Ship graveyard discovered by underwater archaeologists

Heritage Daily ^ | March 27, 2026 | Mark Milligan

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Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw have discovered a concentration of shipwrecks near the ancient port of Ptolemais in northern Libya... one of the five cities that formed the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, established by the Ptolemaic dynasty between the late 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The city emerged as a major hub for maritime trade until the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD.

Covering a stretch of over 100 metres, the large concentration of submerged material suggests that multiple shipwrecks accumulated over time as a navigational danger for ships approaching the harbour.

After a 13-year hiatus due to the Libyan civil war, Polish and local experts have conducted extensive studies of both land and underwater archaeological features, focusing on the acropolis and the submerged remains of the port...

"We found ancient columns, traces of submerged roads, numerous dropped anchors, and probes used to explore the seabed in antiquity. We will be examining all of this in the coming seasons", added Kontny.

The shipwreck zone lies near a shallow rock formation, likely responsible for many of the disasters. Among the recovered artefacts were fragments of cargo such as amphorae and a bronze aequipodium -- a component of a Roman balance scale shaped like a woman's head.

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: cyrenaica; godsgravesglyphs; libya; pentapolis; ptolemais; romanempire; shipwreck; shipwrecks

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Image Credit : Roman milestone -- Szymon Lenarczyk

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Closeup of a Roman scale weight shaped like a head
from Pompeii Bronze 1st century CE