Exploration of Black Sea's floor turns up wrecked ships from Byzantine and Ottoman Empires

An international team of experts is engaged in a massive undertaking to map the floor of the Black Sea, an endeavor intended to provide insights into the water-level rise following the last Ice Age and its impact on habitation.

In the process, the mission's two powerful Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) discovered dozens of wrecked ships, with some belonging to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

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Though many of the vessels are recorded in history as being lost, this is the first time such reports have been substantiated with the downed ships themselves.

Further, the wrecks serve an indication of how coastal communities connected with one another over time.

Professor Jon Adams, a Black Sea initiative investigator and founding director of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton, said, "The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery...They are astonishingly preserved..."

He further commented, "...no-one has achieved models of this completeness on shipwrecks at these depths."

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