Free Republic

Underwater excavations near Kaş, Antalya, on Turkey's southwestern coast, have yielded fascinating insights into ancient Mediterranean seafaring and trade. A team led by Associate Professor Dr. Hakan Öniz from Akdeniz University has been exploring a shipwreck dating back 1,100 years, during the Abbasid rule in the 9th-10th centuries. The discoveries highlight the crucial role of olives for sailors and have unearthed a rare sealed amphora, sparking excitement among archaeologists...The shipwreck, located at a depth of 45-50 meters near Besmi Island, was found to be carrying a cargo of olive oil. According to historical accounts and the typology of amphorae discovered,...

Marine archaeologists have identified 10 shipwrecks, including one from the Roman era, in the waters around a Greek island in the Mediterranean. The finds came to light during a multiyear project carried out by a team in collaboration with Greece's National Hellenic Research Foundation and the country's Ministry of Culture. The project has been surveying an area around the island of Kasos, which lies in the Aegean Sea, a portion of the Mediterranean between the Greek peninsula to the west and Turkey's Anatolia peninsula to the east. "This research was conducted to shed light on the maritime history of the...

Researchers exploring the waters off the Greek Island of Kefallinia have unearthed one of the largest Roman-era shipwrecks ever found.As Julia Buckley reports for CNN, a team from Greece's University of Patras located the remains of the ship, as well as its cargo of 6,000 amphorae—ceramic jugs used for shipping—while conducting a sonar scan of the area. The 110-foot-long vessel, newly detailed in the Journal of Archaeological Science, was situated at a depth of 197 feet.According to the paper, the "Fiscardo" wreck (named after a nearby fishing port) was one of several identified during cultural heritage surveys undertaken in the...

An engineer was conducting a regular survey of the Mediterranean Sea off Egypt's coast when he noticed something in the water.It turned out to be a 2,300-year-old shipwreck, according to an Aug. 5 news release from Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.The ancient ship was discovered less than a half-mile off the coast of El-Alamein — which was an important commercial region during the third century BC, Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the release. The find gives more insight into Egypt's role as a center for trade, economy and tourism in ancient times.Archaeologists...

Archaeologists discovered a rare 1,700-year-old amphora during excavations at the Diyarbakir Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site in southeastern Turkey.Located in the historic Sur district, restoration work at the fortress is still being carried out by the Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality.The discovery was made during the fifth stage of the excavations, funded by the Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change and jointly carried out by the Diyarbakir Museum Directorate.Sermed Azizoglu, an official from the municipality's construction affairs office, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they would like to pass on the fortress' 2,000-year-old heritage to the next generations.Noting that the...

DALLAS -- A man broke into the Dallas Museum of Art and caused more than $5 million in damage, including smashing three ancient Greek artifacts before he was arrested, police said. Brian Hernandez, 21, is charged with criminal mischief of more than or equal to $300,000, which is punishable by five years to life in prison. He was booked Thursday into the Dallas County jail with bond set at $100,000. Jail records list no attorney for Hernandez. According to police, Hernandez used a metal chair to break into the museum about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday and began a destructive rampage. He...

An ancient trading ship carrying wine that lay undiscovered at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea for more than 2,000 years has been damaged and looted since being discovered by archaeologists, French authorities said Wednesday.The ship, named Fort Royal 1, is thought to have sunk off the coast of Cannes on the French Riviera during the second century BC.Divers tasked with the first official explorations of the wreck, which was discovered in 2017, found that some of the clay containers used to transport wine at the time had been removed by divers who had broken into the vessel."Well-conserved wrecks from...

If you’re like me, the last post on the convoluted origins of our favorite fermented condiment—ketchup—probably left you wondering: What is the difference between Roman garum than modern Thai fish sauce? What little I know comes from an experiment performed by Sally Grainger, author of Cooking Apicus, recounted in the book Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods. Grainger is a British chef and an experimental archeologist. She looked at studies on fish sauce amphorae (ceramic vessels) from archeological sites in Spain and North Africa. One of her more fascinating sources comes from a 2,000-year-old shipwreck discovered off the coast of Grado,...

The wreck of a Roman ship from the first century AD which is still whole and has over 500 wide-mouthed amphorae onboard has been discovered to the south of the island of Panarea... [announced] by the Regional Councillor for Cultural Heritage, Gaetano Armao, and by the Superintendent, Sebastiano Tusa. ''From the first surveys,'' said Tusa, ''we can establish that it is a merchant shipping measuring around 25 metres, in perfect condition, which transported fruit and vegetables from Sicily to the markets in the north. The style of the amphorae is in fact typical of the 'workshops' of the island and...

In spite of the mystery that usually surrounds ancient shipwrecks, it is almost certain that the ship was sailing a route between Italy, Spain and Portugal in order to transport a precious cargo of Roman garum. The clue lies in the shape of the clay jars, as the sauce itself has all since seeped into the sea. "After we filmed the wreck and analyzed an amphora [clay jar] and some fragments that a robotic craft brought back to the surface, we realized the ship was carrying a huge quantity of fish sauce when it sank," said Trigona. "The amphora are...

Professor Elizabeth Lyding Will (1924 - 2009...) was one of the world's leading authorities on amphoras, an ancient two-handled container that her research demonstrated to be vitally important for tracing ancient trade patterns and for opening windows on tremendous amounts of information about ancient life and commerce. In a 2000 article entitled "The Roman Amphora: learning from storage jars," she discusses the diverse uses of "the lowly Roman amphora -- a two-handled clay jar used by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans to ship goods," describing both its main usage for the transportation of liquids including wine, olive oil, and...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- During the latest season of excavations of the northern gate of Takht-e Suleiman, an ancient Zoroastrian fire temple located in northwestern Iran, the stamps of two seals were discovered which indicate that objects entered Takht-e Suleiman from other regions with special tags attached to them which seem to be advertisements. They signify that an early form of advertising was being practiced during the Sassanid era (224-642 C.E.), Yusef Moradi, the head of the excavation team, said on Friday. “The team began its excavations in early August and found the stamps of two seals at the upper levels...

Secrets of an ancient Persian armada sunk off the coast of Greece 2500 years ago are being dredged up by modern archaeologists. A team from Greece, Canada and the United States has just completed a second expedition to retrieve artefacts from 300 ships of the Persian King Darius that were wrecked in a storm off the Mt Athos Peninsula, northern Greece, in 492BC or 493BC. Aucklanders will be among the first to hear the results today when three of the expedition leaders present their findings in a free public lecture at Auckland University. In two trips so far, last October...