Researchers Discover Oldest Known Deep-Sea Cargo Ship, Israel Antiquities Authority Reports

[jemhouston]

https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/20/isra ... ship-jars/

Researchers Discover Oldest Known Deep-Sea Cargo Ship, Israel Antiquities Authority Reports
Sunken Ship Reef with Marine Life
Image by Pablo Stanley/Lummi





ILAN HULKOWER
CONTRIBUTOR
June 20, 2024
12:12 PM ET
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The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) tweeted Thursday that a company found a cargo ship dating back 3,300 years deep at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

The ship still contained “hundreds of intact jars,” the IAA said in Hebrew, while sharing a photo of two of the preserved jars.


The IAA said that the discovery overturned the belief that Late Bronze Age seafarers could not navigate their ship without sight of the shore, The Times of Israel reported.




“Only two other shipwrecks with cargo are known from the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean Sea … both found off the Turkish coast. Yet both of those shipwrecks were found relatively close to shore,” Jacob Sharvit, head of IAA, said, the outlet reported.


“The discovery of this boat now changes our entire understanding of ancient mariner abilities. It is the very first to be found at such a great distance with no line of sight to any landmass,” Sharvit added. (RELATED: REPORT: Former Coast Guard Pilot Discovers 155-Year-Old Shipwreck)

The ship was discovered as a result of natural gas company Energean’s standard survey of the Eastern Mediterranean floor in Israeli waters, the outlet reported. The survey discovered what appeared to be large piles of jars littering the seabed and led to the company alerting IAA about their finds, The Times of Israel reported.

“We are in ongoing contact with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and when we sent them the images it turned out to be a sensational discovery, far beyond what we could imagine,” Karnit Bahartan, environmental lead at Energean, said, the outlet noted.

[kdahm]

The IAA said that the discovery overturned the belief that Late Bronze Age seafarers could not navigate their ship without sight of the shore, The Times of Israel reported.

I thought this had been known for quite some time. Sailing within sight of shore could be very dangerous, what with current, winds towards shore, shoaling waters and reefs, and that it becomes invisible on moonless nights.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

"Sailing within sight of shore could be very dangerous, what with..."

And pirates.
Don't forget the pirates...

FWIW, I've grabbed those pot pics as they solve a future plot-hole in 'City of Fresno'...

[jemhouston]

"Sailing within sight of shore could be very dangerous, what with..."

And pirates.
Don't forget the pirates...

FWIW, I've grabbed those pot pics as they solve a future plot-hole in 'City of Fresno'...

Check the links to see if you can't find more.

[Pdf27]

One note: a single shipwreck in the open sea doesn't men that they were deliberately travelling offshore regularly. It's certainly the way to bet, but we need more of them to be confident that it wasn't an accident which led to them sinking in the first place.

[Nightwatch2]

One note: a single shipwreck in the open sea doesn't men that they were deliberately travelling offshore regularly. It's certainly the way to bet, but we need more of them to be confident that it wasn't an accident which led to them sinking in the first place.

Blown out to sea in a storm.

I have seen some rough weather in the Med….

[Johnnie Lyle]

One note: a single shipwreck in the open sea doesn't men that they were deliberately travelling offshore regularly. It's certainly the way to bet, but we need more of them to be confident that it wasn't an accident which led to them sinking in the first place.

Blown out to sea in a storm.

I have seen some rough weather in the Med….

Which may be a much better reason for mariners to stick close to shore - they may have figured it was better to risk a lee shore to be closer to harbor than try to ride a storm out further out to see.

On the flip side, a lot of key trade routes in the Med absolutely have to take you out of sight of land to be economical, such as Carthage to Iberia, North Africa to Rome, across the Adriatic or from Egypt to Rome.

[kdahm]

One note: a single shipwreck in the open sea doesn't men that they were deliberately travelling offshore regularly. It's certainly the way to bet, but we need more of them to be confident that it wasn't an accident which led to them sinking in the first place.

Blown out to sea in a storm.

I have seen some rough weather in the Med….

Which may be a much better reason for mariners to stick close to shore - they may have figured it was better to risk a lee shore to be closer to harbor than try to ride a storm out further out to see.

On the flip side, a lot of key trade routes in the Med absolutely have to take you out of sight of land to be economical, such as Carthage to Iberia, North Africa to Rome, across the Adriatic or from Egypt to Rome.

I think there's a lot of the latter. Once the ship is dedicated to crossing the Mediterranean, it doesn't really matter whether it's to another place along the shoreline or crossing totally. Anywhere to or from either the boot of Italy or the Peloponnese, staying in sight of shore would lengthen the trip two to fourfold. Plus in the Northern hemisphere, storm fronts typically move from West to East, and there is a lot of lee shore when that happens.

Some information from a quick google below.
https://nuttersworld.com/ancient-trade- ... anean-sea/

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Loc ... _228960254

Location and direction of main winds in the Mediterranean region. Note that there are discrepancies between related terms in the different languages. In the French language, Mistral is the northerly wind descending along the Rhone Valley and blowing in the region of Provence, towards the western Mediterranean and Tramontane the northwesterly wind belonging to the same system and blowing in the Roussillon region. In the Italian language Tramontana is a northerly wind and Maestrale the dominant northwesterly wind blowing over most of the western Mediterranean Sea. Tramontana (or Tramuntana) is also the name of the northerly wind (belonging to the Mistral system) in Catalan and Spanish languages, blowing in the north of Catalonia and north of the Balearics.

[Craiglxviii]

One note: a single shipwreck in the open sea doesn't men that they were deliberately travelling offshore regularly. It's certainly the way to bet, but we need more of them to be confident that it wasn't an accident which led to them sinking in the first place.

I think it was Patrick O’Brien who had the absolutely certain idea that ancient Mediterranean seafarers absolutely would not hug the coast, given the vast number of islands and shoals especially in the East; it made little sense from a nautical perspective’

[Micael]

I think that it’s worth pointing out that as far as the time saving aspect goes, even pretty rudimentary navigation that that allows you to cross the open waters at all will save you a lot of time, even if you miss your destination by a fair margin and have to sail along the coast for a while to get to it. Still much faster than sailing along the coast the whole way.

[Pdf27]

I think it was Patrick O’Brien who had the absolutely certain idea that ancient Mediterranean seafarers absolutely would not hug the coast, given the vast number of islands and shoals especially in the East; it made little sense from a nautical perspective’

Need to be careful here. We know that based on modern maps and (probably) navigation technology plus ancient ships it makes sense to sail in a straight line as the journey would be much shorter and therefore safer. By classical times the technology and understanding was clearly there, as shown by the deep sea shipwrecks we've found from that time.

At the moment we're inferring that the technology must have existed from a single shipwreck for which there are alternative plausible explanations. Now a large part of this is that we haven't been looking very much in the deeper parts of the Mediterranean, which will resolve itself in time. Until then, probably best to treat this as an interesting data point and no more.