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Archaeologists have discovered a merchant shipwreck off the coast of Kekova Island in Antalya province, southern Türkiye, dating back between 4,400 and 4,700 years to the Early Bronze Age, around the time the Great Pyramid of Giza was being built, the BBC reported.
Although the vessel’s wooden hull has completely decayed, its cargo remains scattered across the seabed. Archaeologists have recovered more than 30 ceramic storage jars and three large stone anchors at a depth of about 30 meters.
Some of the jars still contain traces of ancient substances that could be olive oil, wine or tree resin, according to Karin Sowada, an archaeologist at Macquarie University in Australia.
Researchers believe the approximately 10-meter-long vessel sailed from the eastern Mediterranean. Its cargo may have been destined for ancient Troy, in modern-day northwestern Türkiye, or for the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.
Because no wood survived, scientists could not use radiocarbon dating to establish the shipwreck’s age. Instead, they examined the pottery’s shape and decoration. The jars feature two handles, a raised ridge around the body and flat bases, characteristics that match vessels found in Egypt and the Middle East dating to the same period.
Hakan Öniz, a professor at Türkiye’s Akdeniz University and leader of the Mediterranean Archaeology Association expedition, said the pottery provided clear evidence that the wreck dates to the Early Bronze Age.
He described the discovery as a “time capsule at the bottom of the sea,” offering a rare opportunity to study ancient maritime trade and commercial connections across the Mediterranean.
The artifacts belong to Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said they are expected to be displayed at a new Museum of Mediterranean Underwater Archaeology in Antalya, scheduled to open in the coming months.
Before this discovery, one of the oldest known merchant shipwrecks was found near the Greek island of Dokos and dated to approximately 4,200 years ago. The oldest known shipwreck with preserved wooden components remains a vessel dating back about 2,400 years, discovered in the Black Sea off the Bulgarian coast.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence about the scale of maritime trade in the ancient Mediterranean, thousands of years before the rise of classical Greek and Roman civilizations.
