Divers Excavating Off Kekova Find a Wreck Believed to Be the World's Oldest, Turkey Says

According to Euronews, clay analyses indicate the jars were probably made in workshops in the Jordan Valley, which would make this a long-distance trade cargo. Euronews says the scientific excavations are running under the Antalya Museum Directorate with permits from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Oniz, in remarks that ABC attributes to the BBC, said the team were the first humans to touch the objects in about 5,000 years.

Is it really the oldest shipwreck?

Read the claim carefully. ABC's headline says the wreck is believed to be the oldest, and the age is an estimate. Euronews says the age comes from amphora samples gathered in earlier Akdeniz University underwater surveys, which suggested the ship dates to the early Bronze Age, rather than from a direct date on the vessel. Neither report we have seen says the findings have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the question of which wreck is oldest depends on how each is dated.

That is a normal state of affairs in underwater archaeology. A discovery is announced, the dating is tested, and the claim either survives or is adjusted.

What does this mean for divers?

It is a reminder of how much of the Mediterranean seabed is a record, not a playground. A site like this is excavated under permit, recorded square by square and lifted by specialists, because moving one jar without notes destroys information that cannot be recovered. The ethic travelling divers are asked to follow at any wreck or ruin is the same one, look and photograph, do not take or move anything, and report finds to the authorities.

Expect the next real milestone to be the peer-reviewed publication and the residue analysis of the jars, which should say what the cargo was. Until then the Kekova ship holds its record provisionally.