Maritime Archaeology
Year after year, the sea yields rich discoveries dating from prehistory to late antiquity. These fascinating remnants of the past have often been left untouched for thousands of years, making them priceless time capsules for looking into the past.
Maritime archaeology (also known as marine, nautical, or underwater archaeology) is a subfield that specializes in the study of ports and harbors, maritime facilities, ancient seafaring, and shipwrecks. Due to the nature of the discoveries, maritime archaeologists often employ special techniques and use advanced technologies to study, catalogue, and preserve ancient remains that are underwater.
This BAS Special Collection highlights some of the most intriguing discoveries that have been found under the biblical waters. Read about the discoveries that made splashes in the global headlines.
Video: Deep Submergence Archaeology: The Final Frontier
by Shelley Wachsmann
Articles
In the summer of 1982, a novice sponge diver working the waters off the southern coast of Turkey reported to his captain that he had seen “metal biscuits with ears” on the sea floor. The captain knew immediately that these “biscuits” were actually ancient metal ingots, so he alerted archaeologists from the Institute of Nautical […]
Of all the great seaports of antiquity, Caesarea Maritima is the only one readily accessible to underwater archaeologists.1 Many ancient ports, like Piraeus, the port of Athens, cannot be carefully examined because they are still in use. Other harbors of antiquity have silted in over the centuries and today serve a variety of purposes that […]
A chance discovery of a 2,400-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Kibbutz Ma’agan Micha’el, 20 miles south of Haifa, has been yielding a storehouse of new insights into ancient seafaring and the shipwright’s art. Thanks to recent geomorphological changes—fluctuations in the sea level, sediment movements and shifts in local faults—along Israel’s seacoast, investigators are discovering […]
Departments
The oceans and seas are the last great frontier for Near Eastern archaeology. Year after year, the Mediterranean Sea yields rich new data from prehistory to late antiquity: ports and harbors, maritime facilities, and shipwrecks that make global headlines, such as the 14th-century BCE Uluburun shipwreck and its precious cargo discovered in 1982 off the […]
Two thousand years ago, divers whose only air supply was their lungs pushed and pulled at a 50-foot-long rectangular wooden frame suspended in the water from cranes. First one, then another of the divers swam to the surface to breathe, then dove again. Bit by bit, the wooden frame descended, finally hovering inches above the […]