the skeleton, which was the first organic matter found on the dig, dated from the 13th or 14th century.

He said it was the most unusual find in his 35-year career. "It's very peculiar, I don't know what to make of it," archaeologist Philip de Jersey from Oxford University in the UK told The Guardian.

Dr Phil De Jersey, right, and Mike Deane alongside the skeleton of a medieval porpoise.

The mystery is all the greater due to the way the animal was buried, which doesn't suggest the dead porpoise was simply disposed of underground.

Instead, it looks like it's been laid to rest, with the body aligned east to west per Christian tradition, and the careful digging of the grave itself suggests it was intended as a solemn resting place.

It's possible that the porpoise was killed for food, since these mammals were eaten in medieval times.

But if that's the case, the researchers say it would have made a lot more sense for people to have disposed of the remains in the sea – located just 10 metres from the site, and the small island is surrounded by water on all sides.

Dr de Jersey added: 'If we were in a church and we found something like this, based on the shape, we would think it was a grave cut.

'That is what puzzles me. 'If they had eaten it or killed it for the blubber, why take the trouble to bury it?'

Dr de Jersey said it appears as if the animal had been buried with care, unlike a donkey skeleton they found which had been dumped in a hole after it died. Dr de Jersey added: 'It was cut down from the medieval layer and we have found medieval pottery in the same film.'

After their discovery, the porpoise bones were removed from their resting place, and will now be studied by a marine expert.

Once that analysis is complete, maybe then we'll get some answers on just how and why this medieval porpoise came to be laid to rest in a monk's graveyard.

Location of Chapelle dom Hue

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Bimini Road Bahamas

One of the most famous attraction in the Bahamas is Birmini road,an ancient underwater pathway discovered in 1930s.The mysterious path makes many wonder if it is remnants of the mythical lost land of Atlantis.

The Road consists of a 0.8 km (0.50 mi)-long northeast-southwest linear feature composed of roughly rectangular to subrectangular limestone blocks.

Bimini is an island in the Bahamas, part of a chain of islands 50 miles east of Miami, Florida.

Possible origin stories for Bimini road have been featured in different mystery pieces on Unexplained Mysteries, Unsolved Mysteries in the World, and more. The origin theories include ancient Egyptian divine protectors, the path to Atlantis, and a natural occurrence without any help from humans.

Not all have been satisfied with the mainstream theories, and expeditions have been mounted to solve the riddle of the Bimini Road.

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Manananggal

An artist's rendering of Mananggal

The Manananggal (sometimes confused with the Aswang) is a vampire-like cryptid creature of the Philippines, an evil, man-eating and blood-sucking monster. 

Appearance:

It is described as hideous, scary, (usually) female, and it is also capable of severing its upper torso and sprouting huge bat-like wings to fly into the night in search of its victims. The word manananggal comes from the Tagalog word tanggal (cognate of Malay tanggal), which means "to separate" or "to remove", which literally translates as "separator" or "remover". In this case, "one who separates itself". The name also originates from an expression used for a severed torso.

The Manananggal shares some features with the vampire of balkan folklore, such as its dislike of garlic, and vulnerability to sunlight.

Legend:

According to the legends, they mostly prey on sleeping, pregnant women, using an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck the hearts of fetuses, or the blood of someone who is sleeping. The severed lower torso is left standing, and it is said to be the more vulnerable of the two halves. Sprinkling salt or throwing crushed garlic or ash on top of the standing torso is fatal to the creature. The upper torso then would not be able to rejoin itself and will die by sunrise. It is known to hide in volcanic caves during daytime.

The legend of the Manananggal is popular in the Visayan region of the Philippines, especially in the western provinces of Capiz, Iloilo, and Antique. There are varying accounts of the features of a Manananggal. Like vampires, Visayan folklore creatures, and aswangs, Manananggals are also said to abhor garlic and salt. They were also known to avoid daggers, light, vinegar, spices and the tail of a stingray, which can be used as a whip. Folklore tales of similar creatures can be found in the neighboring nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. The province of Capiz is the subject or focus of many Manananggal stories, as with the stories of other types of mythical creatures, such as ghosts, goblins, ghouls and aswangs. Sightings are purported here, and certain local folk are said to believe in their existence despite modernization.

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Did the Babylonians invent Trigonometry?

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Ancient Babylonians had known about Pythagoras' theorem over 1,000 years before he was even born,academics in Australia say.

The groundbreaking claim is based on a new analysis of a 3,700-year-old clay tablet known as 'Plimpton 322' which is inscribed with a demonstration of Babylonian mathematics.

According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, the tablet shows a highly sophisticated form of trigonometry that wouldn't be developed by the Ancient Greeks for another ten centuries.

The city of Babylon in Mesopotamia, an early cradle of human civilization in what is now Iraq, was known for its Hanging Gardens, said to be one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.


Mathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield suggested its people developed trigonometry to help their architects design the city’s major buildings.Their complex system of counting enabled them to perform complicated calculations more easily than mathematicians today.

"Our research shows it's a trigonometric table so unfamiliar and advanced that in some respects it's superior to modern trigonometry," said mathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield.

"We've discovered these lines represent the ratios for a series of right-angled triangles ranging from almost a square to almost a flat line. This makes Plimpton 322 a powerful tool that could have been used for surveying fields or architectural calculations to build palaces, temples or step pyramids."

"The Babylonians unique approach to arithmetic and geometry means this is not only the world's oldest trigonometric table, it's also the only completely accurate trigonometric table on record."

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Tomb of 'China's Shakespeare' discovered

Many of Tang Xianzu's plays are still performed today. 

The tomb of legendary Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu has been unearthed in Fuzhou.

Famous for writing the popular Ming Dynasty play 'The Peony Pavilion', Tang is widely celebrated as one of China's most distinctive playwrights and has often been referred to as 'China's Shakespeare'.

The precise location of his tomb had long remained something of a mystery, but now, following excavations at a site in the city of Fuzhou in the eastern region of Jiangxi, archaeologists have announced that they have finally succeeded in pinpointing his final resting place.

He and his third wife Fu are now believed to have been buried within a plot marked "M4" while a second plot marked "M3" is thought to contain the remains of his second wife, Zhao.

"This discovery is significant, because it tells us more about Tang's life, his family tree and relationships with other family members," said Ming Dynasty historian Mao Peiqi.

"Besides, by learning about the status and lives of Tang's family, we can learn about education, culture and agriculture in the Ming Dynasty as well as the development of society."

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