More than 2000 years ago, an ancient ship that drowned the coast of Antikythera, a remote Greek Island with innumerable artifacts and devices, including the world’s oldest computer. It’s believed to have been used to make astronomical predictions. The sunken ship remained undiscovered until the spring of 1900.
The divers have been visiting the site since 1900. Ilias Stadiatis (diver) found the wreckage at a depth of around 50 meters. He brought that wreckage back to the surface with an arm of a bronze statue. The recovery was ultimately called off in the 1900, after one diver died from the crooks and the two were seriously injured.
Recently, an international team of researchers has been back at the Antikythera site along with the high-tech exosuit. This exosuit enables divers to spend 3 hours in the water and uses Rebreather tech to scour CO2 out of the exhaled air.
With exosuits and other gizmos, scientists along with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports mapped the seafloor in the past three weeks and came back with a veer of fresh finds, including including an intact table jug, part of a bed leg and a 2 meter-long bronze spear.
Angeliki Simossi, director of Greece’s underwater antiquities department stated in his interview with Press, “I really don’t know what is there, maybe more works of art or parts of the ship’s equipment, but we really have to dig. It was not just a ship, but a floating museum carrying works from various periods; one bronze statue dates from 340 B.C., another from 240 B.C., while the Antikythera Mechanism was made later. This was when the trade in works of art started.”
Brendan Foley, who works for the Wood Hole Oceangraphic Institution stated that, “The evidence shows this is the largest ancient shipwreck ever discovered. Seems it’s the Titanic of the ancient world.”
Foley is one of the archaeologists working to further explore the sunken ocean liner. Both an International scientists and the Greek researchers team have been planning a return trip to the site next year.
The researchers believed that the shipwreck site was too bigger than the earlier sponge divers believed. Wreckage covers 300 meters of the sea floor and the length of the ship is up to 50 meters long.
Theotokis Theodoulou, who described the new discoveries as ‘very promising’. He further stated that, “We have a lot of work to do at this site to uncover its secrets.”
