| this is cool ... |
Archaeologists generally downplay the Indiana Jones side of their discipline, full of derring-do and unexpected discoveries. But every once in a while, an amazing find surprises even the most experienced researchers. And that's just what happened two years ago when Boston University's Kathryn Bard reached into a hole in the sand at the edge of the Egyptian desert and found the first of six caves. Her research team of Italians and Americans now knows those caves hold the most ancient ship stores ever discovered, perfectly preserved timbers, ropes and other fittings perhaps 4000 years old.
"It's incredible, basically a mothballed military base where the people packed up and left," says marine archaeologist Cheryl Ward of Florida State University in Tallahassee, a member of the research team. A sand-covered bluff along the Red Sea — called Wadi Gawasis or "Wadi of the Spies" — was a lagoon during ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom era. From there, the pharaoh's servants launched expeditions, perhaps five or six ships every few hundred years, to the fabled land of Punt somewhere in the southern Red Sea in a bid to return with ebony, ivory and rare spices, such as Frankincense, treasured by the priestly caste of the day.