Uluburun Shipwreck - Emmaf.org

Uluburun Shipwreck
K.P., Ryan, Preston, and Ashley

Where it was found
• The Uluburun Shipwreck is of the late 14th century BC (Late Bronze
Age period), discovered off the south coast of Turkey in the
Mediterranean Sea near the city of Kaş.
• A Turkish sponge diver found it in 1982.
• The ships origin is unknown. What we do know is that it was
carrying Mycenaean, Cypriot, Canaanite, Kassite, Egyptian, and
Assyrian goods.
• The location of the wreck “…attests to a maritime trade route that
traversed the Mediterranean from east to west” (Katz 129)

Cargo
• Although there were many artifacts found in the
remains; jewelry from Egypt was a large portion of
it
• gold falcon pendant, gold goddess pendant , gold
scrap, gold chalice
• rock crystal beads, agate beads, faience beads,
ostrich eggshell beads, faience beads, accreted
mass of tine faience beads
• silver bracelets
silver scrap Unworked glass.
• Ingots of "blue glass", for faience or glass inlay.

Ingots
• Ingots are melted down metal that can be
used to shape and make various products
• Copper and Tin ingots were to melted
down and reused.
• The ingots were traced back to mines in
Cyprus
• The total weight was 10 tons

• The gold and silver jewelry has been analyzed
and traced back to Southern Levant and the
Southern-Central region of the Taurus Mountains
in Anatolia, respectively.
• This also shows that this ship may have been
carrying items for royalty

What this tells us
• “Judging from the vast wealth of the cargo (more than 18,000 catalogued
artifacts were raised from the seabed), it has also been offered that the
vessel may have been bound for the Nile River, which was at the time a
remarkable center of trade. Yet another opinion states that the cargo may
have comprised offerings to Egyptian Pharaohs”-The Bodrum Museum of
Underwater Archaeology
• “In conclusion, the cargo found aboard the Uluburun shipwreck attests to
the scope of the trade system during the late Bronze Period. Even
assuming that the goods reflect a royal interest, the variety of commodities,
as well as the origins traced through chemical analyses, speak of the nature
of international trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin during the
latter half of the second millennium B.C.E.”