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Experts flock to Tinian for Earhart excavation |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 09 November 2004 |
By Katie Worth
An author and well-known archaeologist whose 15-year-long quest has been to unravel the mystery surrounding the disappearance of famed pilot Amelia Earhart is on Guam and will join other regional and national archaeologists and historians in Tinian later this week with the hope of proving -- or disproving -- the latest hypothesis on her disappearance.
Archaeologist Thomas King, author of five books, including "Amelia Earhart's Shoes," published in 2001, said he would be "very surprised" to find Earhart's remains on the tiny island of Tinian, two islands to the north of Guam in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, but said he doesn't rule the possibility out.
The hypothesis King and others will be exploring rests on a story told by 82-year-old World War II veteran Saint John Naftel, who says he was shown, while stationed on Tinian in 1944, Earhart's gravesite by a worker who'd helped bury her. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared on an attempted around-the-world flight in 1937 and their remains have never been found.
Spearheading the Tinian excavation team is historian Jennings Bunn, who arranged Naftel's return to the region a year ago. Among the other participants will be forensic anthropologist Karen Burns of the University of Georgia, archaeological consultants from Saipan, the CNMI Historic Preservation Office, and faculty and students from the University of Guam.
King, who is on Guam this week giving a seminar on historic preservation for regional historians and other professionals, said his own preferred hypothesis on Earhart's disappearance asserts that her life likely ended not in the CNMI, but rather on tiny Nikumaroro island in the Phoenix Island group, north of the Samoan islands.
King and Burns are both members of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery Amelia Earhart Project, better known as TIGHAR. That project has searched for and found clues that point to her death on Nikumaroro.
Evidence includes records of the bones of a northern European woman of Earhart's stature being found on the island in 1940, but those bones were sent to Fiji and have never been found, King said. Other evidence includes parts of a plane that could have been the one Earhart and Noonan were flying -- as well as parts of planes that were not.
"We don't have a smoking gun yet, but we're working on it," he said.
Among other advantages, King said, the Nikumaroro theory has the benefit of not requiring any assumptions of espionage, Japanese involvement, prolonged secrecy or other conspiracies, which would have had to exist were her final resting place on Tinian.
"We continue to think the best hypothesis points in Nikumaroro's direction, but I believe any hypothesis that can be tested should be tested," he said. "I won't be surprised if we find bones (in Tinian) -- there are bones all over the Northern Mariana Islands for obvious reasons. But I will be surprised if they turn out to be Amelia Earhart's.
"And the problem is that even if we don't find the bones (in this excavation), it doesn't mean she's not there. It might only mean we dug in the wrong place. These things are problematic because they're never really answered until you have definitive evidence," he said.
King explained the motive for his continued commitment to his expensive "hobby" as its intellectual challenge, its puzzle. But he can't explain why so many others around the globe have remained interested in the aviators' unexplained fate for the last 67 years.
"Solving the mystery is not going to end AIDS or get us out of Iraq or anything useful like that, it's simply an engaging mystery," he said.
Regardless of the result, the excavation on Tinian is likely to turn attention to Guam's neighborhood for a while. And if the hypothesis turns out to be true, it would likely be a boon for the region's tourist industry, King said.
"She was such a fascinating person when she was alive -- she was an articulate speaker and writer, an articulate advocate that women can do anything that men can do. She was a charismatic figure and when she disappeared it really shocked people," he said.
"I don't know. Why do these things seize the imagination? That's probably the bigger mystery."
http://www.guampdn.com/news/stories/20041110/localnews/1562030.html
THE MYSTERY
Amelia Earhart was a great aviator of her day and broke many flight records in the 1920s and '30s, becoming the first person to make a solo flight from Hawaii to California and the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone. On May 20, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan set out on the epic quest to circumnavigate the planet. They had completed all but the last portion of their journey when they were last heard from as they were approaching tiny Howland Island in the central Pacific. A massive search found no trace of the plane or its crew.
THE HYPOTHESIS
There are several popular hypotheses on Earhart's demise. One is that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese, who had control of much of the Pacific at that time, and killed because they thought she was engaged in espionage. Several people who were on Saipan at the time say they saw an American woman in a flight suit in Japanese custody. Last year, World War II veteran Saint John Naftel of Alabama came forward with a story he had heard in 1944 when he was stationed on Tinian, a small island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. At the time, he met a worker who said he had participated in the burial of the two aviators in 1937, and the man had pointed out the burial site to him.
THE PROJECT
Last year, local historians brought Naftel to the region and he identified for them what he believes may be the burial site. Later this week the group, with the aid of archaeologists and other professionals, will begin the Tinian Amelia Earhart Project, and will start excavating the site.
WHO'S INVOLVED
Leading the project is historian Jennings Bunn, who retired from the Marianas Military Museum this year. Veteran Saint John Naftel will also come out for the project, as will archaeologist Thomas King and forensic anthropologist Karen Burns of the University of Georgia, Athens. Also on scene will be archaeologists from the Saipan firm Swift and Harper Archaeological Resource Consultants, University of Guam faculty and several UOG students, and the CNMI Historic Preservation Office.
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.” Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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