Archaeologists Identify Potentially Oldest Known Shipwreck off Turkey's Coast
A team of researchers has dated a newly discovered shipwreck near Kekova, Turkey, to roughly 2700–2400 BCE, making it the oldest known wreck and offering new insight into Early Bronze Age maritime trade.
Archaeologists have dated a shipwreck found in shallow water off Kekova, west of Antalya, Turkey, to around 2700–2400 BCE, potentially establishing it as the world’s oldest known wreck. The wreck, uncovered in 2024, left little of the hull intact, but a cargo of large ceramic storage vessels provided the primary dating evidence.
Associate Professor Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, who has long studied the Turkish coastline, located the wreck after receiving tips from local seafarers. He later enlisted a colleague to help analyse the pottery, which includes ovoid, flat-based amphorae with a distinctive horizontal clay belt. The shape and manufacturing technique of these jars allowed the team to estimate the wreck’s age, though the researchers note that the precise dating remains under review.
"The discovery could transform our understanding of ancient Mediterranean connections during the Early Bronze Age," the research team said.
Divers spent four months extracting the pottery from barnacle-covered rocks on the seabed between two islands. Visible residues on some vessels suggest they once held products such as olive oil, wine or tree resin, though scientific analysis is pending.
The find adds a new data point to the sparse record of third-millennium maritime activity, a period known mainly from Egyptian texts and occasional artefacts. It may illustrate the broader network that linked the Levant, Anatolia and Egypt, where commodities like cedar, tin, lead, oils and lapis lazuli were exchanged.
The researchers plan to publish a peer-reviewed paper detailing the excavation and analysis, which could reshape current models of early trade routes across the eastern Mediterranean.