Ancient Wreck- Ships of Ancient Greece- Our Next Steps

The Importance of this Discovery

This wreck is valuable to historians and archeologists because of the evidence and information it provides about trade in the region and about open-water trade routes in general. The fact that there are several other similar wrecks in the same region is extremely interesting for several reasons:

1. If they are all from the same general period or time frame, they may provide detailed information about long distance trade over open water at a specific moment in history. This is significant because conventional archaeological wisdom believes that ancient sailors navigated by hugging the coast. Additionally, if the wrecks are from a single fleet that was lost all at once it is a fascinating mystery in itself.

2. If the wrecks span many generations, then, it may provide new and important evidence about trade between Crete, Cyprus, Turkey, and Egypt, over a broad span of time. This would be the first evidence of sustained open-water traffic in the ancient world.

3. More exciting is the possibility that one of the other targets Nauticos discovered is a Minoan shipwreck. The Minoans ruled Crete and most of the Aegean in the Early-Middle Bronze Age, establishing a thallassocracy throughout the ancient near east, but no trace of a shipwreck has ever been located. The oldest know shipwrecks discovered date to the Late Bronze Age, at Cape Gelidonya and Ulu Burun in Turkey. Both have been excavated during the past 35 years by INA.Equally exciting would be a ship from Egypt or the Near East from the Bronze Age, or a Mycenaean or Phoenician shipwreck from the Iron Age.