Historica Stories

Neat story on a Gallipoli mapmaker.

"A treasure-trove of original World War I documents handwritten by a soldier who served in Gallipoli has been found, stolen, and then returned, in an eventful few months in the central Queensland town of Emerald.

The documents belonged to licensed surveyor Private James Nicholas Murray, who produced what were thought to be the most detailed maps to date of Russell's Top, a lesser-known but strategically critical line of defence in the eight-month long battle.

Using only a compass and piece of string, the then 30-year-old sketched the trenches and tunnels in the steep slopes above Anzac Cove while under fire, recording his thoughts in a pocket-sized diary, all of which remain intact to this day.

"It's an untold story and I think it's a story the whole nation will embrace," researcher Margaret Rawsthorne from the Emerald RSL told 7.30."

***

Archeologists explore the 'Titanic' of the Ancient world:

Small teaser:

 

"...Overall, the ship yielded one of the most impressive collections of treasures ever recovered from antiquity. Hundreds of ancient cargo ships have been excavated since, but only a handful of luxury items rival those from Antikythera: a load of marble columns and sculptures from a wreck near Mahdia, Tunisia; a bronze statue of Zeus in the act of throwing a thunderbolt, found off Greece’s Cape Artemision; ebony, ivory and ostrich eggs from a late Bronze Age ship that sank off Turkey’s Cape Gelidonya...."