01
In "Zhuangzi Getaway", it is said: "In the north of the poor hair, there are those who have the dark sea, and Tianchi is also." ”
The Dark Sea is a mysterious sea in ancient myths and legends, and Zhuangzi says that this Dark Sea is in the extremely far north where there is no grass. Speaking of this Dark Sea, many people may never have heard of it, but legend has it that there was a very famous fish living in this Dark Sea, and I think everyone must know it.
There is a fish (in the dark sea), which is thousands of miles wide, and no one knows its cultivator, whose name is Kun.
The carp changes into a bird, and its name is called Peng. Peng's back, I don't know how many thousands of miles long, when it vibrates its wings and flies straight up, its wings are like clouds hanging in the sky.
The Kunpeng myth is Mr. Zhuangzi's masterpiece, and it is also an extremely eye-catching scenery in our ancient mythology. Kunpeng myth has developed many idiomatic stories and fables in later generations, which can be said to be well-known to everyone in China. Unfortunately, Kunpeng's hometown, the mysterious Dark Sea in the far north, has been obliterated in the dust of history and no one cares.
In the "Ten Continents of the Sea, Jugu Zhou", it is said: "Round sea, the water is black, and it is called the Dark Sea." There is no wind and no waves. ”
It is said that the shape of the Dark Sea is round, the sea is black, although the wind is not strong, but it is often strange and violent.
So the question is, does this mysterious underworld, which symbolizes death and the netherworld, really exist? Today, we will explore in depth, the Dark Sea in the real world, the land of dead silence - the Black Sea.
Ancient Greek travelers once recorded a long-standing legend of the indigenous peoples of the Aegean island of Samothrace: in the distant past, there was a huge lake in the East. Meltwater from snow and ice and days of torrential rains sent its water levels soaring and eventually flooding into the Mediterranean. The sudden rise of the sea has inundated the homes created by generations of indigenous people, destroying civilization. This legendary "huge lake" was called Newcastle Lake by later geographers, and after the written records appeared in the history of human civilization, this water area connected to the outside world through the Bosphorus Strait was called the "Black Sea".
The Black Sea was called an unfriendly place by the Greeks and by the local crew as the ship's grave.
The Black Sea is not only a frightening black sea, but also known for its terrifying waves, and countless ships are buried on the bottom of the sea in this water, so this mysterious sea is indeed inextricably linked to death.
02
A ghost ship on the black seabed
During the Soviet-German War in 1944, during the liberation of Crimea by the Soviet Red Army, Soviet bombers attacked a German military ship in the Black Sea, which was the German diesel engine ship "Totila". After being bombed, the Totila was lucky not fatally damaged, and continued its voyage toward its destination. However, the warship did not go where it wanted to go, and with 2,000 German soldiers who were evacuating from Sevastopol on this ship, it mysteriously disappeared above the Black Sea and has never been heard from again.
Nearly 70 years later, in May 2013, a team of researchers from the Russian Geographical Association stumbled upon a German warship that had sunk during World War II while diving into the Black Sea. Based on the analysis of the shape, structure and other characteristics of the wreck, the research team deduced that the wreck was probably the "Totila" that was attacked by Soviet bombers in 1944.
Because considering that the "Totila" is a military ship during World War II, the wreck is likely to carry weapons and ammunition, and there is a relatively large safety hazard. In order to ensure the safety of ships traveling on the Black Sea, Russia soon organized professionals to dive underwater and conducted a comprehensive inspection of the wreck.
The inspectors dived more than a hundred meters below the Black Sea and found the shipwreck "Totila", which had sunk to the bottom of the sea for nearly seventy years.
When the Tottila was discovered, it was lying quietly on the dark seabed, and when professionals gradually carried out a more careful inspection of the Tottila with the help of special lighting equipment, they suddenly made a surprising discovery.
Although it has been lying on the ocean floor for nearly seventy years, the Hull of the Totila has no obvious rust, nor aquatic weeds and parasites, as if it had just sunk to the bottom of the sea yesterday.
As the inspectors carefully sneaked into the interior of the cabin, an even more startling horror discovery stunned everyone.
Suddenly there were corpses floating in the cabin, slowly floating in the darkness like ghosts, making anyone who saw it for the first time shudder. Even more frightening is the fact that these corpses, dressed in German military uniforms during World War II, show no signs of decay, and their faces are vivid, as if they had just died not long ago.
After a long inventory by the inspectors, there were about two thousand bodies in the cabin, which also coincided with the number of German troops carried by the Totila when it withdrew from Sevastopol, and there is no doubt that the shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Sea is indeed the Totila.
But the frightening question arises: why are warships and German corpses, which sank to the bottom of the sea seventy years ago in 1944, still preserved so well after such a long period of underwater immersion, as if they were yesterday? Why is there no sign of any flora, fauna, or fish on the ocean floor? Is there really some unknown dark force at the bottom of the Black Sea, a mysterious place of dead silence?
03
Before unraveling the mystery of Totila, let's tell the story of another Byzantine shipwreck.
Titanic
In September 2000, the explorer Robobard, the discoverer of the Titanic shipwreck, after more than twenty days of painstaking searching on the Black Sea, finally made a major unexpected discovery, finding a Byzantine-era sailing ship that was extremely well preserved 1500 years ago.
Robobalard
The discovery of the sailing ship was also very accidental, and Jennifer Smithson, an archaeologist who was also on the ship at the time, first discovered a strange area on the seabed. There, a lot of wood protruded from the silt on the seabed and stood upright, as if it were a miniature forest on the seabed. Jennifer felt strange, and when the ship approached, after a careful search by underwater cameras, she found that these so-called forests were actually the masts of an ancient shipwreck. After a more in-depth investigation, it was found that the shipwreck, from the rope knot at the top of the mast to the keel ribs on the hull, was very well preserved.
No one had ever discovered an ancient shipwreck so perfectly preserved before, and Robbabarard and all the crew were thrilled.
But at the same time, a huge question also arises, how did these wooden materials survive underwater for more than a thousand years without decaying? Because if the general wood sinks to the bottom of the sea, in addition to being soaked by the seawater, it will also be swallowed up by microorganisms and fish. Not only that, but they also encounter a terrifying enemy known as underwater termites , ship maggots.
shipworm
Ship maggots, also known as "chiseled shells", belong to the order Offinchoniae, Suborder Poor Tooth, and Shipwreck. It is a mollusk similar to ordinary maggots, with an elongated body that prefers to burrow in wood.
Ship maggots are experts in destroying timber buildings in the ocean, and wooden stakes, embankments of wooden buildings, shipwrecks on the seabed, etc. are their favorite objects of destruction. Since ancient times, navigators have suffered greatly. It is said that during Columbus's fourth voyage, it was because the wooden ship was damaged by maggots, which led to the failure of the voyage. In April 1504, Columbus received reports from sailors that their Viscaina was "rotting" little by little thanks to maggots! Before long, the other two ships, for the same reason, would soon "rot" off... The "rotten ship incident" caused by the maggots made Columbus's last voyage fruitless, and he was helpless to return to San Lucár in Spain, and a year and a half later, the exhausted navigator died in Valladolid.
We could even say that it was the maggots that indirectly killed Columbus.
So the question is, why did the Byzantine shipwreck, which had been sleeping on the bottom of the Black Sea for more than a thousand years, be able to avoid these threats perfectly and be so well preserved?
In order to solve the mystery, Robbabad's team continues to explore the shipwreck, and they have more strange discoveries as a result.
04
Magical clay pots
While exploring the shipwreck further, Robbabad's team found some complete clay pots on board. These one-eared clay pots are a kind of wine vessel used to hold wine in the Byzantine period more than a thousand years ago, and some of them are similar to our Chinese wine dispensers. It is not surprising that the pottery itself is hard and can be preserved underwater for a long time. However, it is strange that similar things are generally found on the seabed, which are often piled up with various aquatic plants, microorganisms and barnacles. But the pottery found on the shipwreck was clean and brand new, as if it had been placed on the bottom of the sea after the kiln had just been fired last week. Even when Robbabarard used special underwater equipment to clean the surface of the clay pot slightly, it immediately revealed the original bright orange of the tank, which really shocked everyone's jaw.
So the question is, what mysterious force has kept wooden shipwrecks and clay pots as new? At first, Ballard thought it was related to the strong winter storms in the Black Sea, but in order to find out the truth, Ballard's team decided to extract samples of silt from the seabed for analysis, hoping to find clues to the mystery.
Experts use robotic arms with special equipment to prepare to extract samples from the silt on the seabed, and it is very strange that just as the robotic arm is carefully taking dirt samples from the seabed, the weather on the sea surface is also quietly changing, and a strong storm is about to strike. Fortunately, Ballard's team had a lot of experience salvaging shipwrecks, and at the last moment before the storm arrived, they managed to take the last tube of dirt samples. With the analysis of dirt samples, the mystery of the incorruptible shipwreck on the black seabed has finally gradually surfaced and appeared to the world.
05
The Black Sea is a remnant basin of the ancient Mediterranean Sea, and at the end of the Paleocene, Asia Minor uplifted, and the Black Sea separated from the Mediterranean Sea and gradually formed the inland sea. 25 million years ago, the Black Sea was connected to the Mediterranean Sea. With the movement of the Earth's crust and the ice age, the Black Sea was repeatedly isolated and connected to the Mediterranean Sea, and it was only after the Great Ice Age 6,000 to 8,000 years ago that the connection was finally formed.
About 7500 years ago, the Black Sea was still a vast inland freshwater lake, and at the end of the last ice age, as the sea level rose, the waters of the Mediterranean Sea flooded the Bosphorus Panhandle and flowed into the freshwater lake, making the area of the lake expand by nearly 50%, which formed what we now call the Black Sea.
The Black Sea is one of the deepest inland seas in the world and the only double-layered sea on Earth. The Black Sea itself is very deep, and the waters that enter from the Mediterranean Sea, because of their greater density, gradually sink. There is no exchange between the deep and shallow water layers, and according to scientific calculations, it takes thousands of years for a complete exchange between the two layers of water. As a result, in the lower layer of seawater with high salinity, an almost oxygen-free environment is formed. In this severely hypoxic environment, only anaerobic microorganisms can survive, and their metabolism releases toxic hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is the deadly killer of most underwater organisms such as fish, so in the Black Sea, except for some marine animals and plants in the shallow sea area at the edge and in the upper layer of the sea, the deep sea area and the seabed are almost a dead and silent world without any signs of life. At the same time, hydrogen sulfide appears black, which also causes the deep seawater to appear black, which is one of the reasons why the name of the Black Sea comes from.
The anaerobic and highly toxic environment on the bottom of the Black Sea provides an excellent preservation condition for shipwrecks. They are not eroded by oxidation, and they are not threatened by undersea organisms such as ship maggots, which is almost equivalent to being in a near-vacuum environment.
Because of this, both the 2,000 German corpses on board the Totila, the Byzantine shipwrecks and the clay pots on board were preserved in this perfect vacuum.
06
Blackwater Mythology
In another famous ancient book in China, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, although there is no direct record of the Dark Sea, there are many records of the black water related to the Dark Sea.
In the Hai Nei Jing, it is said: "Within the North Sea, there are mountains, known as the mountain of Youdu, and the black water comes out." ”
When Wang Yi explained this Youdu, he said: "Youdu, the underground land is also ruled by the earth; the underground underground is called the Youdu." ”
The so-called "black water" in the Classic of Mountains and Seas is said to come from the due north, and some are said to come from the northwest, but the general location of the source is similar to the location recorded by the Dark Sea, and it is very coincidental that the Black Sea is also located in the northwest direction of our country.
The Hai Nei Xi Jing says: "The black water comes out of the northwest corner, to the east, to the east, and to the northeast, south into the sea, and to the south of Yumin." ”
The flow route of black water described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas tells us very clearly: Black water is a river that starts from the northwest, passes through the vast earth, and finally flows to the southeast sea; it is a river that starts from the country of death and the country of darkness and flows to life and light.
According to the British "Daily Mail" reported on August 1, 2010, British scientists once found a huge underwater river under the Black Sea, which is 38 meters deep and more than 800 meters wide. If only measured by the standard of water flow, this underground river is the sixth largest river in the world.
This discovery in the Black Sea surprisingly confirms the legend of the black water in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, will the Black Sea be the legendary Dark Sea, and the underground river be black water? Did our ancient ancestors already know about the existence of the Black Sea and this underground river thousands of years ago? Or is it all just a coincidence?
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