Archaeologists dated a Bronze Age shipwreck off Kekova

Archaeologists say a wreck on an underwater slope off Kekova Island is the oldest shipwreck yet identified. The BBC reported the find on October 14, 2026. The wood is gone, so there is nothing to date with radiocarbon. The age comes from the clay jars: two handles, a ridge around the middle, and a flat base, a shape that matches pottery from Egypt and the Middle East in the Early Bronze Age, about 4,400 to 4,700 years ago. That is roughly the era when the Great Pyramid was under construction.

Professor Hakan Öniz, of Akdeniz University and the Mediterranean Archaeology Association, called the site a time capsule and said the decoration of the jars makes the dating certain. The vessel was a trader about 10 metres long. More than 30 amphorae remain, some still holding traces of what they carried, along with three large stone anchors, in about 30 metres of water. The previous oldest known wreck, off Dokos in Greece, is about 4,200 years old. The oldest intact wooden wreck, in the Black Sea off Bulgaria, is about 2,400. Researchers think the ship was bound for Troy or Minoan Crete. The wreck belongs to Türkiye's Ministry of Culture. Culture minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said recovered objects will go to a new Mediterranean underwater archaeology museum in Antalya. That museum is not open yet.