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00:01Far beneath the surface of the Black Sea lies the best preserved ancient shipwreck ever found.
00:07Suddenly this veil, this curtain, pulls open it and it's right in front of it.
00:12But there is something mysterious about this wreck.
00:16This makes no sense to me.
00:18Like all the seas and oceans in the world, the Black Sea is a graveyard for ships.
00:24But here, instead of decomposing, organic materials like wood and rope and possibly even human remains are unchanged by time.
00:34To go to a place where our history is preserved, how can you not go?
00:51September, in the year 2000.
00:54In the final hours of a three-week expedition, explorer Bob Ballard's team stumbles on something astonishing at the bottom
01:02of the Black Sea.
01:07Archaeologist Jennifer Shadel-Smith was on board.
01:15There it was.
01:17You know, the first target that we looked at in deeper water.
01:21There it was, right in front of us.
01:25I remember the first images of this small forest, it seemed like, of wooden objects rising up out of the
01:31sediment.
01:32And everyone was just like, this is something interesting.
01:35And then as we got closer, we found this one piece that seemed to be much taller than the other
01:39ones.
01:40And they started following it up.
01:41And it just kept going and going and going.
01:44And we got to the top like this as the mast of a ship.
01:47And the room just sort of went quiet.
01:57From the knot at the top of the mast to the timbers on the keel, the 1500-year-old Byzantine
02:03sailing ship was perfectly preserved.
02:09No other ancient ship had ever been found in this pristine condition.
02:13So it was an unprecedented find.
02:18Suddenly coming out of the gloom, we saw that mast of that ancient shipwreck.
02:26This mythical kind of ship that we'd read about was possible, but no one had ever found one.
02:33Just mesmerized.
02:34Even though you're a scientist, even though you've done this a zillion times,
02:39you're still overwhelmed by it because it's so special.
02:43But seven years ago, all the team could do was look.
02:47They didn't have the time or the tools to excavate such an important piece of history.
02:55Today, they do.
02:58Once again, Ballard and his team have reassembled on the waters of the Black Sea.
03:02But this time, they've come with some state-of-the-art technology to excavate a one-of-a-kind site.
03:09So our goal is to go back now and expose the ship and see its state and enter the ship.
03:18And that's going to be very exciting. I can't wait.
03:24The expedition plans to make two stops, first on a new shipwreck in shallow waters,
03:29then on to the deep water site discovered seven years ago.
03:34They're working on a tight two-week schedule with a limited budget in a sea unlike any other on Earth.
03:44What makes the Black Sea unique is a dense layer of stagnant, oxygen-deprived water
03:49that blankets its lower depths and acts like a preservative.
03:54This layer may have been formed when the Black Sea first took shape.
03:59One theory suggests that 7,500 years ago, the Black Sea was a large, landlocked freshwater lake.
04:07But since the end of the last ice age, sea levels had begun to rise.
04:13Water from the Mediterranean poured over a thin strip of land called the Bosporus
04:17and drained into the freshwater lake, increasing its size by 50%.
04:25Over time, the heavier salt water sank to the bottom, where it was trapped, cut off from the oxygen usually
04:32supplied by ocean currents.
04:35One by-product of this dead layer is the creation of hydrogen sulfide, a poison to most living things.
04:43That dead anoxic layer lies below a depth of about 600 feet, and almost nothing can live in it, including
04:50things that like to eat ships.
04:53There's a particular organism called a torito, which is a wood-boring mollusk, and they're sort of the termites of
05:00the ocean.
05:03When I found the Titanic, the deck was eaten, the grand staircase was eaten by these toritos.
05:09In fact, their dead bodies are all over the deck of the Titanic.
05:14And it's sort of sad, because you think of how much wonderful history has gone through the mouth of these
05:20wood boars,
05:21sort of like the goats of the underwater world.
05:29Ballard and his team are guessing the hungry marine organisms have made it to the site of a shipwreck they
05:34call Kyrsonesis A.
05:36Yeah, there.
05:39It rests above the anoxic layer in the shallow waters off the coast of modern-day Ukraine.
05:46And it will give Ballard's team a chance to get their robots into the water and make sure they're working
05:52smoothly.
05:54For the next several days, a ship called the Alliance will be the home base for the underwater archaeology going
06:00on below.
06:02Okay, we're going down.
06:03Their first order of business will be to explore a new wreck they discovered just last year,
06:08a 900-year-old merchant vessel from the Byzantine period.
06:19Although it lasted for over a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire is less well-known than the older Roman Empire
06:25it replaced.
06:29In the fourth century A.D., the Emperor Constantine established a new capital city that he named after himself.
06:41For centuries, Constantinople replaced Rome as the most powerful city in the Western world.
06:49Its avid devotion to Christianity helped spread the religion far beyond Europe.
06:55The Byzantine saw themselves as a bulwark against the Islamic East.
07:00And indeed, Constantinople would serve as a launching pad for the Crusades.
07:06And to get their ideas, their wealth, and their goods across the Empire, the Byzantines had to rely on ships.
07:16I mean, the Mediterranean, the Black Seeds were really, really busy areas.
07:20There's thousands and thousands and thousands of tons of goods are being moved around all the time.
07:24You stand to learn an enormous amount about daily life, about commerce and trade, about people, about what was traded.
07:32The right sort of shipwreck can potentially offer you some answers.
07:39But Ballard's team won't know if this is the right sort of shipwreck until the unmanned remote vehicles get to
07:44the site 400 feet below.
07:53Hello, hello, hello.
07:56Hi.
07:58So, what's the plan?
08:00For this expedition, Ballard has assembled a team of archaeologists who also know about oceans.
08:07Now, to do deep sea archaeology, you have to know how to go to another planet, so to speak.
08:13Dr. Bridget Buxton, she's our chief archaeologist, and I'll learn a lot from her and she'll learn a lot from
08:19me.
08:19And so, unless you can be an oceanographer and know how to work in the sea, you can't play this
08:27game.
08:30In the control room, the team waits while their newest toy, an ROV named Hercules, approaches the wreck.
08:37That's it. That's it. Here we are.
08:41The first thing Herk's cameras pick up is the remains of the doomed ship's cargo.
08:45In the form of dozens of vase-like jars the Byzantines used to store their goods.
08:53But something about these jars is surprising.
08:59Archaeologist Bridget Buxton is amazed at what she sees.
09:04These jars look new. They look like they were made last week rather than last millennium.
09:11Usually, ceramics found above the anoxic layer are encrusted with barnacles and other marine life forms.
09:18But these jars look like they just came out of the kiln.
09:22When we were first able to go up and dust them off, they come of a beautiful bright orange-red
09:30colour.
09:31I've never seen anything like this underwater before.
09:35You can see as Herk dusts how incredibly well-preserved these jars are.
09:40And these jars are really going to look beautiful when we bring them to the surface.
09:46Something is going on. These jars should be covered with layers of marine life. But they aren't.
09:54The Black Sea is proving to be even more astounding than Ballard thought.
10:05By dawn the next morning, the site below has been prepped and the team is ready to begin the next
10:11challenge.
10:12To bring a couple of the strangely pristine jars up to the surface.
10:16You're launching? Yes, we're good? Okay.
10:21To retrieve them, they'll send down an underwater elevator.
10:27It's basically just a weighted cage large enough to hold a pair of jars.
10:32Let go.
10:37When they're brought to the surface, conservator Dennis Piotta will be the first to handle them.
10:46My role as conservator and conservation scientist is that I get to look in very close detail, more detail than
10:56anyone else, at everything we recover.
10:59And that gives me a special kind of view of this ancient world that I can share with everyone.
11:09Now comes the intricately choreographed underwater game of grab, lift, and tag with some of Herc's specialized tools.
11:18This is a suction cup. We're able to pick up artifacts very, very delicately with this suction cup.
11:24We turn on a water pump, stick it on whatever we want to pick up, and lift it.
11:31This is a craft predator. Really, really dexterous, very nimble.
11:36The pilots have force feedback, so we can feel when we're touching something, we can feel the weight of what
11:40we're holding.
11:45Right now it's going to be put on the elevator, and we'll secure it to the elevator, bring it up
11:51on land.
11:54All right. Awesome.
11:57You got it. Beautiful.
12:02Uh-huh, that's beautiful.
12:12Each jar weighs about 25 pounds, and no one knows how fragile they are.
12:32So, last night, the elevator was loaded with two artifacts on the Byzantine period.
12:37That elevator will be released from the seafloor and floated to the surface.
12:42I think it is.
12:43Probably good, Mike.
12:45Ready, guys?
12:46Yep, fire run ready.
12:50How are we looking, Argus? Really clear?
12:54All Herc has to do is release the rope holding the elevator down, without getting it snagged on something.
13:02There it is.
13:03There we go, there we go.
13:04Nice on Argus.
13:05We are being cautious at this stage in the game because I've heard stories of jars brought up from deep
13:12water that visibly changed color within minutes of them reaching the surface.
13:21The reason for the change is their sudden exposure to the air.
13:26This can also cause seawater to crystallize and the clay to shrink, potentially cracking the jars.
13:36That's good.
13:37These jars look good, but Dennis Piotto won't know for sure what he's dealing with until he touches them.
13:44You ready to come down on the hook?
13:46Okay, ready, Dave?
13:49These are the lines right beside you, Dennis.
13:51Tie off the mast.
13:53When I picked them up out of the elevator, I wasn't sure whether they would be in great condition or
14:00very poor condition.
14:09There's none of the biological growth we expect to see when we excavate them from shallow water sites.
14:18Every time I pick up one of these artifacts, it gives me great pause because it has sat for, what,
14:24900 years in perfect condition.
14:27When it's in my hands, that's when it starts to change.
14:31We know that as it hits oxygen, it can start to break apart.
14:35We've had that happen in the past.
14:39Come up if you like.
14:41You're all welcome to look.
14:42Okay, take a picture, then let's step back and let somebody else get shot.
14:46For Bridget Buxton, an old manuscript provides a clue about what these jars were used for.
14:53We actually have a beautiful medieval manuscript with a depiction of a monk holding a jar, one-handled jar that
15:03looks very similar.
15:04And he's holding it next to a barrel in the cellar.
15:08And it's quite obvious that he's down in the cellar of the monastery stealing some wine and putting it in
15:14this one-handled jar.
15:15So at the moment, that's the main piece of evidence I have for what these jars were used for.
15:24These jars contain traces of a resin lining, the normal finish for something that held wine.
15:31This seems to confirm Bridget's hunch.
15:35The objects are placed in a tank for transport, bound for a museum in the Ukraine.
15:42Meanwhile, Herc continues working the site and comes across something that few really expected to find at this depth.
15:50Wood that in theory should have been eaten away.
15:57So we saw the piles of jars, but then we saw a wood sticking out of the bottom that we
16:03didn't see last year.
16:04And then right next to it, another one, and another one, and they were perfectly spaced.
16:10And we went, that's the ship. The ship's still here.
16:15It's not gone like we thought.
16:19The rest of the ship appears to be still buried under the layers of sand and silt.
16:24But that seems impossible.
16:27This wreck is well above the anoxic layer, which means it should have been devoured long ago.
16:37Ballard thinks this unexpected preservation is linked to the Black Sea's violent winter storms.
16:50The answer may be that the storms bring waves of poison closer to the surface, where they kill everything they
16:57touch.
16:58If he's right, it's good news for underwater archaeologists.
17:03The fact that we've found that due to what we think are internal waves that are bringing in this anoxic
17:10water into much shallower depths, that our hunting ground just expanded.
17:15It's much easier to work in shallower water than in the deep water.
17:20If Ballard's right, it means the Black Sea is even more of a treasure trove than anyone imagined.
17:27We've got enough archaeology to know that trade thrived. There's plenty of commerce and trade going on.
17:32If you were to multiply the number of shipwrecks we know about by years and period, we'd have millions of
17:39ships.
17:41And archaeologists are just beginning their hunts.
17:44For most of the 20th century, this region was controlled by the Soviet Union and cut off from the rest
17:51of the world.
17:53But all that changed when the Soviet Union crumbled.
17:57When the Berlin Wall went down, I know everyone had different thoughts.
18:01My first thought was, I'm going to the Black Sea, because I knew with the fall of the Iron Curtain,
18:07we would be able to come into a place we were not allowed to come into.
18:12This is Ballard's fourth expedition to the Black Sea since the end of the Cold War.
18:17And the results so far have been dramatic.
18:22Their excavation at Kyrsonisa's A has whetted the team's appetite.
18:26But a week has already passed, and everyone feels the clock ticking.
18:31Just about ready to go.
18:33Now the team can turn to their original prize, the wreck they found in 2000, now called Sinope D.
18:43They'll have to steam across the sea, toward the port city of Sinope, in the deep waters off northern Turkey.
18:51And they'll be cutting across open water, just like ancient sailors thousands of years earlier, out of sight of land,
18:57in a sea known for its storms.
19:111500 years ago, the Byzantine Empire stretched all the way from southern Europe into Asia.
19:18The shores of the Black Sea were bustling with commerce and sea trade.
19:24But the sea they traded on could be treacherous.
19:28The Black Sea is anything but calm, because it's a completely landlocked sea, apart from the Bosporus.
19:36It's subject to a series of climatic pressures.
19:41There are squalls, there are countervailing currents.
19:45When wind and current go in often directions, they cause very short, choppy seas, which can, you know, sink a
19:50ship or turn it over.
19:54The people who knew the sea understood its dangers and treated it with respect.
19:59And all the literature we have about travelling by sea makes it clear that everybody was, you didn't embark on
20:07a sea voyage lightly.
20:08It was a possibly fatal step.
20:17Today, even in relatively calm weather and moderate seas, it would take the Alliance 12 hours to travel across the
20:24Black Sea to the waters off northern Turkey.
20:30For the Byzantines, in their wooden sailing ships, it would have taken a few days, if they were lucky.
20:38And so all over this place are ships that have sunk in storms.
20:44The ships tend to simply take on too much water. They founder.
20:49And then they sink very slowly and go down into the ooze.
21:00While historians once believed Byzantine mariners hugged the coastlines on their voyages, it's now thought that sailors must have taken
21:08their ships out into the open sea, lured by shorter sail times and larger profits.
21:15You put your mind inside the mind of an ancient mariner, the Black Sea.
21:21Access to the Black Sea is through the Bosporus.
21:24So naturally, this was one of the gateways to the outside world.
21:29So we know, by just looking at a map, where would you use the harbors?
21:37Well, right here.
21:38At Kerosinesis.
21:41Here's the Bosporus.
21:43Here's Kerosinesis.
21:45This should have been an ancient trade route.
21:47And in fact, this is where we found the shipwreck that we're exploring.
21:52So we simply took maps like this and made lines on them.
21:57And that's what's guiding our expeditions.
22:03So there are these ancient highways.
22:06And we're now discovering how to find them and drive along them.
22:10And that's where we're making our discoveries.
22:12Sounds simple, but no one had ever thought about doing it.
22:17As the alliance nears the second site, Ballard prepares to leave the expedition.
22:23He'll return to his base on the east coast of the United States.
22:26But he's still very much in charge.
22:30From now on, he'll be calling the shots from a control room some 5,000 miles away.
22:37It's all made possible by advances in real-time internet and satellite technology.
22:43So what we're doing is we're using this remarkable technology of telepresence to make it possible.
22:49Here I am, thousands of miles away from the ship.
22:52A push of a button, I can talk to anyone on the ship.
22:54I'm in charge of the expedition, and yet I'm not physically there.
23:00Meanwhile, the team has reached the site, Sinope D.
23:03They have about a week left to excavate and expose the shipwreck lying 1,000 feet beneath them.
23:10Luckily, they have their revolutionary $1.5 million robot to help them.
23:16This is the front end, the working end of the vehicle.
23:19Here's Hercules Eyeball.
23:21It's a high-definition camera.
23:25Also up front, we have a bunch of lights on the light bar.
23:28Digital cameras, we have sonars.
23:30Here's another piloting video camera that can spin around and look 180 degrees.
23:35This is a really cool thing here.
23:37We call it the silt prop, and it allows us to blow sediment out of the way.
23:43And this arm here, we call it Mongo, and it's really, really strong.
23:48And we use it to do the heavy lifting.
23:51This is our vacuum cleaner.
23:52We call this the snuffler.
23:54It's a suction, but it's also a jet.
23:57So we can jet around an artifact really carefully.
24:01And whatever sediments are suspended, we suck them up at the same time.
24:08Also up front are a few hand tools.
24:10These are paint brushes straight out of the hardware store.
24:14And also a spatula.
24:16And as you see, we just have a magnet on them, and it's stuck on a steel tray.
24:21The softballs are a really great way to hold onto the tools.
24:25You don't have to hold it a special way.
24:27The manipulator can just come grab onto something in any orientation.
24:31And it fits in the manipulator hand just right.
24:37And when they're done, it pops right back on.
24:39Roger that.
24:42ROVs have evolved dramatically since Ballard helped pioneer their design decades ago.
24:47So you sit at a terminal, you tell the vehicle what you want it to do, and it moves in
24:51very precise patterns.
24:53You have to have incredible control.
24:56Because the objects we're touching have been down there for a thousand years, two thousand years, and they're very fragile.
25:03And so a very important part of this vehicle system is the precise control that we have with it.
25:08It's a surgical tool.
25:11They are eager to return to the site they haven't been to in years.
25:17Hercules goes in first, followed by a second machine called Argus, as Ballard watches from 5,000 miles away.
25:32This is always dicey.
25:36Here we go.
25:38You know, we put Hercules in the water, and we drive it behind the ship until it's tugging on Argus
25:46still sitting on the deck.
25:49Okay, now let's get Argus in the water.
25:52Then we launch them together to dive back.
25:55Here we go.
25:56Here we go.
25:57Oh, yeah.
25:58Good job.
25:58And they lower Argus, and Hercules drives down, and they have lights, and they look at one another.
26:04They have what they call butt lights, butt cams.
26:06And once they get to the bottom, then they bring Hercules in underneath Argus, and that's what they just did.
26:12And now they're marching together.
26:15We're marching.
26:17We're gonna now march across the bottom.
26:20This will be Bridget Buxton's first time at the site, though she has read about it and seen photos.
26:27For me, the moment will bring us closer to the people who built this ship and the people who sailed
26:34it.
26:37Slowly, the two machines approach the target.
26:42Keep your eyes peeled.
26:48You see, you're only seeing out 30 feet.
26:52Suddenly, this veil, this curtain, Neptune's curtain, just pulls open it.
26:59And there it is, and it's right in front of you.
27:10Seeing the mast of Synope D come out of the darkness was a great relief to all of us,
27:16because we feel responsible for anything that happens to it.
27:26When they first found Synope D in 2000, they created a model of the ship based on what they could
27:32see,
27:32a one-masted sailing vessel popular in Byzantine times.
27:36It was about 45 feet long, and could use either sails or oars to propel itself.
27:43When it went down, it was probably carrying a crew of four or five.
27:56Now, nearly 1,500 years later, every exposed piece of wood looks untouched by time.
28:05Archaeologist Dan Davis is an expert in ancient shipbuilding.
28:09It's covered in a layer of silt and muck, and we'd like to see some of its features.
28:15This may be the first timber of its kind ever uncovered in archaeology.
28:19So we're excited about that.
28:22Look, there's the grain of the wood.
28:26I can still see the add marks in the beam, and I see that amphora.
28:33Seeing the tool marks left on the wood, this is something that really sends shivers down your spine.
28:41These ships were the primary vehicle of trade and communication throughout the whole empire.
28:49The clean-up operation starts, even though they're having a problem holding their position.
28:55A critical piece of equipment is malfunctioning.
29:14It's a blow to the tight schedule.
29:17The bow thruster keeps the ship in the same steady position above the site, compensating for wind and sea movements
29:23with sophisticated software.
29:28The bow thruster is not designed to be used the way we're using it, and we pushed it a little
29:34too hard, and it blew.
29:37Now the question is whether the mother ship's captain thinks he can hold his position without a functioning bow thruster.
29:46Herc weighs a couple of tons, and a shift on the surface can make it hard to control 1,000
29:51feet below.
29:53Okay, okay. Well, Nev, can you please ask the captain, tell him it's his call, and if he asks us
30:01to recover, we'll of course try and do so immediately, but we'd like to stay on the bottom as long
30:08as possible.
30:12With an eye on the weather, the captain decides the ROVs can keep working, as long as the seas stay
30:18calm.
30:21One second.
30:23Okay, Ty, let's pick up and brush the lower part a little bit more.
30:32So, uh, we'll stay on the bottom, I take it?
30:34Uh, stay on the bottom and don't knock the mast over.
30:37Okay, we'll try not to knock the mast over.
30:39Okay.
30:40You can see what they've already done.
30:43As more and more of the wood is revealed, the crew in the control room can't quite believe how thoroughly
30:48it's been preserved.
30:51Hey, Todd, I think that's pretty good, buddy.
30:54Maybe that's with that.
30:55In fact, if you look at this timber here, you can see how finely worked it is.
31:01Above, above the planking, above the water line, all the way up to the top of the mast, the ship
31:05is preserved.
31:06It's all there.
31:07The wood has swelled a little bit, but you can still see the adze marks, the maker's marks, how it
31:12was cut, you can tell the shape of the timbers.
31:15Uh, this is something you just don't get in the Mediterranean, or in the Aegean, or any other, uh, warm
31:21water sea, or ocean, for that matter.
31:24It's a promising start.
31:26Even under less than ideal conditions, Hercules and Argus are doing their jobs flawlessly, essentially putting a mechanical archaeologist in
31:35the water.
31:36What's really revolutionary about Hercules is its precision and its ability to replicate precise motion.
31:45Our manipulator has a sense of touch. You can actually feel it.
31:49So it's taking all of the technology, quite honestly, that's used to build cars, and have it operate in three
31:56-dimensional dark space at the bottom of the ocean.
31:58Very challenging, and we have the best in the business doing it.
32:04For the moment, they can work without dynamic positioning, but if the weather kicks up, they're in trouble.
32:13They've already sent the defective bow thruster back to Istanbul for repairs.
32:20But if it doesn't get back quickly, the team won't be able to excavate the ship as planned.
32:25All they can do now is try to get as much done as possible, and hope that the weather holds.
32:33The next morning brings calm seas, but a storm is brewing on the horizon.
32:39Now they're in a race to see how much the crew can get done before the winds pick up.
32:47Underwater, the ROVs have been working feverishly through the night, collecting mud.
32:54And Black Sea mud is unlike any Ballard has ever come across.
33:00I've seen millions of miles of mud, and I'm used to seeing a crab running across here,
33:06and I'm used to seeing track marks, and I'm used to seeing little benthic burrows,
33:12and so there's nothing. Bottom's dead.
33:14There's no critters, there's no critter tracks, there's no critter holes.
33:20Nothing.
33:21You don't want to be a marine biologist on this cruise.
33:26But if you're an archaeologist, you're in the right place.
33:31Herc is hunting for clues about the crew, probing into the mud around the wreck,
33:36and bringing up eight cores of sediment.
33:40These layers of mud may help reveal how the ship was preserved.
33:45Do you want to do that one at the stern also? Let's go to our deepest hole.
33:49Too easy, mate.
33:51Archaeologist Dan Davis thinks the area around the ship's stern could hold the most interesting clues.
33:58That tends to be the area where bowls and spoons and knives and cups congregate.
34:06Those things sometimes tell us the nationality of the crew.
34:09We're hoping that's what will happen here.
34:11Okay.
34:13Turning on some suction.
34:15That's nice.
34:16That's pretty good there, Tom.
34:18This is what you don't want, right?
34:20You'll notice that goo on the surface.
34:22Right, that's correct.
34:24Before they can take a sample, they need to remove a thick layer of jello-like goo,
34:30which is formed by a steady rain of dead marine organisms falling from the sea above.
34:35Yeah, it's a nice square.
34:39Yeah, pick up another core.
34:41Meanwhile, on the bridge, the captain is concerned about the shifting weather
34:45and its effect on the robots working below.
34:49But he thinks there will be time to pull one final mud sample.
34:54Okay, I'm ready to coral.
34:56You guys are ready.
34:57Ready to go.
35:06No, that'll be great.
35:08This is terrific.
35:10That's it.
35:12What's the core?
35:13Ooh, look at those laminations.
35:15Nice.
35:16Oh, that's so nice.
35:18What's the core?
35:19It is core 09.
35:22The work is nearly complete when the control room gets word that the storm is about to break.
35:28The captain has just announced that we are getting strong winds
35:32and it would like to recover the vehicle soon.
35:38Working without dynamic positioning this close to the 35 foot high mast is an almost impossible task.
35:47It means we can't risk going in close to those upright wooden features because we never know when the ship
35:55is suddenly going to get moved.
35:57Argus is going to get dragged and Herc's going to get dragged.
36:01The biggest fear absolutely is knocking over that mast.
36:05That would be the end as far as I'm concerned.
36:08It would be the end of me.
36:10It must be a heck of a current because I can't hold heading.
36:13You're heading down the port side.
36:15Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:17Everybody, you're heading down the port side.
36:20We're getting pulled all over the place here, I think.
36:23When the weather kicked up, the bridge could no longer hold station.
36:28And we're working on a ship that's 1,500 years old.
36:34And we don't want to wrap our tether around that mast and destroy the ship.
36:42So the archaeologists will only do just so much before they say it was just getting too dangerous.
36:50So we've reached that point.
36:53Herc, if you get pulled, please pull that arm in fast.
36:57All right, so what's the plan, guys?
37:00We are going to have to ease over back to the elevator ever so slowly.
37:06Are we ready to do this?
37:07I think it's sloping.
37:10Okay, let's get it going.
37:11Dennis can't bear the thought of losing even one mud core.
37:15Please, please, please, please, please.
37:19Please, please, please, please, please.
37:22Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.
37:27We want to be on the south side of the ship.
37:35That was a beautiful time.
37:38With no bow thruster, the ship is at the mercy of the wind.
37:43Luckily, the elevator with its mud core samples is safely on its way up.
37:48For now, it's their only prize.
37:51And they're hoping that this mud will provide evidence about Sinope D and what she was carrying when she went
37:57down.
38:00And in the control room, some good news.
38:04The bow thruster has been repaired and is being sent out from Istanbul.
38:09They're ready to bring it out. The seas are bad.
38:11So we're recovering our vehicle so we can steam towards it and make it less traumatic for them.
38:22With time and money taking away, the Alliance scrambles to meet the delivery ship for a mid-ocean drop-off.
38:29Later that night.
38:33The sooner the team can get the bow thruster up and running, the sooner they can get back down to
38:38the site.
38:39Everyone is acutely conscious of how little time they have left.
38:52Now with just 20 hours of expedition time remaining, the Alliance has returned to the site of Sinope D.
38:58With the bow thruster back online, the team is working non-stop.
39:04Deep below the surface, Herc is uncovering the timbers that linked the team to the past.
39:12I'd like to see if we can do some excavation and go on and brush off this large timber that's
39:18lying across the deck.
39:19Here we go.
39:23Let the mess begin.
39:29It's really amazing to watch Hercules working right next to this ancient shipwreck.
39:36They're separated by almost 1,500 years.
39:42It's a vast gulf in terms of technology, culture, language, religion, everything you can imagine.
39:49But here are two vessels built to sail the sea.
39:54And there's something incredible about that.
39:58As centuries of sediment are cleared away, Ballard's team is puzzled by a long mast-like timber that appears to
40:05have fallen across the deck.
40:10That is very strange.
40:12I just, this makes no sense to me.
40:15It looks almost like a log, it's not.
40:18It's curved, it doesn't seem cut at all.
40:21Unless, I mean, it wouldn't be another mast that's fallen down that close to the stern.
40:26That is so strange.
40:30That's good right there.
40:41Meanwhile, out on deck, Dennis Piotta is preparing an experiment to determine if these poisoned waters might possibly have also
40:48preserved some ancient mariners as well as their ships.
40:52I put down hide to test whether we would have skin.
40:56I put down a bone sample to test whether we would have bone preserved.
41:01Both of those materials are oriented towards answering the question, might we have human remains in the Black Sea at
41:10some future site?
41:12And that would be astounding.
41:15No one has ever found the remains of ancient drowned sailors, but no one has ever looked for them in
41:20the Black Sea.
41:22What's exciting to me is the fact that the crews could still be preserved, the crew members.
41:31The day will come, and I don't think very far off, when we're excavating one of the shipwrecks of the
41:36Black Sea and an arm appears.
41:39Because they should be absolutely perfectly preserved.
41:43And that is eerie.
41:48Ultimately, Ballard's plan is an ambitious one, to create an underwater museum at the site.
41:55The reason we're doing this, there are two reasons.
41:58One is to figure out how preservative the environment is.
42:02And another is whether we can use the environment as an underwater museum.
42:06To recover objects and place them in display racks.
42:12We hope in the future to have cameras on site.
42:17The thought is that people will be able to manipulate the cameras that are underwater and look at this museum
42:24that's adjacent to the wreck site.
42:26It's a novel idea, and I'm trying to see if we can do it from a conservation point of view.
42:35We have to also look to a time in the future when it may be a lot easier for ordinary
42:40people to visit sites like this.
42:43And it may not be in the best interests of the archaeology, or the people of the future, to have
42:50all this material removed to a land museum.
42:59You can expose more of this timber laying on the ground.
43:05Okay, we're at the perfect angle now. Let's zoom in and get some images of this.
43:10We have ten more minutes.
43:14Dan Davis is still puzzled by the long, mast-like timber.
43:18If it's a piece of rigging, it's one he's never seen before.
43:23There's really nothing else to compare them to except for the iconography of ships that you find on bases or
43:28mosaics from the period.
43:32Don't know what that timber is. It doesn't look like a frame. It has a peg sticking out of it.
43:36We just don't see this stuff on other wrecks. And so, it's a big mystery.
43:47Davis thinks it's possible that the mystery timber is something called an artiment mast.
43:52He speculates that when the ship sank, the mast somehow twisted around from its original position at the bow and
43:58landed at the stern.
44:00If he's right, now they're better able to visualize what this ship looked like when she sank.
44:09It's literally as though a time capsule were opened and we're able to just see what the ship looked like
44:16for the first time.
44:17How it would have looked to the people who made up the Byzantine Empire at the time.
44:26Like most scientific expeditions, this one raised more questions than answers.
44:32Now that shallow wrecks may be preserved, how many more shipwrecks are waiting to be discovered?
44:39Could the people who sailed these ships still be out there as well?
44:45And what do we do with the ships, or the sailors, when we find them?
44:50These questions may be answered someday.
44:54But they couldn't even be asked if it weren't for a sea whose waters cut off all oxygen and swirl
45:01with poison.
45:02And I'm excited about these shipwrecks, but I'm really excited about the ones I'm yet to find.
45:09I mean, we're going to be able to go way back into time.
45:12Because of the preservation of the waters of the Black Sea, it is the greatest museum on earth.
45:18And we're just walking through the doors of that museum for the first time.
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