Ancient anchors discovered at Bat Yam beach

SLIGHTLY EARLY IN HONOR OF TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY:

Byzantine-era anchor found in Israel might shed light on ancient sailing

English.news.cn 2011-09-13 21:36:32 FeedbackPrintRSS

JERUSALEM, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- The recent discovery by Israeli lifeguards of three ancient iron anchors might help archaeologists understand more about ancient sailing and lead to the discovery of an unknown anchorage site.

Lifeguards at a Bat Yam city beach, south of Tel Aviv, came across the first 300 kg, two-meter-tall anchor after spotting it submerged in shallow waters, 30 meters offshore.

Though the lifeguards initially thought it to be a modern artifact, they contacted the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) after suspecting that it might, in fact, be an archaeological find.

An IAA marine archaeologist confirmed that the find was about 1, 700-1,400 years old, belonging to the Byzantine era.

The anchor's surprisingly well preserved state was due to it's having been buried for centuries in the seabed and only being recently uncovered, an IAA statement read.

[...]

Two other anchor were found in the same area.

Anchors aweigh, aarrr!