The discovery was made near Kekova Island off Turkey's southern Mediterranean coast by a team led by underwater archaeologist Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University. Though the wooden hull disintegrated long ago, more than 30 ceramic amphorae and three large stone anchors survived on the seabed nearly 100 feet down, Smithsonian magazine reports.
'These are the oldest known remains of a seagoing ship yet found,' archaeologist Karin Sowada of Australia's Macquarie University, who worked on the project, told People. The find surpasses the previous record holder — a wreck estimated at about 4,200 years old off Dokos Island in Greece.
Clay analysis suggests the jars were produced in workshops in the Jordan Valley, and similar amphorae have been found at Giza, Saqqara, Troy and Crete — evidence of maritime trade networks linking the eastern Mediterranean thousands of years before modern shipping. One jar bears nine distinct markings and two holes, possibly used to churn cheese or butter by the crew, according to the BBC.
Turkey's culture and tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the find, calling it traces of 'the world's oldest shipwreck.' Researchers are now analysing thick, glossy residue still preserved inside several intact jars to determine whether the cargo was olive oil, wine or tree resin — a time capsule from the dawn of seafaring commerce. Because no wood survived for radiocarbon dating, the team dated the wreck by comparing the amphorae's decoration with examples from Egypt and the Middle East known to be 4,400 to 4,700 years old. 'We can definitely say our wreck is early Bronze Age. This is 100 percent,' Oniz told the BBC. If confirmed, the find pushes the history of seagoing trade back beyond the pyramids' construction.
Photo: Commonists, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons