The Oldest Intact Shipwreck Ever Found is in the Black Sea

A Greek merchant ship dating back more than 2,400 years has been found lying on its side off the Bulgarian coast, some 2,000 metres (1.2 miles) under the waters of the Black Sea.

The  discovery has been "confirmed as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind. Radiocarbon-dated to roughly 400 B.C., the trading vessel plied the waves in the days of Plato and Sophocles, when the city-states of ancient Greece had scattered colonies all around the Black Sea. The ship some 23 metres long, is lying on its side, with the mast, the ship's rudder, and the rowing benches used by the crew all still in place, according to the researchers. Even the bones of fish eaten by the sailors on board have been spotted.

"A ship, surviving intact, from the Classical world, lying in over two kilometres of water, is something I would never have believed possible," the project's main investigator, Jon Adams from the University of Southampton in the UK, said in a statement. 

"This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring

in the ancient world."

There are two reasons the ship has been found in such good shape: firstly, it sunk into anoxic waters – with depleted levels of the oxygen that would otherwise have caused the wreck to deteriorate over the years. Secondly, it's really deep down, beyond the reach of divers and scavengers.

The ship is believed to have been a trading vessel of a type that researchers say has only previously been seen “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum”. That work, which dates from about the same period, depicts a similar vessel bearing Odysseus past the sirens, with the Homeric hero lashed to the mast to resist their songs. And although no one has ever seen a Greek trading ship of this age, the design is strikingly familiar to nautical archaeologists and historians. The wreck bears an undeniable resemblance to a ship painted on a vase from around 480 BCE. Now on display in the British Museum, the so-called Siren Vase depicts a scene from Homer’s Odyssey: Odysseus lashed to the mast of his ship as it passes the home of the Sirens.

The find is part of a larger scale operation called the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), which has so far identified more than 60 sunken vessels in the Black Sea over the course of three years. Advanced underwater camera systems, similar to those used for offshore oil and gas exploration projects, are deployed to scan the sea bed and any wrecks on it.