Re:Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee
by abduhl on Wednesday April 10, 2013 @06:31PM
(#5528663)
A 1 meter longest dimension boulder would probably weigh well over 500 pounds (conservatively). This size stone is not something you would use as ballast.
Re:Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee
by ChuckMcM on Wednesday April 10, 2013 @07:14PM
(#5528842)
Hmm, that is a fair point. One cubic meter of basaltic rock is closer to 3 tons. There is a point where a rock is too big to be usefully used as ballast.
Re:Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee
by mdturnerphys on Wednesday April 10, 2013 @04:19PM
(#5527857)
I can't find anything about ballast stones being used on the Sea of Galilee, but there are lots of mentions of ballast bags.
Re:Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee
by ChuckMcM on Wednesday April 10, 2013 @04:42PM
(#5528019)
I've seen ballast bags as well (even on nominally "modern" sampan boats). If I were a sailor 4K years ago I'd probably optimize for cost first, speed second. But I don't have a good idea for how much effort it takes to fill ballast bags so I can be very confident in reasoning about where they would fall on that scale.
The description of the pile of rocks, it matches the description of ballast piles outside of ports on the Mediterranean and larger inland seas.
Ship technology from the time [1] tended to flat bottomed and top heavy boats.
Ships in general, but merchant ships in particular, use ballast to adjust their buoyancy so that they sail per their design. In the case of merchant ships ballast is always something of low value and easily removed.
When adjusting ballast without pumps, solid ballast is easier to load on and off than either liquid ballast or sand ballast (which would require shovelling).
In terms of value to pound of ballast delivered, random basaltic rocks achieve excellent efficiencies.
It's certainly possible that this is something else entirely. I don't think we'll know until they do further research, until then it would be fun to hear other's reasoning on what they think this "structure" represents.
[1] http://www.spirasolaris.ca/egyptianship.html