Extreme trip through the Aegean Sea

Czech scientists chose an exact copy of a prehistoric floating craft as a means of transportation and successfully crossed the Aegean Sea.

A group of scientists overcame a difficult path on a dugout boat*. At the head expeditions called Monoxylon IV stood Radomir Tichy from the University of Hradec-Králové, and their journey was 500 km. The boat was an exact copy of an 8,000-year-old boat that was found near Rome, on Lake Bracciano, in 1994. It weighs almost three tons, has a length of 11.5 meters and a width of 1.2 meters.

The name of the expedition comes from the Greek word monoxylon (monoxyl): a simple boat made from a single tree trunk. It is one of the oldest documented types of watercraft, the use of which has been confirmed by archaeological finds since the Stone Age. Some ethnic groups still use them today.

Radomir Tikhiy said that the purpose of the trip is to shed light on the nature of the agricultural colonization of the Mediterranean 9,000 years ago. A team of 20 rowers and a coxswain completed the 500 km route in just 100 hours. The journey began from the island of Samos, located off the coast of Turkey, and ended at the Peloponnese. The boat was made last year from a solid 300-year-old uprooted oak tree that grew in Eastern Bohemia.

*Dugout – rowing, less often with a removable mast, flat-bottomed boat, hollowed out from a single tree trunk. Usually does not have a keel. Dugout boats are made from ridges of thick tree trunks. Wikipedia.

Source link