In Antikythera harbor, under a layer of silt and stones laid by the sea over two thousand years, a group of Greek and Swedish archaeologists discovered the bronze arm of an ancient statue.
A vessel carrying a valuable cargo sank off the coast of the island of Antikythera at the beginning of the first millennium AD. It was large - perhaps about 50 meters long - and ran from Asia Minor to Rome. Metal detectors of archaeologists have shown that under the layer of bottom sediments there must be seven more, and maybe nine more statues or other large metal objects, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The finds were hidden by a pile of boulders weighing up to several tons; they may have collapsed on the wreck of a sunken ship during the earthquake that destroyed the city of Andikithira and the surrounding islands in the 4th century CE.
The bronze hand was believed to have been part of a male statue. Other finds this year include pieces of red marble, a silver goblet, wooden ship fragments and a human bone. Last year, a human skull, teeth and fragments of other bones were found in the same place, as well as a clay cup with a picture of an erotic scene and the inscription "Pamphilos"; by this name, scientists call the person whose skull was found among the boulders, until DNA analysis makes it possible to accurately establish his gender.
The island of Antikythera is world famous for another archaeological find raised from the bottom of the sea in 1900 by Greek divers. A large bronze object, later called the Antikythera mechanism, turned out to be an ancient instrument for calculating the motion of celestial bodies. It is now kept in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
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