Kekova Wreck’s Age Claim Remains Disputed

Archaeologists have documented an Early Bronze Age shipwreck near Kekova Island off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, dating it to about 4,400 to 4,700 years ago based on pottery recovered from the site. The excavation team says the wreck may be the oldest known, but that status remains disputed because the age has not been established through direct radiocarbon dating and an external archaeologist says it could be contemporary with the Dokos wreck. The site lies about 30 metres underwater. Researchers report finding more than 30 ceramic storage vessels, known as amphorae, and three stone anchors. The wooden hull has not survived, so archaeologists have estimated the wreck’s age by comparing the vessels’ shapes and decoration with pottery from the Early Bronze Age found elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. The team, led by Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, places the ceramics within a range of roughly 4,400 to 4,700 years old. Öniz and his colleagues argue that the evidence makes the Kekova wreck older than the previously identified Dokos shipwreck in Greece.