Forty-one wrecked ships were found in the Black Sea, reports claim.
Researchers from the Black Sea Maritime Archeology Project found shipwrecks while they were trawling the seabed to understand how fast the water level rise during the last ice age. They said that most of the ships were in mint condition due to low oxygen levels in the sea.
Jon Adams, University of Southampton, explained that they were fascinated by this discovery. There are ships that date back to the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, Quartz explained.
The researchers explained that they took photographs of the shipwreck and used photogrammetry to build 3D models of their discovery. Photogrammetry is a software that can calculate the positions of millions of points in space.
Adams explained that the ships' hulls, masts, tillers and rudders cans still be easily discerned. He admits that he and his team were amazed by the completeness of this shipwrecks considering the depth that it's in, Mail Online reported.
They explained that the Black Sea is in complete darkness, it has no light and oxygen. They stressed that this dead zone it the perfect graveyard for shipwrecks.
They've scourging the Black Sea up to 5,900 ft., which is 1,800m below surface, when they found the shipwrecks. They used an off-shore vessel that has advance underwater equipment.
Their main mission is not to find shipwrecks, but to map landscapes that were submerged during the ice age. They explained that were able to sustain a speed of over six knots and manage to cover 1,250 km of ocean floor.
Even though, this isn't part of their mission they are still delighted with their discovery. They said that their findings showed new information on the communities that lived in the Black Sea coast.
They said that during the ancient times Black Sea was the center for commercialism among Greece, Rome and Byzantine Empire. However, in 1453 the Ottoman Turks closed the Black Sea for foreign commerce.
It was re-opened in 1856 through the Treaty of Paris.
