Uluburun Shipwreck

Uluburun Late Bronze Age Shipwreck

Uluburun is Turkish for "Grand Cape".
Wooden model of the ship's reconstruction
Site of the wreck 50 m (160 ft) off the eastern shore of Uluburun, and 6 mi (9.7 km) to the southeast of Kaş, Turkey
Location	Uneven slope of the headland's shelf, 44 m (144 ft) to 52 m (171 ft) deep, with artifacts down to 61 m (200 ft)
Region	Bay of Antalya, off the Turquoise Coast.
Coordinates	36°7′43″N 29°41′9″E / 36.12861°N 29.68583°E / 36.12861; 29.68583Coordinates: 36°7′43″N 29°41′9″E / 36.12861°N 29.68583°E / 36.12861; 29.68583
Type	Site of a sunken ship
Length	About 10 m (33 ft) N-S, horizontal plot plan
Width	About 18 m (59 ft) E-W, horizontal plot-plan
Area	180 m2 (1,900 sq ft), horizontal plot-plan
Height	Depth differential is 8 m (26 ft) vertical, with scattered artifacts, 17 m (56 ft)
History
Builder	Unknown. The cargo was probably Syrian, deduced from the major type of ingot
Material	Wooden, single-mast, two-prow (stem, stern) sailing ship with one steering oar on a side
Founded	Built after 1305 BCE; date obtained by dendrochronological dating
Abandoned	Sank late 14th century BCE
Periods	Late Bronze Age
Cultures	Mycenaean, Cypriote, Syrian, judging by the pottery
Associated with	Crew of the merchant vessel
Events	Collision with the headland, perhaps wind-driven
Site notes
Excavation dates	Excavational dives directed by George Bass in 1984, and Cemal Pulak in 1985-1994
Archaeologists	George F. Bass, Cemal Pulak
Condition	Conservation, sampling and study are ongoing
Ownership	Republic of Turkey
Management	Institute of Nautical Archaeology, an international organization
Public access	Objects may be viewed in the exhibit at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Website	"Uluburun, Turkey".

The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun (Grand Cape), and about 6 miles southeast of Kaş, in south-western Turkey. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982 by Mehmed Çakir, a local sponge diver from Yalıkavak, a village near Bodrum.

Eleven consecutive campaigns of three to four months' duration took place from 1984 to 1994 totaling 22,413 dives, revealing one of the most spectacular Late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea

The shipwreck site was discovered in the summer of 1982 due to Mehmet Çakir’s sketching of “the metal biscuits with ears” recognized as oxhide ingots. Turkish sponge divers were often consulted by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology's (INA) survey team on how to identify ancient wrecks while diving for sponges. Çakir’s findings urged Oğuz Alpözen, Director of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, to send out an inspection team of the Museum and INA archaeologists to locate the wreck site. The inspection team was able to locate several amounts of copper ingots just 50 metres from the shore of Uluburun.

With the evidence provided from the cargo on the ship it can be assumed that the ship set sail from either a Cypriot or Syro-Palestinian port. The Uluburun ship was undoubtedly sailing to the region west of Cyprus, but her ultimate destination can be concluded only from the distribution of objects matching the types carried on board. It has been proposed that ship’s destination was a port somewhere in the Aegean Sea.Rhodes, at the time an important redistribution centre for the Aegean, has been suggested as a possible destination. According to the excavators of the shipwreck, the probable final destination of the ship was one of the Mycenaean palaces, in mainland Greece.

Peter Kuniholm of Cornell University was assigned the task of dendrochronological dating in order to obtain an absolute date for the ship. The results date the wood at 1305 BC, but given that no bark has survived it is impossible to determine an exact date and it can be assumed that the ship sank sometime after that date. Based on ceramic evidence, it appears that the Uluburun sank toward the end of the Amarna period, but could not have sunk before the time of Nefertiti due to the unique gold scarab engraved with her name found aboard the ship. For now, a conclusion that the ship sank at the end of the 14th century BC is accepted.