A Ground-Breaking Discovery: The Earliest Ship Ever Found in the Deep Seas

A 3,300-year-old ship’s cargo with hundreds of intact amphorae discovered 90 km from shore at a depth of 1.8 km on the Mediterranean Sea floor.

This is the most ancient ship ever found in the world in the deep seas – ninety kilometers from northern Israel’s coast. This dramatic find is the first proof of its kind attesting to the skill of ancient mariners – they were able to traverse the sea without a line of sight to the coast. The ship’s cargo was found during a standard seafloor survey by Energean, a leading natural gas E&P company operating in the East Mediterranean, and is being investigated by the Israel Antiquities Authority. In response to this discovery Energean mounted a unique operation to physically extract and bring up sample vessels from the ship. The vessels will be presented to the public in the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel, which will soon host a limited series of tours