Dunno about Ancient Greek or Roman (though it wouldn’t surprise me - they sunk an awful lot of triremes back in the day…) but I do know a 16th century English ship was found off the coast of the Isle of Wight, with lots of Tudor skellies still in it. Notably longbowmen, whose skeleton had been all distorted by their job (i.e. bone spurs on the left wrist, right arm noticeably stronger than the left etc…)
Boneworms secrete acid that dissolves bones to release nutrients enclosed in the bones. Their symbiotic bacteria digest proteins and lipids and release nutrients the worms can absorb. They’re mostly associated with the bones of whales that fall into abyssal zone depths, but experiments have shown that they won’t turn up their tendrils at the bones of terrestrial mammals.
Someone let us slow kids in on the joke?:o
“The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’ paradox, is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late 1st century. Plutarch asked whether a ship which was restored by replacing each and every one of its wooden parts remained the same ship.”
Updated to;
“as in the case of the owner of George Washington’s axe which has three times had its handle replaced and twice had its head replaced!”
I took it as a Pratchett joke/reference - his dwarves put forward the very same philosophical question in… hmm was in The Fifth Elephant or *Thud *? T5E presumably, since it echoes with the whole Scone of Stone issue.
Anyway, their answer was yes, btw. It **is **my granfather’s axe even though both its handle and head have been replaced, as the spirit of the thing transcends the thing itself. On Discworld, to the point that it still is an axe and still can kill, even when it has no handle *or *head any more.
Thanks. I know of a few cars of Theseus driving around with welded on VINs being the only original parts.
Look at commercial aircraft.
Ship of Theseus paradox on Only Fools and Horses.
IIRC, he’s said that he regrets not doing so, because he’s against people bringing up artifacts from the wreck.
The bow section isn’t looking so hot, either.
Any structural (read: watertight) integrity left after the break up probably didn’t survive past 300 feet of depth below the surface* before pressure differential ruptured something, somewhere, and let water in.
Don’t know about bones or microorganisms.
*Based, roughly, on the L-class submarine’s Test Depth of 200 feet/Design Depth of 300 feet.