Cape Gelidonya shipwreck
A merchant ship wrecked around 1200 BC off Cape Gelidonya on the south coast of Turkey, carrying copper and tin ingots, scrap bronze and merchant weights. Its excavation in 1960 was the first archaeological excavation of an entire shipwreck under water. Where the ship came from is disputed.
Dated events and their evidence
- 1,200 BCE mainstream
c. 1200 BC: a merchant ship carrying copper and tin ingots, scrap metal, pottery and merchant weights sinks off the cape, about 27 m deep; its home port is disputed source - 1958 CE mainstream
on the last day of a visit with the Explorers Club, Peter Throckmorton's party, Honor Frost among them, locates the wreck off one of the small islands; a sponge-boat captain had told him of ancient sites on the seabed source - 1960 CE mainstream
Peter Throckmorton, George Bass, Joan du Plat Taylor and Frederic Dumas excavate it: the first archaeological excavation of an underwater shipwreck in its entirety source - 1977 CE mainstream
a metallurgical study of eight of its copper ingots finds them little different from ingots from Cyprus, Crete, Greece and Sardinia, and concludes that the ship's home port cannot be determined source
Where
36.1933° N, 30.4031° E
The point is Wikipedia's position for the cape; the wreck lies about 27 m deep off one of the small islands off its tip.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Gelidonya
- https://doi.org/10.2307/1005978
- https://doi.org/10.2307/529636
Each event carries Aion's own evidence grade (mainstream, disputed or speculative). This page repeats what the globe shows for this place.