Level 1 - Absolute Beginner
Divers in Turkey have found a very old ship under the sea. It may be the oldest shipwreck in the world.
The ship is near Kekova Island, in the south of Turkey. It is about 30 metres deep. Experts think it is about 4,500 to 4,700 years old.
The wood of the ship is gone. But the divers found pots on the sea floor. The pots help experts know the age of the ship.
Scientists from Akdeniz University found the ship. They say more work is needed before they can be sure.
- shipwreck
- A ship that sank and lies under the sea.
- diver
- A person who swims deep under water.
- island
- Land with water all around it.
- pot
- A clay container.
- wood
- The hard material from trees.
- oldest
- The most old.
- sea floor
- The bottom of the sea.
- expert
- A person who knows a lot about something.
Level 2 - Elementary
Archaeologists in Turkey say they have found what may be the oldest known shipwreck in the world. It lies about 30 metres under the Mediterranean Sea, off Kekova Island near the city of Antalya.
A team from Akdeniz University, led by Hakan Oniz, first recorded the wreck in an underwater survey in 2024. This year they began digging with the Antalya Museum. They believe the ship belongs to the Early Bronze Age, about 4,500 to 4,700 years ago.
The wooden hull has disappeared, so the team dated the wreck from its pottery. They compared the shapes and decorations of the pots with objects from other sites.
The earlier record holder was the Dokos wreck near Greece, found in 1975 and dated to about 2200 BC. Some reports say the new claim is still provisional, because the dig is not finished.
- archaeologist
- A scientist who studies the past from objects in the ground or sea.
- shipwreck
- The remains of a ship that sank.
- survey
- A careful look at an area to record it.
- Bronze Age
- A time long ago when people made tools from bronze.
- hull
- The main body of a ship.
- pottery
- Objects made of baked clay.
- record
- The best or biggest result so far.
- provisional
- Not final; may change.
Level 3 - Intermediate
Turkish archaeologists announced this month that a wreck lying about 30 metres down off Kekova Island, near Antalya, may be the oldest known shipwreck anywhere. Researchers from Akdeniz University, led by Hakan Oniz, put its age at roughly 4,500 to 4,700 years, placing it in the Early Bronze Age.
The team first documented the site during an underwater survey in 2024, and excavations began this year under the Antalya Museum Directorate. Because the wooden hull has long since vanished, the date rests on pottery: the shapes and decoration of the vessels were compared with finds from dated sites on land.
If the estimate holds, the wreck would overtake the Dokos wreck off Greece, which was found in 1975 and whose ceramic cargo is dated to around 2200 BC. The Culture Minister has promoted the discovery as a record, although some outlets describe it as only believed to be the oldest.
The label is likely to stay provisional until the excavation is finished and the pottery can be tested further. Even so, a trading vessel of this age suggests that sea routes along the southern Anatolian coast carried goods far earlier than many textbooks assume.
- documented
- Recorded carefully with notes and images.
- excavation
- The careful digging of an archaeological site.
- vanished
- Disappeared completely.
- vessel
- A ship, or a container such as a pot.
- ceramic
- Made of baked clay.
- cargo
- Goods carried by a ship.
- overtake
- To pass and become the first.
- assume
- To believe without proof.
Level 4 - Advanced
If a claim made this month survives scrutiny, the oldest known shipwreck in the world no longer lies off Greece but off the southern coast of Turkey. Archaeologists from Akdeniz University, led by Hakan Oniz, say a wreck roughly 30 metres beneath the Mediterranean off Kekova Island, near Antalya, dates to the Early Bronze Age, some 4,500 to 4,700 years ago.
The evidence is indirect. The ship's timbers have rotted away, so the team has dated the site by typology: the forms and decoration of its pottery were set against objects from securely dated land sites. That method is standard, yet it yields a range rather than a point, and the researchers themselves, who first recorded the wreck in a 2024 survey before excavation began this year under the Antalya Museum Directorate, have not declared the dig complete.
The record to beat is the Dokos wreck, found off Greece in 1975, whose ceramic cargo is generally placed around 2200 BC. The Culture Minister has embraced the superlative, while some outlets, more cautiously, report that the wreck is merely believed to be the oldest.
Whatever the final ranking, the find sharpens a larger point. A trading vessel of this antiquity implies organised maritime commerce along the Anatolian coast at a time when much of the Mediterranean world is still imagined as land-bound. The cargo, once studied, may show what was traded and between whom.
- scrutiny
- Careful and critical examination.
- timbers
- Wooden beams of a ship.
- typology
- Classifying objects by their shape and style.
- securely dated
- With an age that is firmly established.
- superlative
- A claim that something is the best, oldest or biggest.
- antiquity
- Great age; ancient times.
- maritime
- Connected with the sea.
- land-bound
- Limited to travel or activity on land.
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