Kyrenia Shipwreck Museum North Cyprus

Museum in Kyrenia Castle Kyrenia Northern Cyprus

This Museum (in Kyrenia castle in North Cyprus) houses the oldest trading ship with its cargo known to us, which was raised from the bottom of the sea. The ship sailed in the Mediterranean during the lifetime of Alexander the Great and his successors.

She sank in open waters less than a mile from the anchorage of Kyrenia North Cyprus. The evidence points to her being taken by rough seas around the year 300 BC when she was already rather old. Michael Katzev of the University Museum of Pennsylvania directed a team to survey the coast of North Cyprus for shipwrecks in 1967. In Kyrenia North Cyprus a sponge diver took the team to the site. Using a metal detector, proton-magnetometer and probes, the group spent a month surveying the site to find the ship and the cargo over an area measuring sixty feet by thirty feet. During the summers of 1968 and 1969 the expedition, consisting of fifty under-water archaeologists, students, and technicians, employed stereo-photography and other sophisticated techniques to record the position of each object before it was raised. Then the ship's wooden hull, which was well preserved in the sandy mud, was 'mapped', labelled, and lifted in pieces to the surface. The objects in the museum are the original items carried on the ship during her last voyage about 2300 years ago. From them we can learn about the life of those traders. The main cargo consisted of more than 400 wine amphoras, mostly made in Rhodes, and they indicate that the ship made an important stop at that island. On the other hand, ten distinct amphora shapes on board show a different port of call, such as Samos in the North Cyprus.

Another part of the cargo of the ship was a quantity of perfectly preserved almonds, 9000 in number, which were found in jars and also amassed within the ship's hull. 29 millstones, loaded over the keel in three rows, were being transported as cargo, but at the same time serving as ballast. At the stone quarry, probably on the island of Kos, masons carved letters or identification marks on the sides of these stones. From all this evidence it can be assumed that the ship sailed southward along the coast of Anatolia, calling at Samos, Kos, and Rhodes before continuing eastward towards her destination off Cyprus. It is clear that the sailors fished during the voyage, because over 300 lead net weights were found in the bow.

Meals were probably prepared ashore, using large casserole pots and a bronze cauldron. Four wooden spoons, four oil jugs, four salt dishes and four drinking cups recovered in the shipwreck suggest the number of the crew on that last voyage. The ship's single sail had been taken down before sinking, since in the stern were found more than lead rigging rings from a large square sail stowed there. The wooden hull, built mostly-of Aleppo pine, was preserved for a length of almost 40 feet, although it originally measured 47 feet long by 14 feet across. She sailed at four to five knots. The ship was built in the 'shell first' manner, quite the opposite of today's method. Instead of building a skeleton of ribs first, her outer planking was constructed up from the keel, and then the ribs were laid in, being secured with cooper spikes. The ship was intended for long service and underwent many repairs. In the last batch of repairs a skin of lead sheeting was applied to her body to keep the old ship waterproof. Carbon 14 analysis of the almonds points to a date of 288 BC (+/-62 years), and the trees were cut for the ship's planking in 389 BC (+/- 44 years). Hence the ship was at least 80 years old on the day she sank. Preservation and conservation of the ship began in 1970 and lasted four years. Most of the reassembly was completed in the year 1975 by the Turkish Cypriot Museum experts under the direction of Michael Katzev of the University Museum of Pennsylvania. The Museum is now open to the public as a cultural service to the world.

	Price: 79950 GBP Villa in Karsiyaka North Cyprus