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Carbon dated to 500 BC, the oldest vessel is 2,500 years old and resembles the ship depicted in the famous Siren Vase, now at the British Museum.
The second oldest of the 72 vessels recovered dates back to 200 AD.
Dr Kroum Batchvarov, who worked on the project, said: "We have complete vessel, with the masts still standing, with the quarter rudders in place.
"It is an incredible find. The first of its kind ever."
Because the Black Sea has no oxygen, the vessel has been so well preserved that even the monkfish bones, showing what Romans were eating, are intact on its deck.
"We even have the coils of line, of rope still as the bosun left them in the stern when the ship went down," Dr Batchvarov added. "This is unique."
“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), the team that made the find. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.”
The ship is believed to have been a trading vessel of a type that researchers say has only previously been seen “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum”.
That work, which dates from about the same period, depicts a similar vessel bearing Odysseus past the sirens, with the Homeric hero lashed to the mast to resist their songs.
The team said the data would be published at the Black Sea MAP conference at the Wellcome Collection in London later this week.
originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: theantediluvian
The same way porcupines make love, I suppose.
Carefully.
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Ship itself looks quite impressive, but will it yield historical insights such as the Uluburun (1400BC)?
Details in the articles I could find yesterday were sparse. No mention about cargo.