Energy Company Finds Earliest Deep-sea Shipwreck in the World, and It's Canaanite

An energy company surveying the Mediterranean seafloor has discovered the earliest shipwreck ever found in the deep sea anywhere in the world: a Canaanite merchant vessel that sank 3,400 to 3,300 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed on Thursday. Moreover, it designed and sent down a specially kitted robot to retrieve samples.

The wreck was found a year ago at a depth of almost two kilometers (1.2 miles), 90 kilometers (55 miles) off the Israeli coast, in the middle of the sea – which was startling in and of itself. Either it was very lost or the ancients had navigational skills we weren't aware of, the IAA team says.

While the seafloors of the world are littered with shipwrecks, this is the earliest found in the deep sea from that time. In fact, until now we hadn't been confident the ancients around the Mediterranean intentionally crossed the sea at all, as opposed to sailing along the coasts.

Jacob Sharvit and Dr. Karnit Bahartan with ancient Canaanite jugs found in the earliest known deep-sea shipwreck. How did they get there in the first place?Credit: Emil Eljam / Israel Antiquities Authority

Based on the way its cargo with hundreds of pottery jars remained in position more than three millennia, the prehistoric ship apparently foundered quite suddenly, posits Jacob Sharvit, head of the IAA Marine Unit. It sank straight to the bottom intact and there it stayed at a depth of 1.8 kilometers (5,900 feet), lost and forgotten until Energean-E&P sonar scanned the seafloor ahead of developing the gas field named Orca and observed an anomaly.

Sending down a robot submersible to investigate the anomaly showed it consisted of ancient jars peeping through the sediment.

What could have caused a Canaanite merchant vessel to suddenly sink in the middle of the sea? Possibly the pirates plaguing the ancient Mediterranean. Or maybe the bitumen sealing for the wooden planks sprang a leak. "Whatever happened, it seems to have happened fast," Sharvit says. "If it sank in a storm and was starting to sink, they would have tried to make it lighter by casting off weight to save it. We saw no sign of that."

The boat's initial identification as Canaanite was based on the initial robot photographs. Then about two weeks ago, after planning the operation for months, Energean sent down a ROV that recovered two of the ancient pots.

Using an advanced submersible robot to survey the bottom of the sea at depths of 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).Credit: Emil Eljams / Israel Antiquities Authority

Might as well be on the moon

Israel was considered energy-poor until natural gas layers were discovered in the floor of the Mediterranean. The British energy company is involved in developing other Israeli fields, including Tanin ("crocodile") and Karish ("shark"), as well as fields for Egypt and more.

On this occasion, it was surveying the water column and seabed to plan for Katlan ("Orca"), off the Haifa coast. Yawn. Then the photos arrived from their submersible fielded by the Energean Star survey ship, explains Energean public affairs officer Eliana Fischler.

"As part of our ongoing activity to discover and extract natural gas from the deep sea, we conduct surveys that check different parameters, using an advanced submersible robot to scour the seafloor," explained Dr. Karnit Bahartan, lead of the environmental unit at Energean.

Under Israeli regulation, offshore energy companies have to report anomalous finds to the Environment Ministry, Energy Ministry, and IAA, which they did. "They tell us what to do," Fischler says.

They knew the pots were unusual but didn't realize how extraordinary the discovery was until the pictures were forwarded to Jacob Sharvit, head of the IAA Marine Unit. "I almost fell off my chair," he told Haaretz by phone. "The moment I realized they were Bronze Age jars, I understood this was a very ancient, important find. How important, I didn't know yet."

Having gotten off the metaphorical floor, he met with the Energean people and explained what they had found. "We all got excited," Fischler picks up the story.

And how did the second ROV mission to the bottom of the sea, to extract samples, ensue? The IAA asked the company for help because it doesn't keep a deep-sea submarine on hand.

Sharvit notes that almost three years ago they did buy a ship from Malta with a submersible that can descend 1,000 meters with a 3-person crew, but it can't go down twice as deep and why risk human life when Energean can do the job with machinery.

'The moment I realized they were Bronze Age jars, I understood this was a very ancient, important find,' says Sharvit.Credit: Emil Eljams / Israel Antiquities Authority

For the IAA, the jars might as well have been on the moon, Fischler observes. "They asked if we would be willing to do it for them, and it took us no time to agree... In the spirit of giving back to the community," she explains. "We knew that if we didn't do it, nobody would."

Energean does not routinely extract fragile antiquities from seabed sludge, but they were very excited by the find, Fischler says. Planning the operation and designing the specialized equipment took months.

Ultimately, they dug two pots out of the sediment using the robot arms and fished them up using a net, then raised them to the surface in a basket. The ROV was operated by a team on board the Energean Star survey ship, with a different specialist operating each arm.

Planning the operation and designing the specialized equipment took months.Credit: Energean company

"It's so deep that it took three hours for the ROV to get down there," Sharvit shares. It was a long three hours.

With the pots in hand, it turned out his identification from the initial pictures was correct. They were standard Canaanite jars common in Late Bronze Age Israel, Syria and Lebanon. That doesn't prove the crew was Canaanite, but the cargo sure was.

To be clear, it isn't the ship that Energean found, it's the cargo: hundreds of jars. Wooden beams may still lie below them, but any that had been above the sand are long gone. The jars lay in a heap about six meters by ten, not scattering at all.

"The cargo had been closed in a chamber in the ship," Sharvit speculates. If the ship had capsized, the pots would have fallen out, but we see it didn't. They were still lying like in their chambers in the ship. The sonar showed the lines separating them – we even thought we had the ribs of the ship."

What had been in the jars? We may never know because they didn't scatter, but their contents are apparently gone and replaced by sediment. Probably eaten by sea creatures. But they hope to detect traces of foodstuffs or pollen or anything that could help nail down the nature of the goods – wine, olive oil, dried figs or other fruits, Sharvit says.

Sediment from inside the jarsCredit: Emil Eljam / Israel Antiquities Authorities

Ancient trade is no secret, including all around the Mediterranean basin and beyond, and including in the Bronze Age and for thousands of years before that. But what was a Canaanite merchant vessel doing in the middle of the sea?

Canaanites at sea

Humans have been sailing forever. Some suspect hominins predating our species could cross water, possibly on rafts. By the Mesolithic, clearly humans were busily boating around the Mediterranean, though vessels from that time have not been found. But Mesolithic rock art in Scandinavia apparently depicts boat-building 11,000 years ago and actual canoes have been found preserved in bogs going back almost 10,000 years.

But it has been assumed that prehistoric modern sailors (such as Canaanites) would have hugged the coast, remaining in eyesight of land insofar as possible because they didn't have navigation technology and the open sea is scary, Sharvit explains.

Ancient trade is no secret, but the ships were thought to have hugged the coast. This one didn'tCredit: Energean company

All the wrecks found so far in the Mediterranean Sea have been in shallow water, he adds.

One of the earliest actual shipwrecks was found off the uninhabited island of Dokos, Greece. It may be as old as 4700 years, but is more likely 4200 years old based on the style of the heaps of Early Helladic pots and fragments found on board. Two were found off Turkey's coast: the Uluburun wreck and the Cape Gelidonya boat. That one foundered in water so shallow it crashed onto the rocks. The Uluburun, Gelidonya and Dokos wrecks could be investigated by ordinary divers, without need for high-tech submersibles.

What are we to make of all this? Evidently, the fact that discoveries of Bronze Age wrecks by coasts just means that is where we found them, not that they didn't brave the deep. The discovery of this merchant vessel, 14 to 16 meters in length, with a crew of probably four to six people, indicates deep-sea sailing ability in antiquity.

The Canaanite jugs exposed to the light of day after more than 3,300 years.Credit: Emil Eljams / Israel Antiquities Authority

Probably they were navigating using the sun, moon and stars, because at a distance of about 90 kilometers from the Israeli coast, not even halfway to Cyprus – they couldn't see any land at all. Not even the mountains of northern Israel.

And some 3,400 years later, on the board of the Energean survey vessel, two people controlling the arms of their robot submersible using joysticks dug up two ancient pots, netted them and maneuvered them into the specially manufactured basket. And the energy people and archaeologists watched and were moved together as jars rose from the depths. "We were crying on board from excitement," Fischler shares.

Sharvit, for one, is also thankful that the GPS navigation system wasn't on the fritz or jammed during the ROV mission, because the entire operation is based on GPS. Imagine if you spend a year designing the appropriate submersible and send it down and dig up the pots and then it gets lost.