FLEET OF DARIUS FOUND

Hidden for 2500 years, the ancient fleet of Persian King Darius has been discovered:

A team from Greece, Canada and the United States has just completed a second expedition to retrieve artefacts from 300 ships of the Persian King Darius that were wrecked in a storm off the Mt Athos Peninsula, northern Greece, in 492BC or 493BC....

In two trips so far, last October and in June, the archaeologists have found evidence of seven ships that went down off the steep coast of the peninsula where local fishing families found two ancient bronze helmets in 1999....

Expedition director Dr Shelley Wachsmann said the expedition was "high-risk", but with huge potential benefits if remnants were found of a trireme, the classic fighting ship which eventually gave Athens maritime supremacy after the Battle of Salamis in 480BC.

"Nobody has ever found a trireme," he said.

"This is a ship that wrote history, but there are a lot of questions about it."

Amazing stuff, of course. This dates to the years just after the Judean exile in Babylon and the writings of Daniel. The temple would have been rebuilt under the direction of Zerubbabel, but Jerusalem was still in ruins with no city walls. Esther was probably just being born, although probably not quite yet. Her future husband Xerxes would not rise to power until six years later. He would be responsible for the Battle of Salamis. It was recorded by Herodotus that Xerxes' defeat by the Greeks led him to retire to the "intriques of the harem", which would have been about the time of Esther's elevation to queen.

Now, isn't that fun?

[Link via LRC]