PERSPECTIVES: Searching for underwater treasures (06/29/03)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Searching for underwater treasures

Nearly 20 years ago, explorer Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic. Later he found the battleship Bismarck, the Lusitania, 11 warships from the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the World War II aircraft carrier Yorktown, two ancient Phoenician ships off Israel, a sunken Roman fleet off Sicily and John F. Kennedy's PT-109.

So where's Dr. Ballard going this summer? Why the Black Sea, of course. After all, that's where civilization began - at least according to William Ryan and Walter Pittman.

Like many others, these two Columbia University scientists were intrigued by ancient legends of a catastrophic flood that destroyed humanity. Everyone, of course, is familiar with Noah and his ark: "The fountains of the deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened. ... The waters swelled so mightily that all the high mountains under heaven were covered." Only Noah and his family survived.

But there's also the Babylonian epic, Gilgamesh, written 1,500 years earlier, which relates the story of a great flood remarkably similar to the one in the Bible. Then in Greek mythology, we read how Prometheus's son, Deucalion, is warned of an approaching deluge that Zeus would send to punish the human race for its wickedness, so he builds a boat that carries him and his wife to safety, where they start a new race of people.

Sifting through archeological, linguistic, genetic and geological evidence, Messrs. Ryan and Pittman reach a startling conclusion: these various accounts describe an actual event from around 5,600 B.C., when a great freshwater lake that lay hundreds of feet below the level of the world's rising oceans was overwhelmed by a stupendous flood that burst through the Bosporus Valley with the force of a thousand Niagara Falls. Salt water from the Mediterranean destroyed everything in its path, creating the Black Sea. Throughout the basin of the new sea, scattered survivors regrouped, ultimately founding Neolithic farming communities, including one that evolved into the Tripillian civilization near Kyiv.

Could this amazing account that Messrs. Ryan and Pittman describe in their book, "Noah's Flood," possibly be true? In 2000 A.D., Dr. Ballard used robotic vehicles to scrape up sediment at the point where the sea bottom abruptly plunges from relatively shallow waters offshore to an eventual depth of more than a mile. The result? Freshwater fossils - which Carbon-14 analysis identified as 7,600 years old. The conclusion was inescapable: this is the submerged shoreline of a freshwater lake that somehow became a saltwater sea around 5,600 B.C.

For at least three millennia now, the Black Sea has been a busy maritime highway. Early Greek expeditions there spawned the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece. By 450 B.C. when Herodotus, the "Father of History," went to Scythia in southern Ukraine, he was able to describe a rich culture of warriors, herdsmen and grain producers who buried magnificent golden artifacts in the mounds that dotted the steppes. The Greek colony, Chersonesos, founded near the site of modern Sevastopol, remained a thriving city during Roman times, moving fur, honey, wax, wheat, cattle, wine and slaves to all parts of the empire.

When Rome fell into barbarism, power shifted eastward to the Byzantine Empire. For Ukrainians, of course, Byzantium is inextricably linked with the golden age of Kyiv, when restless Vikings united the Slavic tribes of Rus' and created an empire that was first a rival and later an ally of Constantinople. A thousand years later, this relationship, conducted largely by ship-borne commerce across the Black Sea, is reflected in Kyiv's architecture, religious icons, in the way Ukrainians cross themselves (the "orthodox" way, from right to left) and even in the country's politics ("byzantine").

In time, the Kyivan Empire fell - as empires always do - and a couple centuries later, Byzantium fell as well. Traffic across the Black Sea, however, continued unabated, only now it primarily served the Ottoman Empire. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Kaffa in Crimea became a major transfer point for the bounty of Ukraine's steppes, including slaves seized by Tatar warriors and shipped to Asia Minor. Outraged over the steady flow of captives from their villages, Ukrainians organized the Kozak Brotherhood, whose deeds are remembered in legend and song - especially their daring sea-launched raids to free slaves and seize booty.

Later, during the 19th century's Industrial Revolution, the Black Sea figured in the great export boom in grain, earning Ukraine the sobriquet "Breadbasket of Europe." In the 20th century, sailors, soldiers, refugees and spies sailed aboard ships that also carried raw materials, missiles and wheat across the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar, and from there to all the oceans and continents.

So what will Dr. Ballard be looking for this summer? Whatever he can find. Although the Black Sea is notorious for its sudden, severe storms, people have been navigating its waters for thousands of years, whether they were moving wine from Chersonesos to Salamis, grain from Odesa to Liverpool, slaves from Kaffa to Trebizond or a fleet of chaiky (seagulls, which is what the Kozaks called their vessels) full of Kozak warriors sailing to free their countrymen from slavery. Everyone hoped to navigate the sea safely, but not all did. Many perished, and their ships and cargoes lie deep beneath the surface.

For an archeologist, every shipwreck tells a story. And in the Black Sea they're far more eloquent than elsewhere. Because of the unique configuration of its basin, its waters do not circulate below 700 feet, so there's no oxygen at the bottom. As a result, organic materials don't decay, so whatever's there is in a high state of preservation.

Last summer Dr. Ballard and a team of Bulgarian scientists announced the discovery of a totally intact, 2,400-year-old wooden ship laden with amphoras, the clay storage jars of antiquity, including one with bones from a catfish that had been dried and cut into steaks - a sailor's snack, perhaps.

There's plenty more down there. Noah's ark and Deucalion's ship floated away a long time ago, so Dr. Ballard isn't likely to find those this summer, but he just might find Noah's house at the bottom of the sea, or one very much like it. Then again, if instead he finds a Viking longboat, a Kozak chaika, a Turkish galley or a sunken ship with Scythian gold, I'm sure he'll call it a successful day. Happy hunting.

CORRECTION: In my March column, "And then the war came," I wrote that the Khryshtalowych family was separated from their infant son in 1941. The correct date is 1944. Mea culpa.

Andrew Fedynsky's e-mail address is: [email protected].

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