Archaeologists have planned an expedition to excavate the Godavaya wreck off the coast of Sri Lanka in 2014.Image credit: Courtesy of the Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka
Posted on 06/26/2022 10:38:50 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The oldest known shipwreck in the Indian Ocean has been sitting on the seafloor off the southern coast of Sri Lanka for some 2,000 years...
The wreck lies 110 feet (33 meters) below the ocean's surface, just off the fishing village of Godavaya, where German archaeologists in the 1990s found a harbor that was an important port along the maritime Silk Road during the second century A.D...
"Everything's pretty broken," said Deborah Carlson, president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, who is leading the expedition to the Godavaya wreck with colleagues from the United States, Sri Lanka and France. However jumbled it is, the wreck could fill a gap in the existing evidence for the trade that brought metals and exotic commodities like silk from Asia to the Roman world.
Scholars believe trade between the East and West intensified after Rome annexed Egypt in the first century B.C., gaining access to the Red Sea, a gateway to the Indian Ocean. Trade routes are documented in literary and historical sources, Carlson noted, such as the "Periplus of the Red Sea," a Greek-language manual from the first century A.D. that tells sailors departing from the Mediterranean and Red Seas where to go in the Indian Ocean and what to take, sell and buy...
The first traces of the Godavaya wreck were discovered in 2003 when local fisherman dove down to the site and came up with ancient artifacts, including a grinding stone shaped like a small bench or footed table. Similar stones have been found at relic-rich Buddhist monuments known as stupas, Carlson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Archaeologists have planned an expedition to excavate the Godavaya wreck off the coast of Sri Lanka in 2014.Image credit: Courtesy of the Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka
The Ancient World Economy &
the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia & India
by Raoul McLaughlin
Kindle Edition
Excellent book!
I wholeheartedly agree.
How do they know it’s the ‘oldest’?.......................... 😜
Oldest known, obviously.
The rest of the "romantrade" keyword:
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