A Turkey shipwreck might be the world’s oldest. Archaeologists have identified an Early Bronze Age shipwreck off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast that could be the oldest known remains of a seagoing vessel. Though its wooden hull has vanished, an ancient shipwreck near Kekova Island still guards over 30 ceramic storage jars on the seafloor. Together, they offer a vivid glimpse into maritime activity from the age of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
A team from Akdeniz University in Antalya province documented the wreck in 2024. Researchers estimate that it dates to approximately 2700–2400 BC, although the chronology remains provisional. Its significance rests on the surviving pottery, which offers clues to the vessel’s age, the origins of its cargo and the commercial connections that linked communities across the eastern Mediterranean.
The findings were detailed in a preliminary report published in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology on July 24, 2026. Underwater archaeologists Hakan Öniz and Ceyda Öztosun describe a small vessel whose remains lie on a seabed that is partly rocky and partly sandy.
The ceramic jars offer clues to the ship’s cargo
The ship’s wooden structure has not survived, preventing researchers from dating the vessel through its timbers. Instead, the team examined the ceramic containers found at the site, comparing their shapes, manufacturing characteristics and decorations with pottery from other archaeological contexts.
Featuring flat bases, side handles, and raised decorative bands, the jars strongly reflect Early Bronze Age Levantine pottery. These distinct ceramic features allowed researchers to establish a likely age for the cargo—and, by extension, the ancient vessel itself.
Karin Sowada, an archaeologist at Australia’s Macquarie University who specializes in ancient ceramics and Egyptian archaeology, examined recovered vessels to help determine their chronology and origins. In a university report published Oct. 15, she dated the wreck to 2700–2400 BC—approximately 4,500 years ago.
That estimate would make the site several centuries older than the Dokos shipwreck off Greece, traditionally dated to around 2200 BC and long considered the oldest known shipwreck. The comparison depends on the Kekova wreck’s proposed chronology being confirmed.
The published study remains preliminary. Further archaeological work could reveal additional remains and refine the dating, so the claim that the site is the world’s oldest known shipwreck should be treated as a possibility rather than a settled record.
What the jars may reveal
The recovered pottery offers evidence of goods moving between the eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium BC. The vessels or their clay may have come from the Central Jordan Valley. Even so, the containers vary significantly in their technical construction and decorative details.
One recovered vessel resembles containers used to transport agricultural products such as wine and olive oil. The exact contents of the wreck’s jars, however, have not been established.
Sowada reported that visible residues remain inside some of the vessels. While visual examination helps researchers study the cargo, formal laboratory analysis is required to identify the contents. Items like olive oil, wine, and tree resins are currently speculative possibilities rather than confirmed products.
The pottery also raises questions about how ancient merchants used their containers. Large storage jars could be emptied and reused, meaning that the last substance held in a vessel might not have been the product for which it was originally made.
The site also contains three stone anchors: two with three holes and one with a single hole. The published study compares their forms with examples from Bronze Age contexts in Anatolia, the Levant, Cyprus and the Minoan world. However, researchers have not established whether any of the anchors belonged to the wreck. Their discovery nearby does not automatically mean they belonged to the ship.
A window on early maritime exchange
Maritime exchange during the third millennium BC is less extensively documented than trade in later Bronze Age periods. Archaeologists reconstruct these networks through a combination of ancient texts, imported objects, pottery and raw materials found far from their places of origin.
Egypt maintained connections with the eastern Mediterranean during the pyramid age, obtaining materials such as cedar, metals, oils and tree resins through regional exchange. The port of Byblos, in present-day Lebanon, played an important role in those connections.
The Kekova wreck adds a physical example of the vessels that may have supported such networks. The cargo reflects active trade between Levantine and Anatolian coastal communities. However, researchers have yet to pinpoint the vessel’s exact port of departure or destination.
Sowada suggests the vessel was traveling along southern Turkey’s coast when a storm forced it toward the islands for shelter. It likely struck the rocks during the squall and sank. The circumstances of the sinking remain uncertain, as does the identity of the people aboard.
The next stage of research will need to refine the pottery-based chronology, establish the origins of the different vessels and identify the surviving residues. Those results could determine how securely the wreck can be dated and what its cargo reveals about maritime exchange during the Early Bronze Age.