Articles tagged as Ships | Smithsonian Magazine

This small amphora from the Fourni wrecks likely carried luxury goods.

A Shipwreck Graveyard Has Been Found Off This Greek Archipelago

A recent expedition to the Fourni islands uncovered piles of ancient cargo, including types of amphorae never before seen on the seafloor

October 29, 2015

Divers examine ceramic artifacts that may hold clues about ancient medicines, perfumes and food.

Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Cache of Ancient Treasures

Scientists have recovered more than 50 artifacts from the site, including a bronze armrest that was possibly part of a throne

September 29, 2015

New Research

Here’s How a Crew Survived an 1813 Shipwreck

The Neva’s remaining crew managed to live an entire month in an Alaskan winter with just the wreckage of their ship

September 11, 2015

Ariel view of the Port of Galveston in 2008

Cool Finds

An 1830s Steamship From the Texas Navy May Be Buried Near Galveston Harbor

Author Clive Cussler first discovered the wreckage in 1986, now the port’s expansion forces an archeological excavation

September 3, 2015

The Cape Hatteras Light of North Carolina, on the Atlantic Ocean.

The Lonely, Lifesaving Job of Lighthouse Keepers, Revealed at the National Lighthouse Museum

A new museum in Staten Island tells the stories of men and women who ran lighthouses throughout America’s history and shows off some unique antiques

August 7, 2015

Photo shows a section of the Florida-Caribbean map. In lower left, an insert section shows part of the Caribbean treasure ground. Note heavy concentration of numbers (each location a shipwreck) off the Louisiana coast, and in the Florida Keys.

Treasure hunters find 300-year-old coins from a Spanish fleet off the Florida coast

July 30, 2015

Melville joked that Dana’s descriptions of Cape Horn “must have been written with an icicle.”

Before Moby-Dick, There Was “Two Years Before the Mast”

This salty memoir by Richard Henry Dana Jr. was one of America’s first literary classics

July 2015

Cool Finds

Michigan Owns 1,500 Shipwrecks

Divers, historians and state officials team up to preserve the state’s underwater heritage

June 18, 2015

“Table Bay Cape Town,” Table Bay in the 1790’s by Thomas Luny (1759-1837)

Breaking Ground

Smithsonian to Receive Artifacts From Sunken 18th-Century Slave Ship

In 1794, the Portuguese slave ship São José wrecked with 400 slaves aboard; iron ballast and a wooden pulley from that ship will come to Washington, D.C.

May 31, 2015

A rendering of the USS Nautilus, the world's first atomic submarine. The real Nautilus is now open to the public, docked in Connecticut so that visitors can walk around inside and explore the torpedoes and living quarters.

Urban Explorations

Step Inside a Famous Submarine

Where to visit historic subs this summer—or ride in a modern one

May 26, 2015

This 133-foot long wooden steamer, the Rising Sun, is in 6 to 12 feet of water just north of Pyramid Point, where she stranded on October 29, 1917. All 32 people on board were saved.

Cool Finds

In 2015, Lake Michigan Was So Clear Its Shipwrecks Were Visible From the Air

A Coast Guard patrol spotted the wrecks in shallow waters that are only clear after the lake’s ice melts and before summer sediment swirls and algae blooms

April 27, 2015