The mystery of an ancient sailing ship

However, there is a simple explanation for the secrecy of underwater archaeologists. The desire to protect a unique underwater find from inevitable plunder forced marine archaeologists to keep secret not only the location of the ship, but also to wait to announce the fact of the discovery of the ancient Greek shipwreck.

Alexey Ivlev, a direct participant in the underwater archaeological expedition and head of the southern branch of Dalgakiran, commented on the situation:

– History knows many examples when, after the announcement of an interesting or unique archaeological find, only the oral testimony of the discoverers remained about it for a rather short time. Sometimes antiquities found on the seabed are even more difficult to preserve than land excavations, and there are many examples of this. It’s hard to imagine, but the distant middle of the Atlantic and even the terrifying depth of 3700 meters, technically accessible today to only a dozen submersibles in the world, did not become an obstacle to the collectors. The legendary “wreckage field” of the Titanic, the area on the bottom between the bow and stern, once strewn with small objects that fell from the sinking ship, simply ceased to exist today. What can we say about more accessible depths and places?

Perhaps the only way to keep the wooden ancient Greek ship found, built around the fourth century BC, intact was to keep the discovery secret. In just a year since the summer of 2011, when a team of researchers from the Odesa Dive Club “Navarex Underwater Archaeological Expedition” discovered the wooden sailing ship, they managed to map the research area, divide it into squares, draw up a detailed map of the archaeological site and carefully mark all the objects found on the bottom, and found more than 1000 of them! A year later, the discovery itself was announced. However, in order to preserve the find in its original form for further scientific research, the exact location of the sunken ship has not yet been made public.

During this year, the ship discovered by the team of Oleksandr Tereshchenko, the club’s president and scientific director, received a Passport of the Sunken Object, and the object itself was included in the National Register of Cultural Heritage Monuments of Ukraine. Since then, the wreck has been under state protection, and any attempts to destroy it or lift artifacts are subject to criminal liability. Archaeologists believe that the ancient Greek ship near Zmiine will become as famous as the Swedish galleon Vasa, the ancient Egyptian sun boats, or the Cyrenean ship, one of the historical symbols of Cyprus. The discovery near Zmiine could become the largest archaeological discovery in Ukraine in the last ten years and an outstanding find on a global scale. There are not so many known ancient shipwrecks, and even those with hull details preserved after two and a half millennia. And there are only two of the Late Classical era! The discovery of the Odesa Underwater Archaeological Club, which made experienced Ukrainian archaeologists forget about restraint and speak in the pretentious language of newspaper headlines, was not an accident or just luck. These are 25 years of purposeful, systematic and painstaking searches around Zmeinyi Island, a place of mandatory anchorage and pilgrimage for ancient Black Sea sailors who left a trace in the island’s coastal waters. Fragments of amphorae and ancient anchors are often found around the rocky island. But an entire merchant ship is an exceptional find, and only true research perseverance, backed by the most modern underwater search equipment, made it possible for the long-standing dream of Odesa divers to come true.

Now the next expedition is heading to the wreck of the Patroclus, as divers from the Navarex club have christened the sunken sailing ship. Archaeologists hope to find out what the ship was carrying to the Northern Black Sea region. According to archaeology specialist Tatyana Samoilova, the ship’s cargo was most likely wine and olive oil, as well as black lacquer ceramics. Overseas rugs, scythians, and kanfars (cups and bowls for drinking) were found underwater. A detailed study of the ceramics should help scientists to clarify the date of the shipwreck. The results of the research will help determine this to the nearest decade. The place of departure is already clear: “Most of the amphorae that the guys have recovered come from the island of Peparet. This is the modern island of Skopelos in the western Aegean Sea, part of the Northern Sporades archipelago. On this basis, we can conclude that Patroclus originated from Peparet, a major wine-making center of the Hellenic Mediterranean,” says Dr. Samoilova.

Well, let’s wait for the results of the 2012 underwater expedition and learn further details about the fate of the Patroclus from the participants of the research.