JERUSALEM, Israel – A London-based energy company exploring the floor of the eastern Mediterranean has discovered the world’s most ancient ship ever found in the deep seas.
The ship contains completely intact pottery vessels used for storage, and is believed to be between 3,300 and 3,400 years old – perhaps just before the time Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.
Workers for the Energean company found the ship in an extremely deep area of the sea, more than a mile below the surface and between 50 and 60 miles from the coast. Energean was taking a routine survey of the sea floor, and when the ship was found, it launched a mission to extract samples of the cargo, identified as Canaanite vessels from the Late Bronze Age.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) will conduct further investigations of the unique discovery.
Jacob Sharvit, who heads the IAA’s Marine Unit, explained, “The ship seems to have sunk in crisis, either due to a storm or to an attempted piracy attack – a well-known occurrence in the Late Bronze Age.”
He added, “This find reveals to us as never before the ancient mariners’ navigational skills, capable of traversing the Mediterranean Sea without a line of sight to any coast. From this
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