New discoveries uncovered in ancient shipwreck outside southern Greece

New discoveries uncovered in ancient shipwreck outside southern Greece

An international team of divers made new finds at the Antikythera shipwreck in Greece, suggesting that the wreck covers a larger area than previously thought.

A recent expedition to the 2,000-year-old Antikythera shipwreck in Greece resulted in the recovery of various artifacts and revealed that the wreck actually covers a much larger area than expected.

According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the ancient Greek ship sank more than 2,000 years ago off the island of Antikythera in southern Greece. An international team of divers and archaeologists recently retrieved a number of finds, including tableware, ship components, and a giant bronze spear belonging to a life-sized warrior statue. Excavators hope that there is much more to be discovered.

“I don’t know what there is there – perhaps more works of art or parts of the ship’s equipment, but we really have to dig,” said Angeliki Simossi, head of Greece’s underwater antiquities department who coordinated the large team, according to the Washington Post. “It was 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.”

Daily Mail Online reports that the team of divers utilized an “Exosuit,” built by Canada-based company Nuytco Research Ltd., along with additional high-tech equipment to map the seafloor of the wreck the past three weeks.

“We will have more bottom time than any previous human visitors to the site, because we dive with mixed gas rebreathers,” said the expedition’s website. “Each diver will have more than 30 minutes of bottom time per day, and will enjoy greater mental acuity and a larger safety margin than that of previous divers at Antikythera.”

The data also reveals that the ship itself is much larger than the divers realized, covering 300 meters of the seafloor. “The evidence shows this is the largest ancient shipwreck ever discovered,” said archaeologist Brendan Foley, in a recent statement to WHOI. “It’s the Titanic of the ancient world.”

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