The day began with First Mate Orkan demonstrating to Bridget that there is more to being ship's boy than kicks and beatings. One must also be able to maneuver the dinghy into the rocks without adding to the number of shipwrecks below. After an exciting demonstration of Down-under driving, Tufan announced that today's surface interval would be spent learning how to handle the dinghy and tie knots in any position. The SOA team entered enthusiastically into the lesson, and passing fishing boats were treated to a display of lycra-clad archaeologists tying themselves to things. And we have not yet been at sea a week...
Today was mostly spent cleaning the church wreck in preparation for a big video shoot and photo-modeling run tomorrow. While Tufan and Gokhan Bey investigated the ship's anchor in the sand, Guzden and Orkan cleaned the main cargo mound, and Bridget and Berta began the process of measuring and sketching. It appears now that Berta's large marble slab has three crosses on it, the central one inside a circle. It is looking very much like the sort of marble sarcophagus one finds in early Christian catacombs in the West. Anatolia was a huge exporter of marble sarcophagi during the imperial period, but they are very seldom found on shipwrecks; this may very well be the first Christian sarcophagus/tomb structure found in a shipwreck context (though as yet we can't rule out the 'church' theory). The rest of the marble is
also a puzzle: was it all intended for a specific structure, or was it merely a 'tramp' cargo that served as ballast for a large amphora carrier? The sand
stirred up even by the most cursory cleaning is beginning to reveal a far larger cargo than we suspected, with amphoras and marble scattered many meters beyond the main cargo mound. We know from later examples that some ships of the Byzantine period could carry up to 28,000 amphoras. How much more of our wreck lies under the sand? We would love to know, but the time we can spend on this wreck is running out, along with our fresh water supply at camp. To save fuel we have cut showers from 30 seconds to -3 seconds a day, and clothing is now so salty that it stands up by itself (conveniently removing the need for hangers). The ancient Roman writer Pliny the Elder provides a recipe for creating fresh water out of sheepskins... perhaps some of our old mattresses would serve? We will sign off for today with a thought from Pliny's Natural History (XXXII.I)...
"For what is more violent than sea, winds, whirlwinds, and storms? By what greater invention
of man has Nature been aided in any part of herself than by sails and oars?"... there follows a scientific account of a tiny species of fish capable of overpowering even the largest Roman battleships just by sticking to them. Who says you can't learn anything from ancient history?
PS This beautiful image of the 'rock' near our base camp was painted by SOA's multi-talented doctor, Dogu.
