Archaeologists Find More Artifacts at Antikythera Shipwreck
Oct 12, 2014 by Sci-News.com
During a 2014 expedition to the famed 2,050-year-old Roman shipwreck off the remote island of
Antikythera in Greece, underwater archaeologists from the ‘Return to Antikythera’ project have
produced a detailed 3D map of the wreck site and uncovered a number of new artifacts, including
tableware, a giant bronze spear, and ship components.
The Antikythera shipwreck was first discovered in
October 1900 by a team of Greek sponge divers led
by Captain Dimitrios Kondos.
It dates from the 1st century BC (85-50 BC) and is
thought to have been carrying looted treasures from
the coast of Asia Minor to Rome, to support a
triumphal parade being planned for Julius Caesar.
Figure 1: Greek diver Alexandros Sotiriou discovers an
intact table jug and a bronze rigging ring. Image credit:
Brett Seymour / Return to Antikythera.
The island of Antikythera stands in the middle of this
major shipping route and the ship probably sank
when a violent storm smashed it against the island’s
sheer cliffs.
In 1901, the Greek divers recovered a rich collection of ancient artifacts from the wreck site, including
bronze and marble statues, jewelry, furniture, luxury
glassware, and a surprisingly complex device known
as Antikythera Mechanism.
The latter is widely considered to be one of the most
important archeological artifacts ever found.
Sometimes described as the first mechanical computer,
the bronze device was constructed during the period
150-100 BC.
It was originally housed in a wooden-framed case of
overall size 31.5x19x10 cm and had front and back doors,
with astronomical inscriptions covering much of the
exterior.
Its remaining fragments contain 30 gears in a highly
complex arrangement. Technological artifacts of similar
complexity did not appear until 1,000 years later.
Figure 2: Top: 82 surviving fragments of the Antikythera
Mechanism. Image credit: T. Freeth et al, 2006. Bottom:
reconstruction of the Antikythera Mechanism by Allan
Bromley and Frank Percival. Image credit: Allan Bromley.
As most of the cargo of the wreck was from the eastern Mediterranean, archaeologists had thought that
this was where the Antikythera Mechanism originated too. But a recent study suggested that the device
may have come from Syracuse in Sicily, the Corinthian colony where Archimedes devised a planetarium
in the 3rd century BC.
For decades, archaeologists have wondered if more fragments of the device or other ancient artifacts
remain buried beneath the sea bed.
Now, the ‘Return to Antikythera’ project team has revisited the wreck site using state-of-the-art
technology.
During their first season, from September 15 to October 7, 2014, the archaeologists have created a highresolution 3D map of the site and recovered a series of finds.
Components of the ship, including multiple lead anchors over
a 1-meter-long and a bronze rigging ring with fragments of
wood still attached, prove that much of the ship survives.
The finds are also scattered over a much larger area than the
sponge divers realized, covering 300 meters of the seafloor.
This together with the huge size of the anchors and
recovered hull planks proves that the Antikythera ship was
much larger than previously thought, perhaps up to 50
meters long.
“The evidence shows this is the largest ancient shipwreck
ever discovered,” said team member Dr Brendan Foley of the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The team also recovered a beautiful intact table jug, part of
an ornate bed leg, and most impressive of all, a 2-meter-long
Figure 3: Return to Antikythera project chief diver
Philip Short inspects the bronze spear recovered
from the Antikythera Shipwreck. Image credit:
Brett Seymour / Return to Antikythera.
bronze spear buried just beneath the surface of the sand.
“Too large and heavy to have been used as a weapon, it must
have belonged to a giant statue, perhaps a warrior or the
goddess Athena,” Dr Foley said.
In 1901, four giant marble horses were discovered on the wreck by the sponge divers, so these could
have formed part of a complex of statues involving a warrior in a chariot that was pulled by the four
horses.The team plans to return next year to excavate the site further and recover more of the ship’s
precious cargo.