A photo released by Black Sea MAP/EEF Expeditions in London on Oct. 23, 2018, shows the remains of an ancient Greek trading ship laying on the sea bed at the bottom of the Black Sea near Bulgaria. (HO/Black Sea MAP/EEF Expeditions/AFP) (Ho/AFP/Getty Images)
BERLIN — Over the last 600 years, Europe’s Black Sea has been one of the world’s maritime areas hardest-hit by war and nationalism. Tugged between Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, among other nations, the inland stretch of water was de-facto cut off from international trade after the Ottoman Turks occupied Constantinople in 1453. It was a key battlefield during World War II and has once again become contested with Ukraine and Russia now clashing there in recent years.
But there was a time when trade flourished in the Black Sea. And on Tuesday, European researchers revealed some stunning details about a period when Greek ships crossed the Bosporus, loaded with goods to trade, risking storms and natural disasters.
One such ship has now been discovered almost completely intact at the bottom of the Black Sea at a depth of 1.2 miles below the water surface, where oxygen levels are so low that marine life is virtually inexistent. While animals and bacteria would usually decompose wooden shipwreck’s remains within centuries, the 75-feet long Greek shipwreck lay undisturbed for more than 2,400 years, researchers with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project said Tuesday.
“The Black Sea is considered to be one of the world’s finest under water laboratories,” the team wrote on their website.
The Greek trading ship was the oldest of dozens of shipwrecks that were discovered during the three-year long project, which the team claims is the biggest effort of its kind, off the coast of Bulgaria in Eastern Europe. Its findings are documented in a two-hour-long documentary project, which is also due to be released on Tuesday.
Using deep sea diving robots and sonar from ships, the researchers scanned the bottom of the Black Sea primarily looking for possible ruins of now-submerged ancient settlements to study the effects of melting glaciers on sea levels. But as they mapped out over 770 square miles of seafloor, more than five dozen historic vessels — almost all of them astonishingly well preserved — appeared in front of the cameras of their remotely controlled underwater vehicles. The team believes that some of their discoveries were once operated by the Romans, with other vessels date back to the 17th century.
“Over 60 shipwrecks, varying in age from a 17th century Cossack raiding fleet, through Roman trading vessels complete with amphorae to a complete ship from the Classical period, were found across the 3 year period,” the team wrote in a statement.
Their attention has focused in particular on the ancient Greek ship, of which only a small part was removed from the original location to confirm the wood’s radiocarbon age. There are no plans to recover the entire wooden structure, partially over fears that it would break apart. The researchers have also not released its exact location.
But the discovery could still yield some remarkable insights into an era of which few wooden remnants are still intact.
“This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world,” said research project team member Jon Adams.
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