Divers are looking for treasure: 15 slightly frightening photos of divers of the past (16 photos)

The first mentions of technical devices for diving under water date back to the 4th century BC. Already in the time of Alexander the Great, divers could breathe underwater using an inverted cauldron in which air remained. It turns out that in fact it was a prototype of a diving bell invented only in the 16th century.





And we immediately go underwater to see the first photo from today’s selection.

This is diver Emil Rakovica. The upside-down sign he holds reads: "Underwater Photography."



Yes, it’s hard to believe, given how poorly developed photographic equipment and photographic processes were at that time, but this is the world’s first underwater photography. It was made by French biologist and photographer Louis Marie-Auguste Boutan. In 1893 (!!!) he developed a special camera and flash lamp that could be used underwater.

Agree that photographing divers in a photo studio is like this:





The next photo was taken the same year.



Divers at the Imperial Naval Arsenal (the main base and naval dockyard of the Ottoman Empire). Between them, as I understand it, is a manual pump for supplying air, but already equipped with pressure gauges for control.

Workers in diving suits build a bridge across the Yenisei River, 1896.



Please note that the work takes place in winter and desperate divers dive through the ice hole.

The photo is also early, but it is clearly visible that this is already a classic diving suit: a metal helmet with portholes, bolted to the shoulders and connected through a hose to an air source on the surface and a heavy suit for protection from cold water.



Diver at the construction of hydraulic structures in Helsingfors (now Helsinki, Finland), 1890.

In the next photo you can see these same mounting bolts. Diving suits are now classified according to their number: “three-bolt”, “six-bolt” and “twelve-bolt”.



It is also impossible not to notice that not only men, but also women have long been engaged in such a dangerous profession. In the photo above, Amelia Earhart is helped to remove her spacesuit after exploring the seabed off Block Island, July 25, 1929. In general, she became the first female pilot to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, but, as you can see, she did not disdain diving either.

In this regard, I can’t help but show you a couple of shots of Korean female divers.



They are called haenyeo and make their living by harvesting shellfish and other delicacies from the seabed.



Back in the 1960s, about 30 thousand of them worked on the South Korean island of Jeju. Now there are also haenyeo, but they are already grandmothers and this is more of a show for tourists rather than a profession, as it once was.

But it seems that we completely forgot to look at what kind of diving equipment was at the beginning of the 20th century, immediately jumping to its middle. I'm correcting myself!



The Iron Man of the past in the latest diving suit at that time. The suit, by the way, was called “Iron Man.” It already had an overpressure protection system, as well as power supply (see the headlights?). New York, 1907.

A very similar costume, but you can still find many differences.



Inventor Chester E. McDuffie stands next to his rigid, so-called normobaric or atmospheric diving suit, made of aluminum alloy, weighing 250 kg and capable of reaching a depth of 65 meters.

You may ask, how is it possible to walk and dive in such diving suits?



And that's about it. Germany, 1922. I can hardly imagine the range of emotions experienced by these people!

But let’s do without lyrical digressions and look at two options for underwater spacesuits in one photo:



Two divers in hard and soft diving equipment prepare to dive to search for the sunken liner Lusitania.

They searched for him for 3 months in 1935 and found him at a depth of 93 meters. Guess which of the two divers was able to descend so deep?



Of course, only the one in the hard spacesuit. It was Jim Jarrett in a Tritonia diving suit.

I would like to finish the selection with these two photographs:



The first one is an unknown diver, but somehow immediately endearing to him. You look and understand - a man of great soul and great courage!

The second photo dates from 1940:



We see people on it, including one girl, wearing some kind of homemade helmets with weights on their chests. In front of them are hand pumps, one of which looks like a regular tire pump.

Personally, I am at a loss as to who they are and what they do. If you know or just have ideas, write in the comments