A 21 metre long ancient Greek vessel dating to c. 500 BC has been raised to the surface off Sicily. The wooden vessel was found by scuba divers in 1988, 800 metres from the ancient Greek colony and port of Gela. Parts of the vessel and the cargo have already been raised.
Over thirty-five years ago Michael Katzev excavated the 'oldest Greek ship,' a Hellenistic merchant vessel which sank off the north coast of Cyprus near Kyrenia sometime between 310 and 300 B.C. (This image is used with permission from and thanks to the National Geographic Society.) Dr. Katzev estimates that the ship was about 70-80 years old when she went down. Some planks are from the original ship; others are from patches, or from patches to the patches. Last summer, after three years of accumulating the appropriate permissions, we were able to bring back pieces of 32 planks from the Kyrenia wreck. They were all soaked in PEG (polyethylene glycol), so we had to dissolve at least the surface layer so that we can see the rings. Work on the Kyrenia wood is going on as I write. Two of the planks measured this week had 131 and 124 rings, and I thought I spotted another at the time of collection with 150 rings, so there is hope that a useful chronology will emerge.
