Passage IV

A Mystery at 10,000 Feet Under the Sea

In 1999, a deep-ocean exploration team conducting an ocean-floor survey in the eastern Mediterranean Sea found something they didn't expect. In five places, their sonar system detected unexplained shapes at a depth of almost 10,000 feet when it is known as the Herodotus Abyssal Plain. Perplexed by the sonar data, the explorers lowered a remote-controlled vehicle to collect at one of the sites video images. These images made it clear: that the mysterious object was a shipwreck. However, the team was still puzzled about it's age.

Seeking an answer, the team sent the video and sonar images to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. When archaeologists analyzed the images, they recognized a group of amphoras—ancient jars for holding wine and oil—in the ship's hull. After the amphoras in the wreckage compares favorably with known amphoras from the end of the second century BC.

Although most of the ship was buried in ocean sediment, a deck beam and a small piece of wooden planking from the left forward portion of the wreck was visible. Both the beam and the planking appeared to be well preserved, analysts thought the rest of the left side of the ship could be intact also, preserved by the great depth and the cold. Archaeologists now are particularly interested in getting more complete data from this wreck since they want to know more. Archaeologists had previously thought that ships of this period always sailed close to coastlines because early sailors did not have the navigational skills to cover long distances over open water.

The videotaped wreck lies midway between the ancient trading centers of Rhodes and Alexandria. The four other shapes in this area detected by the sonar are likely to be shipwrecks, too. If they are all from the same time period, these wrecks would be the first evidence of sustained traffic over open-water routes during ancient times, forcing historians to create a new theory of ancient navigation.