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Archaeologists discover 4,700-year-old shipwreck and cargo off Türkiye coast
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Ancient remains have been discovered off the coast of Türkiye that could be the oldest seagoing ship ever found.
It’s a hugely exciting discovery, as the boat that they have found is thought to be around 4,400 to 4,700 years old.
Ancient boat remains found off the coast of Antalya
This archaelogical discovery is hugely significant, as not only have the scientists and divers found the remains of the wooden boat, they also discovered a number of other artefacts that could be of historical importance as well.
On board, they found more than 30 ceramic jars - called amphorae - as well as stone anchors.
The find was made off the coast of Antalya, near to Kenova Island in Türkiye.
Inside the ceramic jars was an unusual black residue, which could be olive oil, wine, or resin from thousands of years ago.
Once the scientists properly get to grips with what they’ve found, it could teach them a lot about how people lived, traveled and traded nearly 5,000 years ago.
Researchers believe that the ship - which may be the oldest seafaring ship ever found - could be instrumental in offering insights into how trading networks worked and different civilisations interacted during the Early Bronze Age in that part of the world.
Exciting stuff, you’d have to agree.
The wooden boat itself has since disappeared, but the cargo it carried survived the centuries on the bottom of the sea.
Interestingly enough, this find may date almost exactly to the time at which teh Great Pyramid of Giza was being built.
It could also have been connected to the ancient city of Troy or the Minoan civilisation on Greek island Crete.
The people behind this remarkable discovery
The researchers from the Mediterranean Archaeology Association are behind then expedition that found this fascinating cargo, and the archaeologist involved are rightly very excited about it.
Dr Karin Sowada, from Macquarie University in Australia, said: "These are the oldest known remains of a seagoing ship yet found.
"While the wooden ship itself has disintegrated, the durable remains of the cargo are still preserved, giving archaeologists a time capsule from the past.”
This ship, they claim, could represent the ‘missing piece’ of the story of the Mediterranean.
She continued: "It was [traveling] along the southern coast of Turkey with trade goods that we now know belonged to a much wider exchange network,
"For example, Egypt was importing silver from Greece via Byblos in Lebanon at this time.
"Ships like this were possible intermediaries in that trade.”
"Given that the pottery jars were in the water for around 4,500 years, the presence of hardened black residues inside the jars was a shock,
"I looked inside and nearly fainted. I could not believe how much [residue] was visible. It wasn’t just like spots…. a lot of this material was still remaining.”
"It could be olive oil, it could be wine, it could be tree resins,
"Such long-term preservation in water-logged conditions was surprising, and on reflection says something about the nature of the contents, which I hope will be answered by future scientific analyses.”
The remains of the ship will now be displayed at a museum in the area.
There have been more ship-related archaeological discoveries recently
While this discovery is definitely confirmed, there are those who believe that the ancient site of Noah’s Ark has also been discovered, strangely not far from these remains.
The team behind that ‘discovery’ - which has yet to be confirmed but has been claimed - are convinced that a huge hill is actually the spot where Noah’s Ark landed carrying two of every animal after God brought a great flood to the world.
It’s quite a leap, but they are continuing to perform the scientific explorations on the site - also in Türkiye - and will be revealing more soon.
VT recently interviewed one of the key people behind that search, who told us all about the project and how things are going.