A MACQUARIE University archeology professor and ceramics expert has helped reveal the secrets of the “world’s oldest known” shipwreck off Turkey’s coast.
Dr Karin Sowada was asked to study the artefacts of the wreck after being contacted by the director of the excavation.
Dr Sowada is a specialist in the archaeology of Egypt and the Middle East, with a focus on foreign engagement, trade and societal change in the Bronze Age.
She is Director of the Australian Centre for Egyptology at Macquarie University, and as an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, also leads the four-year project ‘Pyramids, Power and the Dynamics of States in Crisis’.
The discovery was made in shallow waters off Kekova Island in the country’s south and dates to the age of the Great Pyramid of Giza’s construction, about 4,500 years ago.
The ship’s wooden structure has long since disappeared, but a considerable amount of pottery vessels remained embedded in the rocky seabed below.
Dr Sowada joined the research team to examine the ancient ceramics known as amphorae.
“There were two types of objects discovered during the excavation; one was a series of ceramic anchors, the second type of material was the pottery and there was quite a bit of it left,” she said.
Among the relics were jars up to 50 centimetres high.
Dr Sowada said they were used to transport materials and foods, such as grain and oil, as well as resins and wine.
“The material was actually heavily embedded in barnacles, around rocks,” she said.
“The vessels and the anchors themselves were placed in a water bath to help extract the salts from the material because even once one brings anything from this from the sea up to the surface, it needs to be treated carefully to ensure that the material doesn’t actually start crumbling or disintegrating.”
Dr Sowada used her expertise to study more than 20 items and determine when and where they came from.
“[I was] trying to understand the clays, and sort of putting together this, this three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, which was really quite exciting,” she said.
Dr Sowada said the pottery was likely from a trade ship that had crashed against the rocks, abandoned by sailors who had jumped overboard in a bid for survival.
“I do think that we can say that this is the oldest shipwreck,” she said.
Dr Sowada said researchers were conducting further tests and the investigation into the wreck’s origin story was in its infancy.
“At this stage, we can certainly say that this is at the very early edge or the very early side of what we know about ancient shipping,” she said.
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