It remains one of the greatest mysteries of naval exploration. What doomed John Franklin\u2019s 1845 attempt to sail the Northwest Passage, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in his ships Erebus and Terror?<\/p>
The expedition claimed the lives of all 129 men and has gripped the public\u2019s imagination for the past century and a half. Now Canadian researchers are facing a crucial decision on whether to relaunch attempts to find new clues about the ships\u2019 fate.<\/p> Over the past few years they have already recovered hundreds of artefacts<\/a> \u2013 from shoes and ceramic dishes to a ship\u2019s bell and a lieutenant\u2019s epaulette \u2013 from the wrecks of the two ships after they sank in the Canadian Arctic.<\/p> But last year marine archaeologists had to abandon dives to the wrecks because of the Covid pandemic and they are unsure if they will be able return to the ships this summer when the sea ice retreats sufficiently to allow access to the wrecks near King William Island.<\/p> Franklin set off from Greenhithe in Kent in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage, a polar route to the Far East. His ships were fitted with steam-driven propellers to help them manoeuvre in pack ice and their holds were filled with a three-year supply of tinned provisions. It was one of the best-equipped marine expeditions of its day. So what befell the ships? <\/p> From their first disappearance the mystery of the Erebus and the Terror has gripped the public\u2019s imagination. As Andrew Lambert says in his biography, Franklin, Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation<\/em>: <\/em>\u201cAt the heart of every story about the Arctic stands John Franklin.\u201d<\/p> Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Jules Verne and Mark Twain all wrote about the expedition. However, the screening of The Terror<\/em> on BBC Two this month has regalvanised interest across Britain and taken viewers on board the two ill-fated ships to see what life would have been like for the crew who had to endure temperatures of minus 50C throughout several Arctic winters.<\/p> With both vessels trapped in pack ice, this grim tale \u2013 based on Dan Simmons\u2019s bestselling 2007 novel \u2013 charts not just a journey across the icy Arctic wastes but also traces the conflicts that flared between those in charge. Crucially, the script also pays due attention to the culture of the local Inuit people, something that was often disregarded by Royal Navy adventurers who later tried to find Franklin and his men.<\/p> Francis Crozier who commanded HMS Terror, is played by Jared Harris (recently in Chernobyl<\/em>) as the more cautious seaman who attempts \u2013 despite a debilitating alcohol dependency \u2013 to persuade Franklin (played by Ciar\u00e1n Hinds) to abandon his mission as being too dangerous. Other key characters include the ambitious first officer of Erebus, James Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies), and Henry Goodsir, known as Harry, a kindly Scottish surgeon and naturalist (Paul Ready).<\/p> Much of the drama follows Simmons\u2019s fictional conjecture that the division in the crews\u2019 loyalties contributed to the eventual failure of the expedition, although supernatural elements also pepper the plot. The drama has been widely praised for its production and convincing depictions of the Arctic, which were recreated digitally using the same special effects that series producer Ridley Scott used in his film The Martian<\/em>.<\/p> However, for all its televisual sophistication, The Terror<\/em> does not answer the key question: what really doomed the Franklin expedition? Many theories have been suggested: the crews were struck down by botulism; they suffered lead poisoning from the poorly sealed tins of food; or were badly led by Franklin, who let his ships sail on a route frequently blocked by ice even in summer. What is known is that surviving crewmen eventually abandoned both vessels and headed south on foot across King William Island. Cut marks on skeletons make it clear some indulged in cannibalism before perishing.<\/p> Just why the expedition went so badly wrong is unclear but our understanding would be transformed by paperwork, says Claire Warrior, a senior curator at the National Maritime Museum in London \u2013 and that is the real hope of the dives that will eventually start again this year or next.<\/p> \u201cIf papers on the Erebus and Terror had been kept in sealed boxes or drawers, they may have survived immersion in the very cold, dark waters,\u201d she said. \u201cDiaries or written commands would make the most meaningful difference in terms of understanding what happened. That is what we are hoping will be found.\u201d<\/p> In the end, the bodies of more than 30 crewmen from the ships were found on King William Island. Most are still buried there<\/a>, although two were returned to Britain. Lieutenant John Irving was identified from personal effects and was buried in Dean cemetery, Edinburgh, in 1881.<\/p> The second was initially identified as being that of Henry Le Vesconte, a lieutenant on Erebus, before it was interred beneath the Franklin memorial at Greenwich Old Royal Naval College in London. However, in 2009, the memorial was moved, and a facial reconstruction from the remains was carried out \u2013 and produced a close match with a surviving daguerreotype of Henry Goodsir. For good measure, isotope analysis of tooth enamel suggested an upbringing in eastern Scotland (Goodsir was raised in Fife) but not with Le Vesconte\u2019s upbringing in southwest England. The remains are now attributed to Goodsir.<\/p> \u201cObviously we would like clues in future years to what happened to all these men but on their own, the items that have been recovered have transformed our appreciation of how they lived,\u201d added Warrior.<\/p> \u201cBits of accordion, pipes and books have been found. These are touchstones to those lives and they have incredible poignancy.\u201d<\/p>",
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"content":" A 17th-century English shipwreck, the world\u2019s earliest vessel linked to the transatlantic slave trade, is facing complete destruction by 21st-century fishing trawlers.<\/p> The 1680s Royal African Company trader \u2013 seen as a burial ground of slaves who perished on its final voyage \u2013 lies on the seabed about 40 miles south of Land\u2019s End. It is being \u201cpounded into oblivion\u201d by \u201cbulldozers of the deep\u201d, claimed a leading British marine archaeologist.<\/p> This was a trade that saw more than 12 million Africans taken across the Atlantic in 45,000 voyages over 400 years. Many did not survive the journey. Any submerged evidence offering insights into untold horrors that the slaves had endured on board such ships will be lost for ever, warned Dr Sean Kingsley. He has been alarmed by underwater footage filmed for a new documentary series about the transatlantic slave trade. It reveals extensive damage to a wreck that was once \u201ca beast of a ship\u201d, carrying 48 cannon, perhaps 600 tons in capacity and manned by a crew of 70.<\/p> He said: \u201cFifty years ago, this wreck must have been a thing of wonder. Today, what\u2019s left is tragic. Trawlers dragging nets for fish and scallops have bulldozed everything. Cannon have been dragged 300 metres away. If trawlers can throw two-ton guns around like matchsticks, then the wooden hull and small finds have no chance. Archaeologists call deep-sea wrecks time-capsules. This wreck looks like a war zone.<\/p> \u201cWrecks should be used as museums for memory and education. In this case, the future\u2019s chances of bearing witness to the horrors of the slave trade are fading fast. It\u2019s a double tragedy.\u201d<\/p> The footage was filmed for Enslaved<\/em>, a documentary about the transatlantic trade, which begins tonight on BBC Two. Kingsley, who has explored more than 350 shipwrecks, is adviser to the documentary. As the founding editor of Wreckwatch<\/em>, the world\u2019s only magazine dedicated to the sunken past, he will publish the new evidence in the next issue.<\/p> The wreck lies 110 metres down, and the Enslaved<\/em> team became the first to visit it. The team included Diving With a Purpose, a group dedicated to the maritime history of African Americans.<\/p> Kramer Wimberley, its lead instructor, said: \u201cThe story of the slave trade is world history. England was involved in it, Portugal, the French and Dutch were involved in it, the Africans were involved in it. It\u2019s a world shame. If that wreck\u2019s the final resting place of some of my ancestors, then it\u2019s a burial ground. But it\u2019s also a crime scene because they were taken. There was an injustice that took place, and no one has ever been brought to account. I want justice for those people. Archaeology can make sure we never forget.\u201d<\/p> The ship was among more than 500 despatched by the Royal African Company to West Africa between 1672 and 1713. In conducting research for Enslaved<\/em>, Kingsley studied 279 of the company\u2019s sea voyages between 1672 and 1690. He found that, of 65,411 Africans trafficked to the Caribbean, 14,668 died at sea, having been chained in cramped hulls: \u201cMost of the Africans were seized in Whydah in Benin, Calabar in Nigeria, Gambia and the Gold Coast in modern Ghana. The enslaved ended up sold to plantation owners in Barbados, Jamaica, Nevis, Virginia and Antigua.\u201d<\/p> Set up by the royal Stuart family, the company\u2019s governor was James, Duke of York and future king of England, and its deputy governor was Edward Colston, whose statue was recently toppled in Bristol.<\/p> Expressing sympathy for fishermen working under harsh conditions, Kingsley criticised the inability to protect rare wrecks that lie outside UK territorial waters as \u201ca serious heritage failure\u201d.<\/p>",
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"headline":"Archaeologists discover 'exceptional' site at Lake Titicaca",
"byline":"Ian Sample Science editor",
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"content":" An ancient ceremonial site described as exceptional has been discovered in the Andes by marine archaeologists, who recovered ritual offerings and the remains of slaughtered animals from a reef in the middle of Lake Titicaca.<\/p> The remarkable haul points to a history of highly charged ceremonies in which the elite of the region\u2019s Tiwanaku state boated out to the reef and sacrificed young llamas, seemingly decorated for death, and made offerings of gold and exquisite stone miniatures to a ray-faced deity, as incense billowed from pottery pumas.<\/p> Tiwanaku state arose in the Lake Titicaca basin, around the border of modern Bolivia and Peru, between the 5th and 12th centuries AD, and went on to become one of the largest and most influential in the Andes. Formed by a natural fault that divides the Andes into two mountain ranges, the basin is a unique ecosystem with an \u201cinland sea\u201d set 3,800m above sea level. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the basin was home to an estimated 1 million people.<\/p> Marine archaeologists decided to explore the Khoa reef after amateur divers found a number of ancient items at the site. The reef is submerged in more than 5m of water about 10km off the northwestern tip of the Island of the Sun, a central feature of Lake Titicaca.<\/p> The researchers excavated a trove of artefacts including a lapis lazuli puma figurine and other miniature stone animals, ceramic puma incense burners and gold ornaments including engraved sheets, a medallion, and an L-shaped piece marked with puma and condor silhouettes. Perforated gold leaves still attached to fragments of leather may have been used to make ear tassels and other regalia to dress young llamas killed in the ancient ceremonies, the researchers believe.<\/p> Taken together, the items reveal how the lavish ceremonies displayed and disposed of the most prestigious materials that money could buy in the ancient Andean empire. Besides the gold and the carved and polished stones were spiny oyster shells from the warm waters off the Ecuadorian coast, nearly 2,000km away. They could only have been obtained through trade.<\/p> \u201cWhat is great about these artefacts is that, beyond their beauty and the quality of manufacture, they were discovered in an undisturbed context,\u201d said Christophe Delaere, a marine archaeologist at the University of Oxford and the Free University of Brussels. \u201cThis is one of the advantages of underwater heritage. Lake Titicaca protects its ancient material culture from time and man. Never before have so many artefacts of this quality been discovered. The history that these objects tell us is exceptional.\u201d<\/p> Found alongside the artefacts were llama bones and the remnants of burnt fish, the latter of which are thought to have been eaten during the ceremonies. Carbon dating of charcoal and bones at the site found that the offerings were made throughout the 8th and 10th centuries AD, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.<\/p> The ancient offerings are not the first riches to be recovered from Lake Titicaca, but the exceptional quality and abundance of the items puts the reef at the heart of the Tiwanaku people\u2019s beliefs and ritual landscape.<\/p> One of the major questions surrounding Tiwanaku state is how it expanded so effectively across the Titicaca basin in the first millennium. Charles Stanish, an anthropologist on the team from the University of South Florida, said that pilgrimages leading up to elaborate ceremonies were a crucial part of the state structure. Through ritual, religion and \u201csupernatural punishers\u201d, the state encouraged cooperation and deterred freeloaders and other rebels.<\/p> \u201cWhat we\u2019ve discovered in the Titicaca basin are pilgrimages and ritual processions and these are part of the state apparatus. As you participate in them you are reinforcing the power of the state,\u201d Stanish said. \u201cCombined with what\u2019s been found off other islands in the 1990s, the discovery of these items on the reef shows us there was probably a series of pilgrimages or precessions around the lake and I find that to be extremely exciting.\u201d<\/p> More than a dozen Tiwanaku sites have been found on the Island of the Sun. One, near the north-west shore, is a puma-shaped ceremonial complex. But from Khoa reef, those taking part in a water ceremony would have a panoramic view of the lake and the spectacular surrounding mountains. \u201cIt is not surprising that the Tiwanaku elite appropriated this space for costly and highly charged ceremonies,\u201d the authors write.<\/p> \u201cRitual and religion were profoundly important in ancient states. It is not some new age-y thing,\u201d said Stanish. \u201cRitual and religion structured people\u2019s lives, it structured the economy and the whole of society. This is how these people were able to create spectacular ways to get along and have a very successful society.\u201d<\/p>",
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{
"id":"science\/2019\/mar\/01\/spain-logs-shipwrecks-maritime-past-weather-pirates",
"headline":"Spain logs hundreds of shipwrecks that tell story of maritime past",
"byline":"Sam Jones in Madrid",
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"pubDate":"2019-03-01T11:54:54Z",
"content":" The treacherous waters of the Americas had their first taste of Spanish timber on Christmas Day 1492, when Christopher Columbus\u2019 flagship, the Santa Mar\u00eda, sank off the coast of what is now Haiti<\/a>.<\/p> Over the following four centuries, as Spain\u2019s maritime empire swelled, peaked and collapsed, the waves on which it was built devoured hundreds of ships and thousands of people, swallowing gold, silver and emeralds and scattering spices, mercury and cochineal to the currents.<\/p> Today, three researchers working for the Spanish culture ministry have finished the initial phase of a project to catalogue the wrecks of the ships that forged and maintained the empire.<\/p> Led by an archaeologist, Carlos Le\u00f3n, the team has logged 681 shipwrecks off Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the US Atlantic coast.<\/p> Its inventory runs from the sinking of the Santa Mar\u00eda to July 1898, when the Spanish destroyer Plut\u00f3n was hit by a US boat off Cuba, heralding the end of the Spanish-American war<\/a> and the twilight of Spain\u2019s imperial age.<\/p> After spending five years scouring archives in Seville and Madrid, Le\u00f3n, his fellow archaeologist Beatriz Domingo and the naval historian Genoveva Enr\u00edquez have put together a list aimed at safeguarding the future and shedding light on the past.<\/p> \u201cWe had two fundamental objectives,\u201d says Le\u00f3n. \u201cOne was to come up with a tool that can be used for identifying and protecting wreck sites \u2013 especially in areas where there\u2019s a high concentration of sunken ships.<\/p>