In archaeology news:
A group in Kure, Japan is planning to salvage artifacts from the sunken Battleship Yamato. The ship, at 65,000 tons one of the largest of its class, sank in 1945.
Via Asahi.com:
Kazushige Todaka, chief of the Kure Maritime Museum, more commonly known as the Yamato Museum because it has a replica of the battleship on display, is among the members. The city of Kure is joining the project as an observer.
The panel said an executive committee will be formed in April to start the drive to raise funds, which it estimates will run into billions of yen.
The Yamato lies about 350 meters below the surface, some 200 kilometers west of Cape Bonomisaki in southern Kagoshima Prefecture.
Panel members said they hope to at least raise the 2,780-ton main guns and the front portion of the hull, which they say bear distinctive Yamato characteristics.
In other news, Chinese researchers are continuing to make headway in their efforts to uncover the roots of human civilization in the Yellow River basin.
Via The People’s Daily:
Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest man-made cave houses and privately-owned pottery workshops in China which date back 5,500 years.
After four years of excavation, a row of 17 cave houses were found on a cliff along the Jinghe River in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, Wang Weilin, deputy director of the Shaanxi Archaeology Institute and chief archaeologist of the excavation, told Xinhua.
They were built between 3,500 to 3,000 BC, near the Yangguanzai village of Gaoling county, 20 km away from the provincial capital Xi’an.
Wang said the row of houses are within a 16,000-square-meter site which is being excavated.
The cave houses belonged to a late Neolithic culture named Yangshao. It originated in the middle reach of the Yellow River and was considered a main origin of Chinese civilization. Yangshao is best known for red pottery ware with painted patterns and animals.
Each cave house, with an area of about ten square meters, was divided into two rooms. One was dug into the cliff side, the other, possibly made of wood and mud, was built on the outside of the cave, Wang said.
Just wondering if these caves will be made available for human habitation again in light of recent economic developments?
A “class” of ships is a set of ships built to a common design. By definition, ships in a class are all roughly the same size. “One of the largest of its class” doesn’t actually convey any information.
In fact, the Yamato and her sister Musashi are the largest battleships ever built, or that will ever be built. They were designed to outclass any American battleship that had to fit through the Panama Canal. The battleship era ended before any post-Panamax American battleships could be built.
I’ll be the first to admit that WWII military history ain’t my thing. I’d heard that about the Yamato and Musashi being the largest battleships, but because of my previously state lack of military history expertise was reluctant to make such a claim in the post. Thanks for the clarification and the info.
Given that Yamato’s forward magazines exploded, I would have thought it a bit doubtful that there’s anything very recognisable left of the “main guns and the front portion of the hull”.