A team of maritime archaeologists, scientists, and surveyors with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP) believe the ship is a Greek trading vessel that has only been seen “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum.” The vase shows Odysseus, the hero from Homer’s epic poem, tied to the mast of a similar ship as he resisted the Siren’s calls.
The vessel was discovered using a remote-controlled submarine piloted by the scientists. It is laying on its side about 50 miles off the coast of Bulgaria in an area well known ‘as a “shipwreck graveyard.” The vessel is believed to be ancient Greek and is 23-meters (75 feet) long. It still has its mast, rudders and rowing benches all present and correctly in place.
Accession Number: GR 1843.11-3.31 (Cat. Vases E 440)
This latest vessel, like all the previous vessels found in the Black Sea’s shipwreck graveyard, is very well preserved due to the anoxic conditions (absence of oxygen) of the Black Sea below 150 meters.
“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), the team that made the find. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.”
The research team plans on leaving the vessel where it was found but did add that a small piece of the ship had been carbon dated by the University of Southampton and claimed the results “confirmed [it] as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind.” The ship is a relic from 400 BC, and that is amazing.
Previous work by the MAP
In 2016, while researchers from MAP were studying sea level rise in the Black Sea during the last Ice Age, they uncovered over 40 shipwrecks that year, declaring their find as a “complete bonus.”
Since 2016, 20 more ships have been discovered in the general area, showing us just how busy the Black Sea was in ancient times. Much of the colonial and commercial activities of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Byzantine Empire, centered on the Black Sea.
When the Ottoman Turks occupied Constantinople after 1453, they changed its name to Istanbul, and the Black Sea was closed to foreign commerce. The Treaty of Paris, in 1856, forced the reopening of the Black Sea to commerce for all nations.
In total, the MAP finds have varied in age from a “17th-century Cossack raiding fleet, through Roman trading vessels, complete with amphorae, to a complete ship from the classical period”. And now, we can add the oldest shipwreck in the world.
