Overview
- The discovery was announced Wednesday by a team led by Professor Hakan Öniz after expanded 2026 fieldwork near the island of Kekova, and preliminary results were published in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology.
- Divers recovered more than 30 ceramic amphorae and three large stone anchors on the seabed while the wooden hull had entirely disintegrated, with the vessel estimated at roughly 10 meters long.
- Researchers date the wreck to about 4,400–4,700 years ago using amphora typology because no surviving wood is available for radiocarbon dating, a limitation that makes the estimate provisional.
- Some amphorae contain measurable residue and specialists are running chemical tests to determine if the cargo was olive oil, wine, resins, or other commodities, which would clarify the ship’s role in long‑distance exchange.
- The team says the assemblage fits a Levantine-to-Aegean trade route hypothesis and the find joins a wider body of Bronze Age seafaring evidence in the eastern Mediterranean that scholars will reevaluate as residue and provenance analyses proceed.