The underwater teems with intriguing objects.
Gary Bankhead, an archeologist at Durham University in England, revealed the various artifacts he found under the River Wear two decades ago in a book that he recently published.
A bronze crucifix, a silver trowel and a christening spoon, a silver key, a 19th-century Russian icon depicting Jesus on the cross, and a silver medal from 1964 showing Christ with open arms surrounded by Greek letters in a Byzantine-style font were among the items Bankhead found, Fox News reports, citing his book “Pilgrim Souvenirs, Devotional and other Objects of Faith: Late-medieval to modern period small finds from the River Wear, Durham.”
Of the hoard of artifacts that Bankhead recovered by diving in the river, those linked to Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Church of England from 1961 to 1974, were the most striking because they were found in clusters beneath the posts of the Prebends Bridge.
Bankhead learned from a relative of Audrey Heaton, Ramsey’s housekeeper, that she was told to dump the items in the spots where Bankhead found them. Greek Orthodoxy artifacts were found together in one location, while Vatican-associated objects were found together in another, according to Fox News.
Meanwhile, Indonesian fishermen stumbled on an unusual object near the Lombok Strait on 6 April.
The fishermen snagged the torpedo-shaped device bearing the logo of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and Chinese characters after casting their nets in the water, the South China Morning Post reported.
The Indonesian Navy took the device to the Mataram naval base on Lombok for further investigation.
The underwater drone was identified by maritime defense analyst HI Sutton as a Deep-Sea Real-Time Transmission Mooring System developed by the Chinese 710 Research Institute which focuses on underwater defense, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.
The system is designed to be moored to an anchor on the sea floor while sending data back to base via communication buoys deployed on the surface, according to RNZ and Sutton.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Malcolm Davis told RNZ the drone was deployed to track submarines, while a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the equipment was used in conducting marine scientific research in accordance with international law.