The oldest shipwreck remains discovered in the deep sea, and possibly the oldest complete shipwreck, are located in the Mediterranean Sea about 56 miles off the northern coast of Israel.
The Israel Antiquities Authority, which announced the discovery on Thursday, said preliminary examination of the two clay jars, known as Canaanite amphorae, showed they were merchant ships about 39 to 46 feet long that sank sometime between 1400 and 1300 B.C. The Egyptian empire stretched from what is now northern Syria to Sudan, and the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun briefly sat on the throne.
It is unclear whether the galley was the victim of a sudden storm, strong winds, or an attempt at piracy. However, video taken by a remotely operated submersible robot showed that the ship sank to the bottom without capsizing, and hundreds of storage bottles in the cargo hold survived mostly intact.
“I think the discovery of a Bronze Age shipwreck is very important because shipwrecks from this era are extremely rare,” said Cemal Pulak, a nautical archaeologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the discovery. Shipwrecks with cargo are so rare that only two wrecks from the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean are known. Both wrecks, unlike modern wrecks, were found off the coast of Turkey relatively close to shore and accessible using standard diving equipment. The most recent of these two discoveries occurred in 1982. No notable new discoveries have emerged since then.
The new Bronze Age wonder was discovered about a mile deep last summer during a survey conducted by Energean, a London-based company looking to develop natural gas fields. Portions of the seabed were claimed by both Israel and Lebanon until a 2022 agreement brokered by the United States placed them under Israeli control.
Energean's remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is connected to a surface vessel by steel cables and is controlled by the ship's pilot, who operates a joystick much like those used in video games. About 3,300 feet below where the sunken ship was located, or about 2,000 feet from where the sunken ship was located, even the faintest light faded away, leaving a sunlightless area known as the Aphototic Zone. The robotic ROV's cameras are equipped with powerful lights that pierce the eternal darkness.
Last July, an ROV captured what appeared to be a large pile of kettles on the seafloor. The images were sent to the Office of Antiquities, which identified the jug as a late Bronze Age storage jar. It is designed, among other things, to contain the honey, olive oil and resin of the Pistacia Atlantica tree. Such resins were used as preservatives in wine, and in Egypt as incense and polish for funerary equipment during the New Kingdom.
Having piqued the interest of the Antiquities Authority, Energean has built two mechanical attachments for the ROV that can extract artifacts from the pile with minimal risk of damage to the entire assembly. Over two days at sea in May this year, the vehicle mapped the site and confirmed that the amphorae were lying on board the vessel, half-buried in sediment. There was no trace of the anchors, masts or square sails common on Mediterranean trading ships of the time.
“The ship was so deeply preserved that it was frozen in time from the moment the disaster occurred,” said Jacob Shavit, director of maritime archeology at the Israel Antiquities Authority and leader of the May patrol. “Its body and contents were undisturbed by human hands and unaffected by the waves and currents that affect shipwrecks in shallow waters.”
Extending its robotic arm, the ROV removed two bottles from the hull, one at each end of the vessel. Both were found to be full of silt. “Analyzing the trace elements in the jars can address the question of what was inside the vessel when it sank,” Dr. Sharvit said.
The 14th century BC in the Eastern Mediterranean was a time of vibrant international trade and enormous wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. The great Canaanite commercial centers scattered along the Levantine coast supplied strategic and practical raw materials and manufactured goods to the Aegean region and beyond. The main exports were copper and tin, which could be mixed into bronze to manufacture stronger agricultural implements that increased agricultural yields and produced weapons and armor to equip entire armies.
Most of what is known about the nature of Late Bronze Age trade is based on two shipwrecks excavated in southern Turkey. The first was discovered at Cape Gelidonya in 1960, and the second at Uluburun from 1984 to 1994. Scholars have used these findings to postulate that Turkish commerce: The Late Bronze Age was completed by safely flying from port to port, hugging the coastline and eye to eye with the coast.
In 1982, a Turkish sponge diver first reported finding a “metallic biscuit with ears” on a rocky promontory known as Uluburun. Scientists have speculated that the ship he discovered may have been sailing from the Levant to Greece when it was founded around 1300 BC. According to Uluburun Expedition Director Dr. Pulak, the ship carried 10 tonnes of copper and 1 tonne of tin, along with other goods. Exotic materials, including a gold scarab with Nefertiti's name engraved on it, glass ingots, ivory, ebony, a hippo's tooth, an ostrich egg, tools made from items from at least 11 Asian, African and European cultures, and about 150 Canaanite amphoras, of which approximately 120 The dog had resin in it.
The ship previously discovered at Cape Gelidonya sank around 1200 BC. The ship also carried copper and tin, although in smaller quantities. She also carried pieces of bronze in the form of farm implements for recycling.
“These two shipwrecks show different ways of trading,” Dr Pulak said. “Uluburun ships represented long-distance inter-regional elite exchange, while Cape Gelidonya ships engaged in local coastal voyages or opportunistic trade, buying and selling goods and services in port for quick profits.”
Newly discovered shipwrecks suggest Bronze Age merchants traveled much further from port.
“The discovery of this ship has now transformed our entire understanding of the navigational skills of ancient mariners,” Dr Sharvit said. “This is the first time it has been discovered at such a great distance that no continent is in sight. “From this geographical point, all you can see is the horizon in every direction.”
Dr. Sharvit speculated that sailors in the 14th century BC lacked a compass, astrolabe or sextant and probably relied on celestial navigation to observe the positions and angles of the sun and stars. He promised that the shipwrecks would advance scientific knowledge about Late Bronze Age trade patterns and the people who controlled them.
“The two former Bronze Age shipwrecks marked a trade route between Cyprus, the Levant and the eastern Aegean region,” Dr Sharvit said. “Our shipwrecks suggest maritime exchanges took place from Syria and western Canaan to southern Cyprus, Crete and other Greek lands.”
Or, he suggested, the hapless sailors on a deep-sea galley may have loaded Canaanite amphoras onto their ships for the return voyage from an Aegean port and loaded with cargo from a Levantine port. If so, he said, the sailors may have been the Mycenaean civilization, which occupied Crete and most of southern Greece by 1400 BC and had a virtual monopoly on commerce in the eastern Mediterranean.
Dr. Fullak called the three Bronze Age shipwrecks valuable time capsules. However, although the Uluburun wreck was discovered through 22,413 dives, Dr. Shavit said Israeli authorities plan to preserve the deep-sea site as is without revealing any more about the wreck for the time being.
“We think that’s the best way to keep the wreck safe right now,” he said. “We want to mine its depths with better technology and methods and save it for future generations.”