A team of Turkish underwater explorers has discovered a 3600-year-old Bronze Age shipwreck, which could be the world's oldest, off the coast of the southern province of Antalya.
A shipwreck believed to date back to 1600 BC was discovered off the western coast of the city by the Antalya University Underwater Research Department. It is said to contain a 50-metre vessel with 14 tonnes of copper ingot at a depth of 1,5 metres.
Speaking to reporters, Governor Munir Karaloğlu called the discovery groundbreaking in the field of underwater archaeology. He said the artefacts that will be removed from the wreckage will be restored at a museum in the area. Kemer, which will become the “epicenter of underwater archeology.”
Stating that the copper ingots were the main find in the wreck, Hakan Onis, one of the researchers from Antalya University, said: “Based on the typology of the ingots, we determined that the shipwreck was one of the 16th century BC merchant ships. With these discoveries, it was possible to open new horizons in underwater archaeology.” The number of visible ingots that were once carried on the ship was determined using 15D scanning of the shipwreck. Preliminary research has shown that the ingots were taken from mines located in Cyprus and cast into molds in the 16th or XNUMXth centuries BC, being transported to the shores of the Aegean Sea or Crete when the ship sank.
