Off Turkey, Archaeologists Say They Found the World’s Oldest Shipwreck, 4,400 to 4,700 Years Old

Archaeologists say they have found the world’s oldest known shipwreck near Kekova Island, off the coast of Antalya in southern Turkey. The team dates the wreck to the Early Bronze Age, roughly 2700 to 2400 BCE, which makes it about 4,400 to 4,700 years old. That puts it around the time people built the Great Pyramid at Giza.

What divers found

The ship’s wooden hull did not survive. Its cargo of large ceramic storage jars did. The jars are ovoid and flat-based, with two handles, and many have a raised clay “belt” around the widest part. Some still hold residues visible to the naked eye. The team thinks they may be olive oil, wine or tree resin, but scientific analysis has not confirmed any of them.

Associate Professor Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University in Antalya led the work. He found the wreck in 2024 after local seafarers pointed him to the area. “The shipwreck is a time capsule at the bottom of the sea,” he said.

Where the jars came from

Analysis of the clay links the jars to workshops in the Jordan Valley, according to Turkish officials. The authors of a Conversation article on the find call this their best assessment at this stage of research. Researchers believe the ship was sailing from the Levantine coast when it sank, but they do not know its destination. Some reports suggest Hisarlik in Turkey or Crete.

How the team dated it

The team dated the cargo, and the ship with it, from the shape and manufacturing technique of the pottery. Öniz said his team first thought the jars were only a century or two old, then revised the date after comparing them with a publication on Egyptian archaeology. The date remains tentative, and earlier or later dates are possible.

The “world’s oldest” claim

Turkey’s Culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the find and called it the world’s oldest shipwreck. The previous oldest known wreck, off Dokos in Greece, dates to about 4,200 years ago, so this one would be roughly 300 years older. The results have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal.

Sources: Al Jazeera and Anadolu Agency (14 October 2026); Popular Science, syndicated from The Conversation (15 October 2026); BBC News.