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The bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has revealed many secrets over the years, but few as old as the one found in Turkey. Near Kekova Island, off Turkey’s southern coast, archaeologists have found the remains of a ship that they believe sank up to 4700 years ago, around the same time Egypt’s first pyramids were being built.
“These are the oldest known remains of a seagoing ship yet found,” Karin Sowada, an archaeologist at Macquarie University in Australia who worked on the project, told People.
What archaeologists found on the seabed
The ship’s wooden structure disappeared long ago, but its cargo did not. At a depth of nearly 100 feet, the team led by underwater archaeologist Hakan Öniz found more than 30 large ceramic jars, known as amphorae, along with three stone anchors.
To date the find, the researchers compared the decorations on the jars with others found in Egypt and the Middle East that are known to be 4400 to 4700 years old. “We can definitely say our wreck is early Bronze Age. This is 100 percent,” Öniz told the BBC.
Until now, the title of the world’s oldest known shipwreck belonged to one found near the Greek island of Dokos, dated to about 4200 years ago.
The surprise inside the jars
When the jars reached the laboratory, the team got an unexpected surprise: some still had visible traces of the liquids they once carried. “I looked inside and nearly fainted. I could not believe how much [residue] was visible,” Sowada said.
According to Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy, the jars were likely made in the Jordan Valley. Öniz believes the ship was carrying olive oil or wine westward, perhaps toward Troy or the island of Crete.
Still, Sowada noted that the residue could also come from later uses, since these large jars were often emptied and reused for years.
A “missing piece” of ancient trade
Researchers believe the vessel was a sail-powered cargo ship about 33 feet long. For Sowada, the discovery helps explain how goods moved across the eastern Mediterranean thousands of years ago.
The wreck represents “a ‘missing piece’ of the story about ancient trade relations in the eastern Mediterranean,” she said. The jars are now being studied and preserved, and the analysis of their residue could reveal exactly what they carried.