Roman Ship?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Brave souls, for sure.

[ushumgal]

I would second the possibility that a disabled Roman-era ship could drift to Brazil on the Atlantic current. The same happened to numerous Japanese ships in the Pacific. They would be disabled off the coast of Japan and drift with the current to make landfall on the North American coast. If the ship was, for example, hauling rice the crew could survive the long (1-2 year) journey. They knew how to distill fresh water from seawater as well. There are a number of well-documented cases...in fact, when Matthew Perry first went to Japan, it was partly on the pretext of repatriating some of these wrecked sailors. Check out Katherine Plummer 1984, The Shogun's Reluctant Ambassadors, ISBN: 978-4897880235.

[ParthianBow]

Resurrecting this thread because members might be interested in the reconstructed Phoenician ship which sailed around Africa (as the Phoenicians reputedly did in 600 BC, at the behest of a Pharoah), finishing its 20,000 nautical mile journey just a month ago. It features in Richard Miles' Ancient World series on the BBC too.
http://www.phoenicia.org.uk

[M. Demetrius]

The design looks a little different from Carthagenian/Roman ships, but the centuries that separated them may have something to do with it. In any case, piloi off to the sailors. That's no easy feat, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in an open boat.

[john m roberts]

There's way too much history being bandied about here. Am I the only one here who has studied folklore? This whole thing is one of countless variants of the "Lost Dutchman Mine" story. Its salient features are as follows:
1. Amateur doing something else entirely (hunting, prospecting, sightseeing, etc.) stumbles across vast treasure, archaeologically important site, etc. but doesn't understand what he/she has found.
2. Consults with experts and learns that this is, indeed, the Lost Dutchman Mine, the silver hoard of San Saba, the Tomb of Genghis Khan, the original site of Atlantis, etc.
3. Goes back but is unable to relocate the discovery because it has been reburied by an earthquake/tsunami/flood, cordoned off and reburied by the government, etc.

I mean, give me a break! Is the government of Brazil going to obliterate a lucrative tourist site because they think a 2000-year-old shipwreck will somehow invalidate their Portuguese heritage?

[M. Demetrius]

Shangrila?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/blogg ... 8340/posts
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/25/scien ... razil.html
http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassi ... 02/08.html

You be the judge. I won't make it to Brazil in my underwater exploration vehicle until late in the next century, if at all, since I first have to get the time machine finished. :roll: Now where are those aliens with that reverse-engineering module I ordered? :evil:

[SvenLittkowski]

Just being driven by the slow ocean currents would have taken a longer time. Many Roman ships had their hulls being well-protected against the worms that drill holes into the wooden hull, much better than the ships afterwards. But food and especially water would have been the problem. Unless it was fully loaded with food. Maybe an intentional expedition that was never recorded or with lost records. It would have been a larger cargo ship, or some of them. It could not have been anything with small storage or low main deck.