Divers off Kekova Island, west of Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast, have spent months lifting pottery from a rocky slope that holds what may be the oldest known shipwreck. Archaeologist Karin Sowada of Macquarie University tentatively dates the vessel to 2700 to 2400 BC, or about 4,500 years ago. The wooden hull is gone, and only the cargo of storage jars survives.
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Two ages for the same site have circulated since mid-October. Turkey’s culture minister announced a figure of about 4,700 years, while the archaeologists who examined the jars give a wider and more cautious window.
One Kekova wreck, two ages in circulation
Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the find on social media on October 14, and Al Jazeera reported the vessel as about 4,700 years old and Early Bronze Age. Ersoy called it the world’s oldest shipwreck, framing the discovery as part of what Turkey calls its Blue Homeland, and said it sheds light on the deep-rooted history of maritime trade along the Anatolian coasts. The later write-up carried by ScienceDaily, written by Sowada, gives about 4,500 years and says the precise date is still under consideration.
The two numbers describe one wreck, not two. Baird Maritime reports a range of 4,400 to 4,700 years, and Sowada called the 2700 to 2400 BC estimate preliminary, with earlier or later dates possible. About 4,500 years sits in the middle of that range. Nothing in the coverage points to a re-dating of the find between the announcement and the later account; the difference is a matter of rounding the same estimate in two directions, with the minister quoting the upper end and the excavation team stressing the uncertainty.
Öniz found the site in 2024, acting on tips from local seafarers, and the wreck rests in shallow water between two islands off Kekova. Sowada, who directs the Australian Centre for Egyptology at Macquarie University, joined the work to help date the pottery.
Belted jars and clay from the Jordan Valley
The cargo is large ceramic storage jars, ovoid with flat bases, two handles, and a raised horizontal clay belt around the widest point. Clay analysis suggests some were made in workshops in the central Jordan Valley, according to the minister’s statement. Euronews notes that similar jars have turned up in Egypt, Troy and Crete. Öniz said some of the jars resembled ones found at the Giza pyramids. One jar carries nine markings and two holes and may have served as a churn for cheese or butter.
The ministry framed the jars as evidence of early maritime trade and cultural exchange across the eastern Mediterranean, a reading that fits cargo made in the Jordan Valley turning up on the Anatolian coast. Residue is visible inside several jars. Scientific analysis is pending, and Sowada has said the contents could be olive oil, wine or tree resin, and chemical results would show which trade goods the ship carried when it went down.
Dating by pottery shape when the hull is gone
No timber survives, so radiocarbon dating of the ship itself is impossible. The team compared the decoration and form of the jars with Early Bronze Age pottery from Egypt and the Middle East. Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, who leads the excavation, said the group first assumed the jars were only a century or two old, and then grew excited on finding matching forms in a publication on Egyptian archaeology. He told the BBC that comparing decoration techniques allows the team to say definitely that the wreck is Early Bronze Age.
Divers spent four months freeing the pottery from barnacles on the slope between two islands. The ship was probably traveling along the southern Turkish coast, and a working idea is that it sought shelter in a storm and struck rocks. Researchers think the crew may have been coastal people from the Levant, perhaps bound for Troy or Crete. The results have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, so the dating, the clay sourcing and the voyage reconstruction all rest on preliminary statements from the team and the ministry. Researchers believe the ship was heading from the Levantine coast toward Hisarlik in Turkey or toward Crete when it sank, a route that would have carried oil, wine or resin across the eastern Mediterranean.
Dokos and the record Kekova would replace
The previous oldest known wreck lies off Dokos island in Greece, where Peter Throckmorton found remains in 1975. The Dokos shipwreck dates to the second Early Helladic period, with Cycladic pottery tying it to about 2200 BC, so roughly 4,200 years old by the ScienceDaily comparison. Hundreds of clay vessels, lead ingots and stone anchors were recovered there.
Even at the low end of the Kekova range, the Turkish wreck would predate Dokos by a couple of centuries. Whether it holds the record depends on pottery comparisons and residue analysis that have not yet been published, which is why Sowada’s own wording stays at “may be.”
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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