Unprecedented discovery: Oldest deep-sea shipwreck uncovered

Found at an astonishing depth of 1.8 kilometers on the Mediterranean Sea floor, a ship’s cargo from 3,300—3,400 years ago (14th-13th century BCE) contained hundreds of intact storage vessels.

The discovery was made by Energean, a leading E&P natural gas company operating the Karish, Karish North, Katlan, and Tanin offshore fields near Israel, during a routine survey. The Israel Antiquities Authority identified the cargo as Late Bronze Age Canaanite storage vessels.

The head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Marine Unit, Jacob Sharvit, explained: “The ship seems to have sunk in crisis, either due to a storm or to an attempted piracy attack – a well-known occurrence in the Late Bronze Age. This is both the first and the oldest ship found in the Eastern Mediterranean deep sea, ninety kilometers from the nearest shore. This is a world-class history-changing discovery: This find reveals to us, as never before, the ancient mariners’ navigational skills – capable of traversing the Mediterranean Sea without a line of sight to any coast. From this geographical point, only the horizon is visible all around. To navigate they probably used the celestial bodies, by taking sightings and angles of the sun and star positions.”

“The vessel type identified in the cargo was designed as the most efficient means of transporting relatively cheap and mass-produced products such as oil, wine and other agricultural products such as fruit. Finding such a great quantity of amphorae on board one single ship is testimony to significant commercial ties between their country of origin and the ancient Near Eastern lands on the Mediterranean coast,” Sharvit related.