*EMBARGOED UNTIL 12:01 A.M. THURSDAY, JAN. 16, 2003 **
A Florida State University anthropology professor is among a group of scientists working with underwater explorer Robert Ballard who have found the oldest shipwreck ever discovered in the Black Sea.
Cheryl Ward, who serves as the chief maritime archaeologist for Ballard's Black Sea project, said newly completed radiocarbon analysis shows that the ship, possibly a trading vessel, sunk off the coast of present-day Bulgaria sometime between the 5th and 3rd centuries B.C., the period of the Greek city-states.
"This is the first shipwreck that provides us with direct evidence of trade from a very significant part of the ancient Greek world," Ward said. "We are excited to do more work this summer, which will tell us not only about the trade and the technology but about the people who were on board this vessel."
The shipwreck, discovered during an expedition in July and August 2002, is estimated to be between 2,490 and 2,280 years old. The date is based on radiocarbon studies of fish bones found inside a clay jar on the ship.
"This is even older than the Roman ships we found in 2000 in the Black Sea," Ballard said. "This discovery provides historians with the first look at an actual wreck from a key era of trade in the Black Sea known previously only through written records."
Ward served as principal investigator during Ballard's 2000 expedition, which uncovered a nearly perfectly preserved shipwreck with its wooden mast and stanchions still standing about 1,000 feet below the sea. Oxygen levels are so low at that depth that the water cannot support bacteria that normally eat away organic material, such as wood.
The newest discovery lies in shallower water - a depth of 275 feet - where organisms had devoured its wooden structure. Although wooden pieces of the ship probably lie buried in the sea-bottom sediments, all that was visible to scientists was a large pile of amphorae, the tall jars used by ancient Greek and Roman merchants. The expedition crew retrieved one of the clay jars, which has a design characteristic of Sinop, Turkey, where the ship's journey may have begun, according to Ward.
The jar, about the size of a 55-gallon drum, was filled with fish bones and the bottom was coated with a pine resin that had been used as a sealant. The fish were large, freshwater catfish that had been cut up like modern fish steaks, but whether the fish were for trade or consumption by the crew will not be known until the scientists can look at the contents of the other jars.
Ward and FSU graduate student Rachel Horlings will join Ballard and his team this summer for the fifth Black Sea mission, this time with innovative new technology - a remotely operated vehicle called Hercules that will excavate the wreck. They also will revisit the wooden Roman ship found in 2000 as well as a site of possible human habitation on the continental shelf identified on the same expedition.
The 2002 expedition was part of the Black Sea Program led by Ballard, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. The expedition was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Ocean Exploration Initiative and the National Geographic Society.
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