Analyzing the Evidence

View of some of the wealth of cargo (here showing amphoras and millstones) preserved nearly intact inside the ship’s hull; © 1967 Michael L. Katzev.

click on images to enlarge

After many years of analyzing the cargo, crew’s belongings, and ship’s timbers, composing the final publication of the Kyrenia wreck began under the supervision of Susan Katzev and her colleagues. Despite the long time spent studying all the evidence, questions remained:

• how and why did the ship sink?
• how was the cargo arranged in the hold?
• what happened to the ship’s hull as the vessel hit the bottom dispersing its contents?

These questions could not adequately be answered, they reasoned, by traditional archaeological interpretive or visualization methods.

It is unusual in shipwreck archaeology to have such an old ship survive so completely, with so much of its cargo still nicely dispersed amongst the surviving timbers.  Could there be clues there to help researchers determine not only the original arrangement of the contents, but also what happened to the ship when it crashed into the seabed, breaking apart and scattering its cargo?  Most so-called amphora wrecks are just that, wreck sites marked by the piles of ancient pottery, but containing little or no evidence of the ship that carried them.

Why So Well-Preserved??

The typical transport amphora have long tapering bases so they cannot stand up by themselves and had to be somehow secured onboard ship so they did not rattle around and break during transit.  No one is quite sure how this was accomplished, yet given the vast number of unbroken surviving amphoras at this wreck site and others, ancient sailors clearly had a solution (were they wrapped in excess sailcloth or other textiles, were they lashed with rope in configurations that did not allow movement, or ??).  We just don’t know. The Task at Hand In 2004, the project goals were laid out for the Institute to resolve: build accurate and detailed 3D computer models of the excavated artifacts build accurate and precise 3D computer models of the surviving timbers of the ship build an accurate and precise virtual re-creation of the ship and its cargo test various scenarios to establish the most likely methods whereby the ancient mariners could have secured their contents from breakage under conditions of voyage.

Typical conical Type I Rhodian amphora; c. 90cm tall. © 1968 Susan W. Katzev click on images to enlarge

Reference
Page Created: October 5, 2004
Page Updated: December 27, 2011
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Page Author: The Institute for the Visualization of History