Archaeologists Discovered a Perfectly Preserved Roman Shipwreck

Hi, it's Katrina! The open ocean is the most dangerous, unforgiving road on Earth. But for Iron Age traders, it was the only highway for their most precious cargo. And now, their shipwrecks are time capsules, waiting to be found. Researchers have just discovered some incredible ancient shipwrecks full of ancient secrets that are changing history. So grab your snorkel and let's go! Lost Cargo From 3 Ancient Shipwrecks There are shipwrecks that tell stories, and then there are shipwrecks that hold grudges. Off Israel's Carmel Coast, in the ancient port of Dor, archaeologists have found not one, not two, but three Iron Age vessels. In the most convenient archaeological discovery in history, all three of these ancient ships were found buried beneath the same sandbar. It's like lifting up a loose board in an old cabin and finding three treasure chests. Each ship hails from a different century, each one is from a different geopolitical chapter, and yet all three ships somehow ended up in the same deadly spot. How? Things like this are not supposed to happen. Ports are supposed to handle trade, not swallow it. But the old port of Dor, perched between the empires of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia, appears to have had a bad habit of sinking ships. The team behind the discovery was led by Dr. Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Dr. Esafjasur Landau of the University of Haifa. They didn't simply throw on scuba tanks and start poking at the seabed. They unleashed every 21st century tool short of a time machine. They used 3D modeling, multispectral imaging, digital mapping, and crunched enough data to make Google nervous. They churned through a quarter of the Dor sandbar with all their high-tech instruments, peeling away layers of sediment to reveal snapshots of an ancient trade hub. Each snapshot is from a separate moment in the Iron Age. Think of it as an archaeological flipbook. Flip once, you're in the 11th century BC. Flip again, it's the 8th century. Flip one more time and you are watching the Babylonians muscle in and steal the show. The discoveries are unprecedented. They mark the first time that intact Iron Age ship cargo has ever been found inside a known port city in Israel. Up until now, scientists' understanding of this period's maritime economy came from the land. Land artifacts like pottery shards, trade ledgers, and the occasional diplomatic tantrum carved into stone. Now, for the first time, scientists have the goods in transit. They've actually got three Iron Age ships that were filled with trading goods when they sank inside the port. These ships didn't sink out at sea. They were right in the harbor. So what happened? The oldest wreck, known as Dor-Em, dates to roughly 3,000 years ago, a time when bronze was going out of style and iron was the new black. The ship's cargo included amphorae, storage jars, and an anchor scratched with mysterious Cypro-Minoan script. It's the ancient world's version of a shipping label written in a language that no one fully understands. To archaeologists, that anchor tells a story. I mean, it literally does tell a story on it, but no one can read that text. The story archaeologists are interested in isn't written down. They look at the artifact, know it was made in Cyprus, know it was exported through Egyptian clients, and know it ended up in Phoenicia. And that is what they are interested in. The anchor is evidence of a vast trading network that stretched from the Nile Delta to the island workshops of the Aegean Sea. It's proof of merchants who were basically the Amazon Prime couriers of the Iron Age, shipping ship parts on ships. Now there's a word salad for you. Dor-Em's artifacts confirm that Dor was a lively, multilingual trade hub at a time when seafaring meant balancing profit, fighting pirates, and praying the winds god doesn't sink your boat. The next shipwreck, Dor-El-1, dates to the late 9th or early 8th century BC. This was a slightly more subdued era in which Israelite influence held sway and international trade slowed way down. Political turmoil caused trade turmoil, and the cargo discovered on the seabed reflects that. The cargo showed fewer Egyptian imports, fewer Cypriot jars, but still a solid number of Phoenician-style amphorae and fine bowls. Archaeologists said clearly the 8th century was a quieter time. There appeared to have been no big naval alliances, no flamboyant empires flaunting their wealth at sea. Something must have happened that really kicked the Iron Age world in the shins. Even so, the port of Dor kept operating, sending and receiving whatever goods it could. And this, my friends, is proof that commerce, like gossip, always finds a way. The cargo of Dor-El-1 might lack glamour, but it offers something arguably more fascinating. Continuity. It shows that even in down times, the port was still as important as ever. And then there's Dor-El-2. Original, I know. The youngest and most spectacular of the finds. It dates from the late 7th or early 6th century BC, so only about a century or two after Dor-El-1. This was a period when Dor was thriving under the Babylonian Empire and later the Assyrian Empire. This was the Iron Age 2.0. More ships, more trade, more metal. Inside the wreck, the team found Cypriot-style amphorae, some still containing grape seeds. I don't think I need to explain to you how massive of a find that is. Grape seeds from nearly 3,000 years ago preserved in a jar underwater? How? So what do you suppose ship number three was carrying? Probably wine, right? The grape seeds definitely suggest wine, which was just as hot of a commodity in ancient times as it is now, if not more. People have always loved their wine. Archaeologists also found an anchor with wooden and lead components, which appears to be a hybrid design from the early days of industrial-scale metalwork. There were also slabs of metallic iron and slag, likely destined for smelting. And now for the big question. Why did three ships from three different centuries all meet their end in the same place? I'd love to blame angry seagulls and the ancient people probably did, but the truth is a little less mythical. It's probably the lagoon's fault. Dor's Lagoon, also known as Tantura, was a perfect natural harbor for ancient sailors, but it also had a dangerous sandbar that turned into a death trap for anyone who misread the wind. A lot of these ships probably hit the sandbar and sank, probably in the same general area. While only three ships have been found, there could be dozens, even hundreds more buried even deeper. Levy and Yasur Landau's team has only excavated about a quarter of the site, and they already suspect there is more buried treasure, possibly even a ship's hull. Given that Dor-Eltu's cargo was remarkably intact, the odds of finding a well-preserved ancient vessel are tantalizingly high. Honestly, this is a jackpot in the making. Three ships identified, a hull that might get found, plus who knows how many more ships lurking nearby like buried skeletons. The work continues right now with a blend of technology and patience. Scientists are digital mapping, using 3D reconstruction, and offering the occasional prayer to Poseidon to keep the waves calm. Each new artifact rewrites another line of Iron Age history, revealing how trade, empire, and innovation shaped the Mediterranean long before Rome or Greece stole the spotlight. The Ghost Ship of Gozo It began as so many great maritime discoveries do with a blip on a sonar screen. In 2007, while scanning the seabed off Gozo's Slendy Bay, an area better known for sunbathers and submarines, a team of remote-sensing researchers detected a curious anomaly. At first, it looked like nothing more than a geological bump, the underwater equivalent of a suspicious mole. But when they investigated further, they realized they had stumbled upon something far rarer. The team had just won the lottery. That little bump turned out to be the remains of a Phoenician cargo vessel, resting serenely 350 feet below the surface, where sunlight fades and scuba dreams go to die. This wasn't just another wreck. It was a time capsule from the 7th century BC, a ship from the age when Phoenician traders ruled the seas, when Tyre and Sidon were the Silicon Valleys of maritime commerce, and when the Mediterranean was basically one large shipping lane. And so began the saga of the Slendy Wreck, the world's most inconveniently placed museum exhibit. To understand more about it, and more about those other three Iron Age shipwrecks, let's take a stroll down memory lane. Let me tell you a little bit more about the Phoenicians, the original seafaring civilization. Before the Greeks started philosophizing and the Romans started conquering, the Phoenicians were out there doing what every great civilization eventually learned to do, selling things. The Phoenicians capitalized on trade in ways that hadn't really been seen before. They were the maritime entrepreneurs of the ancient world, plying the Mediterranean with ships full of wine, oil, dyes, and stories. And it made them rich, rich beyond any civilization's wildest dreams. Their homeland, modern Lebanon and southwestern Syria, was all mountains and coastline, so their economic success depended entirely on the sea. These people didn't just learn to sail, they invented the idea of celestial navigation, using the stars to steer their ships long before GPS, or even the letters GPS had been invented. But despite their prowess, only a handful of Phoenician shipwrecks have ever been found. The Slendi wreck is one of them, and what a great specimen it is. The Slendi was a merchant vessel about 50 feet long and was likely crewed by a gang of experienced sailors. Merchant vessels were only one type of Phoenician ship. They also had a specific type of ship for combat, which had a square sail and two banks of oars for easy maneuvering. Then they had two types of trading vessels. The fact they had more trading ships than warships really tells you something. These people were all about the money, the economy, and success. They weren't all about war, which could explain why they don't exist anymore. Unfortunately, the wreck is deep. At over 350 feet down, the wreckage is at a depth where every minute costs an hour of decompression. The first underwater excavation didn't even happen until 2018, more than a decade after its discovery. Good news is, by then, technology had caught up with curiosity. A team led by maritime archaeologist Dr. Timmy Gambon from the University of Malta deployed specialized technical divers to explore the wreck. They were equipped with rebreathers and enough underwater lights to make Poseidon squint. They spent their precious 15-minute working windows documenting and recovering a small sample of artifacts. They managed to salvage amphorae, urns, and even one rare flat-bottomed Greek amphora. This was the Iron Age equivalent of finding Ikea and Gucci products in the same lost shipping container. All these relics now rest safely in Gozo's Heritage Malta Exhibition Hall, a few feet above sea level and dry as a bone, and there are still more artifacts to find. In August 2020, as the world above grappled with lockdowns, masks, and uninspired singalongs, Gambon's team returned to Gozo under strict COVID-19 protocols for another five-week campaign. Just don't ask me how scientists in full-body scuba suits breathing their own oxygen practice social distancing. COVID aside, their mission was clear, to excavate deeper and recover more of the ship's cargo without disturbing its delicate structure. They used submersible hydraulic hoses to carefully siphon away the sand. Then they used special lifting bags to raise amphorae to the surface in custom cages. They even used an arsenal of digital recording gear to map the site in minute detail. This last part helped the most. By creating a digital map of the site, the team identified more amphorae, ceramic fragments, and wooden hull pieces. It was like the artifacts suddenly glowed, allowing archaeologists to find them easily. They even found evidence of a mortise and tenon joint. For those not up to date on their shipbuilding lingo, the mortise and tenon joint is evidence of the Lego-like woodworking method used to assemble the ship's frame. It was surprisingly advanced shipbuilding considering the wheel was still a new invention. That discovery alone makes the Zlendi wreck a star in shipbuilding history. It's one of the earliest examples of this joinery style in Mediterranean maritime construction, which is a big deal. For archaeologists, that's like finding the Rosetta stone of boat design. And if you'd like to see the wreck with your own eyes, that can be arranged. And you don't even need to leave the comfort of your own home. You can now visit the Zlendi wreck from your couch. Heritage Malta, in partnership with the University of Malta, launched a virtual underwater museum that lets anyone explore the wreck in full 3D. Go ahead and check it out after this video. The shipwreck is cool, and so is the technology behind the museum. It uses photogrammetry to show the shipwreck in all of its detail. It's a process that stitches thousands of overlapping photographs into one accurate interactive model. Online visitors can navigate the ship's graveyard using just a mouse or a VR headset. You can zoom in on amphorae, rotate grinding stones, or float around like a very nosy fish ghost. All without needing three hours of decompression or a diving certification that costs more than a used car. So what do you say? Will you take the online tour? Or are you the type who'd rather dive nearly 400 feet into grim darkness and explore the wreck yourself with a flashlight? The Shipwreck of North Sentinel Island Just the name North Sentinel Island gives people the chills. If you didn't get chills, maybe you don't remember what happened to that missionary who tried to spread the gospel to the Sentinelese and was killed. His name was John Chow, and he was definitely not invited. Nobody is invited to North Sentinel Island. It's been off-limits since 1956. It's also been totally isolated for tens of thousands of years, so the people living on the island are pretty much still in the Stone Age. They don't want any contact with the outside world. And they definitely didn't want an American YouTuber trying to reach them, which happened earlier this year, and saw the American arrested. It was lucky the Sentinelese didn't kill him. But if this island is so forbidden, what's up with this sunken ship on its coastline? The thing is, the Bay of Bengal, where North Sentinel Island is located, isn't particularly kind to ships. A vessel called the Primrose learned that the hard way. On the night of August 2nd, 1981, the 16,000-ton freighter hauling chicken feed from Bangladesh to Australia blundered into a storm. The storm was brutal. Waves the size of small office buildings battered the Primrose for hours before she struck a coral reef and ran aground, just off a small, lush island that looked, at first, like paradise. After a long night of being punched in the hull by the ocean, the sight of this lush, tropical island was beyond welcome. The captain, Liu Chenglong, must have breathed a sigh of relief. They were near land. The ship wasn't sinking yet, and the crew was safe. All was going to work out in the end. But then, the island started moving. At dawn, the men peered through binoculars at North Sentinel Island. The islanders, emerging from the treeline, wore no clothes, no shoes, and had the unimpressed expressions of people with zero interest in hosting visitors. They also carried bows, arrows, and long spears. Much to the dismay of those on the Primrose, they began shouting across the surf. North Sentinel is home to the Sentinelese people, one of the last uncontacted tribes on Earth. They have lived on this island for an estimated 60,000 years, rejecting all contact with the outside world. One of the most important things for the Sentinelese is that the outside world stay away from them. The way they go about it involves shooting arrows, which is what they did, firing warning shots at the Primrose. The crew is not happy. Keep in mind that although the ship hadn't sunk, it wasn't moving. The crew was stuck and couldn't get out of the shallows. And on August 4th, Captain Liu was done pretending he had stumbled upon the best unknown vacation spot in the area. He needed a plan because things were looking dire. The men on board had been watching helplessly as the Sentinelese crafted makeshift boats on the shoreline. It looked like they were preparing a war party. Fearing for their lives, the captain radioed the Regent Shipping Company in Hong Kong, firing off a cable that would go down in maritime legend. This is the message he sent. Wild men, estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons are making two or three wooden boats, worrying they will board us at sunset. All crew members' lives not guaranteed. That's exactly the kind of message you send when you realize that Castaway has suddenly turned into an apocalypse now. Liu even requested an airdrop of guns to fend off what he described as wild island people. And while you might make an argument that wild island people is offensive, think of how confused the crew was. This was before the internet. They had no idea who these islanders were. But every time the crew looked to shore, they saw tribesmen dragging canoes into the surf, waving spears and shouting. The next several days were pure tension. Gale force winds prevented the Sentinelese canoes from reaching the wreck, so the crew remained safe. But the bad weather also kept Indian rescuers from reaching the stranded sailors. For one week, the men of the Primrose stood guard 24 hours a day, fashioning makeshift weapons from pipes, axes, and flare guns. Imagine being trapped on a steel island, staring down the Stone Age with a road flare. The Sentinelese, equally alarmed by the strange metal monster lodged on their reef, paced the beach, shouting and brandishing weapons while storms roared overhead. It was as if they thought the Primrose was a demon spat out of the ocean. Somewhere in Hong Kong, shipping executives were trying to decide whether sending a helicopter or sending condolences was the more practical option. At last, when the weather broke, Indian helicopters swooped in. The Sentinelese watched from the beach as the crew was winched one by one into the sky. Well, some watched. Others fired off arrows at the people being rescued. Luckily, it was still pretty windy and all the arrows were scattered harmlessly into the surf. No blood was spilled. Not this time, anyway. The 31 crewmen were safe. As for their ship, some things are better left abandoned. The Primrose remains maroon forever on the reef. Over time, the sea claimed most of the hull, but the skeletal remains of the Primrose still lie there today, gleaming through the turquoise shallows like a half-remembered myth. The shipwreck might not be ancient, but it did stumble upon an ancient piece of the world. This island is one of the few places left where it's still okay to be wild and shoot arrows. Remember John Chow? The seven people who helped him reach the island were arrested, but none of the tribe's men saw a day in court. The bottom line is that they are respected by the government, and they are bound by no modern laws. If you step foot on their island, they can fill you with arrows. They also killed two fishermen who accidentally ended up on their island. So, in case you were thinking about visiting North Sentinel Island on your next vacation, be sure to get a refund. The World's Oldest Shipwreck In the quiet waters between Hydra and the uninhabited rock of Dokos lies the grave of a ship older than every Greek myth that ever made it into print. This boat set sail before the first lines of Homer, before the Trojan helmets, and before the marble columns of Mycenae. The boat in question is an ancient merchant vessel that sank 4,200 years ago. And while its wooden bones have long since been consumed by the sea, its ceramic soul is intact. Discovered in 1975 by underwater archaeologist Peter Throckmorton, one of those rare figures who treated shipwrecks like libraries rather than treasure chests, the Dokos wreck became an archaeological time machine. It rests between 50 and 100 feet deep, so it's shallow enough that you can snorkel over it. But you can't physically see it 100 feet below you. The issue with the oldest known shipwreck on Earth is that it's not really ship-shaped anymore. What remains is not the ship itself, but its ghostly cargo of more than 500 ceramic vessels, sauceboats, urns, cups, and amphorae. All these ceramic treasures are scattered all over the ocean floor. You've heard a lot about amphorae and urns today, so you might be wondering what's up with that. Well, these things were the go-to containers of the early world, sort of like Bronze Age Tupperware. The jars, urns, and amphorae were used to hold everything from grain to wine, which is why every ancient ship seems to have been full of them. When a modern ship sinks, it topples thousands of shipping containers into the sea. Amphorae were the shipping containers of the world 40 centuries ago. Archaeologist George Papathanasopoulos, who led the 20-member excavation team, called it the first proof of nautical trade from this period. There's evidence that prehistoric people were trading obsidian around 7000 BC, but it's never been confirmed, only guessed at. On the other hand, the Dokos ship is legit. The ceramics alone tell a story of wealth and distance. Many of the vessels came from the Cyclades Islands in the Aegean Sea, hundreds of miles east of Dokos. The ship carrying all of these materials wasn't a fisherman's skiff. It was clearly the vessel of a rich merchant. The cargo proves the ship was a wealthy vessel, probably hailing from somewhere northeast of Athens. As for how it sank, experts think the ship tried to enter the harbor and fatally met a reef. One bad turn of the rudder, one rogue wave, and the Aegean claimed both cargo and crew. Mr. P's team found more than pretty pottery. Two massive boulders drilled with holes were discovered nearby. They ended up being celebrated as the oldest stone anchors ever found. They may not look like much, but these chunks of rock were the Bronze Age equivalent of a parking brake. Still, not everyone is having fun. There's always one guy trying to bring everyone down. Dr. Frederick Van Dornink of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology suggested that perhaps the artifacts had fallen from a ship. In other words, maybe there is no shipwreck. The doctor even suggested the objects may have been thrown overboard as votive offerings to ancient gods. He went as far as saying no convincing argument on this has yet been presented. That's no fun. Dr. Frederick is convinced there is no shipwreck at all, which is such a strange hill to defend. Most other experts in the field, including Mr. P and marine historian Yanis Vychos, believe the evidence points decisively to a wreck. The bay is a natural harbor on an ancient trade route, and traces of two settlements were found nearby. The ship probably struck the rocks while attempting to dock and went down in minutes. And wood does not usually last that long in the ocean. What are 4,000-year-old wrecks supposed to look like? What culture the ship belonged to is unknown. This was a long time ago, around 2250 BC, when Stonehenge was still shiny and the Great Pyramid was still kind of smooth. It was the early Bronze Age, when Greece was only beginning to ask questions and vote on things. This whole era was a key turning point for human civilization. And this ship was part of it. Maybe it was the first large-scale trading ship to ever set sail. It's crazy to think about that even before the invention of writing, marble temples, or bronze weapons, humans were loading up ships with goods and sending them across the sea to get paid. Some things never change. A Roman Shipwreck Helps Physicists I bet you didn't see this coming. It is the weirdest team-up since pineapples were invited onto pizzas. An ancient Roman shipwreck is helping scientists in their search for dark matter. The bizarre story begins, as many great scientific sagas do, with a shipwreck. Off the coast of Sardinia, resting on the Mediterranean seafloor since the days of Caesar and Cicero, lay a Roman merchant vessel. It sank around the year 80 BC, give or take a decade, making it about 2,000 years old. When the ship was found by Italian divers in 1988, its bones were gone. Its timbers devoured by salt and time, but its cargo endured. Hundreds of gray ingots, stamped with Latin inscriptions, sat in neat stacks like the lost bullion of some imperial banker. Each bar weighed 72.75 pounds. That is one heavy block. After the announcement of the discovery, archaeologists rejoiced and historians sharpened their quills. But physicists, a group of scientists who usually spend their time staring at numbers while their hair falls out, lost their minds. Among them was Ettore Fiorini, a man with the mild manner of a professor and the ambitions of a Bond villain. Fiorini worked for Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics. When he looked at those ancient Roman ingots, he didn't see relics. He saw the purest material on Earth for listening to the whispers of the cosmos. Fiorini wanted to melt them. To heck with museums, he wanted to break the ingots down into raw materials. To understand Fiorini's obsession, you have to think about noise. Not the clatter of traffic or the neighbor's TV, but the invisible hiss of particles. Our planet is constantly bathed in cosmic radiation, high-energy particles from space that stream through everything. They go through walls, mountains, and even your spleen. But you can't see or feel these particles. As physicist Paolo Gorla put it, every second of our lives, every inch of our bodies are being crossed by particles. It's happening to all of us, all the time. For most people, that's just a fun fact. For a physicist trying to observe something faint, it's a nightmare. To see the smallest things in the universe, such as neutrinos, rare decays, and dark matter, you have to shut out the noise. That's why some of the world's strangest laboratories are built deep underground. Like Italy's Laboratori Nazionale del Gran Sasso, which sits beneath a mountain so massive it muffles the particles from the cosmos itself. Gorla calls it cosmic silence, a kind of particle monastery. But even in this sacred stillness, there's trouble. The rock, the air, even the banana a physicist brings for lunch gives off tiny radioactive emissions. And so, the scientists cloak their instruments in lead shields. The problem is that modern lead isn't silent either. Freshly mined lead contains trace amounts of lead-210, a radioactive isotope that won't stop humming for a few hundred years. And when you're measuring the nearly unmeasurable, even a whisper can be a shout. Modern lead cannot be used in the particle monastery, but ancient lead can. Roman metal is so old that its radioactivity has decayed into nothingness. Two thousand years of deep time have rendered it pure, serene, and cosmically quiet. It's perfect, Fiorini says, for listening to the secrets of the universe. Of course, not everyone was thrilled about melting antiquity. When Fiorini approached cultural heritage officials, he proposed a deal that was equal parts diplomacy and heist. His scientific organization would fund the recovery of the shipwreck if they could keep some of the ingots. Seems like a fair deal, right? To everyone's surprise, the answer was yes. Under the Grand Sasso Mountain, Fiorini's dream took form. The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events was built to detect infinitesimal particle interactions, shielded by tons of ancient Roman lead. Pretty amazing, wouldn't you say? You have to imagine a bunch of sweaty Romans mining all this ore, forging it into ingots, loading it on a ship, only to be destroyed in a storm. And then, two thousand years later, some other humans show up, recover the blocks, and use them to build a rune to study the very fabric of existence. If only those miners could know what their work is being used for today. When the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events began observing in 2017, it stood as both laboratory and monument. The Roman lead that once fortified aqueducts and armed legions now guarded instruments probing the nature of space, time, and reality. The past had become the shield of the future. And here's a little FYI on dark matter, the invisible glue that binds galaxies. It's estimated that dark matter makes up 85% of all matter in the universe, but no one has ever seen it. Its presence is inferred through gravity, a ghost detected only by the way it bends starlight. Sadly, Fiorini passed away in 2017. And while his underground observatory has yet to confirm dark matter, you can bet it's still searching. Did you know that physics and shipwrecks had so much in common? Thanks for watching! Is there any specific sunken ship that you hope is recovered? If so, let me know in the comments and I'll do some investigating. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you soon. Bye!