The Alien Deep: Wrecks of the Abyss

Today on Far Future Horizons we join Dr. Robert Ballard on voyage in search of ancient ship wrecks in the abysmal depths of the Mediterranean sea. 

   

Textbooks say that the Ancients did not have the guts to brave the open sea, out of sight of land and exposed to the elements, but not surprisingly, Dr. Ballard and his crew are out again to rewrite history. In Wrecks of the Abyss, captain and crew sail out into the deep water sea lanes of the Mediterranean in search of ancient shipwrecks that generations of scholars have written-off as impossible finds.

Stone Age Atlantis

Satellite view of Northwest Europe - showing Britain as an Island (the land that once joined Britain to the rest of Europe has been destroyed by a tsunami)

Melting ice, rising seas and a huge tsunami heads for the coast. These are not headlines from the twenty first century. But they are stories from prehistory. Today, we worry about the effects of global warming, but humans have lived though eras of extreme climate change before. During the Middle Stone Age, the world's seas were rising far more rapidly than today.

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the story of a vanished kingdom - a Stone Age Atlantis.

Ancient Discoveries - Roman Ships

Today on Far Future Horizons we take another foray into the field of marine archaeology with the History Channel’s acclaimed documentary series “Ancient Discoveries”.

Sin City - The Port Royal Project

Today we join a team of divers as they unlock an archaeological time capsule that provides us with a snap shot of life in the infamous pirate stronghold and haven of Port Royal, Jamaica.

This documentary covers the activities of The Port Royal Project, a joint program of the Nautical Archaeology Program of Texas A&M University, in cooperation with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) to excavate the undersea site of Port Royal which sank into the sea following an earthquake in 1692.

The Lost Cities of Aquatica

"The deep sea has more history in it than all the museums of the world–combined." ~ Robert Ballard

Today on Far Future Horizons we go in search of the lost cities and lost civilizations that litter the undersea realm of Aquatica. Our modern day landscapes are littered with the remains of ancient superstructures. Now, cutting edge archaeology is beginning to reveal that this century's most exciting discoveries actually lie at the bottom of the ocean.

Sunken Ruins of Cleopatra's Palace

Copyright National Geographic Society

Cleopatra's palace sank long ago into the Mediterranean sea, but in the not to distant future visitors to Alexandria, Egypt, may eventually view the remnants of the palace via the world's first underwater museum. In a few years, you may be able to see Alexandria the way it once was deep beneath the sea. The areas of classical Alexandria that contained the ancient world's biggest library along with Cleopatra's palace have sunk beneath the waves, but now it looks as if the United Nations may step in and help Egypt show off these structures in a unique underwater museum.

If built, the museum could display treasures and monuments of her palace, which once stood on an island in one of the largest human-made bays in the world before it was submerged by earthquake in the fourth century A.D.

Copyright National Geographic Society

Until then we present for your viewing pleasure the following National Geographic documentary “Sunken Ruins of Cleopatra's Palace”.  

Atlantis - The Lost Continent

Today on Far Future Horizons we present a fascinating documentary which offers a historical overview of the Western World’s enduring love affair with the legend of Atlantis.

Why has the legend of a city under the sea so captivated the imaginations of the generations of people who have searched for Atlantis? Did Atlantis really exist and if so where?

The Quest for Noah's Flood

Today on Far Future Horizons we join famed oceanographer, explorer and Titanic discoverer, Dr. Robert Ballard, as he embarks on a fascinating voyage to the Black Sea.  

Here he will try to separate history from the legend of a catastrophic flood to solve an ancient mystery that will take us on a quest to uncover the true story of Noah’s flood.

The Antikythera Star Clock

As I write this many of us today, the world over, will be counting the seconds as Mid Night approaches and a New Year dawns.

Time controls the rhythm of our lives like a Metronome ticking away and measuring the pace and tempo of our existence. From time immemorial we humans have been fascinated with the fundamental nature of time and keeping track of it by watching the rhythmic changes seen in the celestial heavens. 

Today being the first day of 2014 AD we at Far Future Horizons are going to explore the findings of the latest research to investigate the greatest and most surprising discovery made in the field of undersea archaeology with two very interesting documentaries.

In 1900, a group of Greek sponge divers accidentally stumbled on an ancient Roman shipwreck dating from the First Century BC. The wreck produced numerous statues dating back to the 4th century BC, as well as a mysterious object - a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. 

The Antikythera mechanism (Fragment A - front)

The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world's oldest analog computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics.

Following the efforts of an international team of scientists, the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism are uncovered, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of an object that continues to mystify.