Since people started sailing in ships, about a million have wound up at the bottom of the sea. That is the estimate by Robert Ballard, one of the world’s most famous maritime explorers. Ballard has led teams that have found the remains of 50 or 60 of those lost ships.
The rest? They’re still down there. The wooden boats, and their crews, probably have been eaten by sea creatures, but the inorganic things on the boats are scattered all over ocean floors througout the world.
“It’s like I-95 without an Adopt-A-Highway program,” Ballard said. “The deep sea has a slow sedimentation rate. It takes thousands and thousands of years to bury anything. There is a trail of artifacts.”
Ballard — who gained fame by discovering the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985 — and his Ocean Exploration Trust have teamed with Lyman Allyn Art Museum in the seafaring town of New London to present “Lost at Sea: Shipwrecks of the Ancient World,” an exhibit of artifacts from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean and Black seas going back more than 2,000 years.
The exhibit shows some of those artifacts, as well as exploration vehicles and photos and videos of discoveries, such as an eerily tidy debris field full of amphorae, ceramic jars used in ancient times to store wine or olive oil.
During storms, “the crew would commonly jettison the cargo,” Ballard said. (He referred to the Biblical passage Acts 27:18: “We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard.”) “In the deep sea, with the absence of sun, it doesn’t deteriorate. [An amphora] was the 55-gallon drum or Coke can or wine bottle of its day.”
The exhibit has many amphorae, plates, bowls, cups, most in ceramic, some in glass. Even though most of the ships don’t exist anymore, researchers can determine the era and estimated point of origin by the size, shape and design of the amphorae.
The Black Sea — bordered by Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia — is especially prized by ship-hunters, Ballard said, because there is no oxygen in the deepest depths, so the creatures that eat organic remains such as wood and human bones can’t survive. However, trawlers have been known to destroy remains.
“The deep sea is the largest museum on the planet, but there is no lock on the door,” Ballard said.
For museum visitors who want more shipwreck action, the “Titanic – 12,450 Feet Below” exhibit, which also was curated by Ballard, is still at the Mystic Aquarium, with recreations of the ship’s hull and the iceberg it hit, stories of some of the people on the boat, historical photos, recreated relics and a high-def movie about Ballard’s exploration.
“LOST AT SEA: SHIPWRECKS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD” will be at Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams St. in New London, until Feb. 1, 2015. Robert Ballard will give a lecture on Oct. 8 at 6 p.m. Michael Brennan will give a lecture on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. Museum hours are Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission always free to New London residents. www.lymanallyn.org.
