Guinness lists Early Bronze Age wreck off Kekova, Turkey, as the oldest known shipwreck

In 2024, a team from Akdeniz University surveyed the Kekova region in the Demre district of Antalya, Turkey, and documented a shipwreck carrying Early Bronze Age amphorae, according to a study in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗. The project is led by Hakan Öniz, who told the Anadolu agency that the team has worked for years along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey under a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. According to Guinness World Records, the site lies about 30 metres below the surface and holds more than 30 amphorae and three stone anchors.

Amphorae and anchors

The amphorae are generally similar to Early Bronze Age Levantine types, with side handles and flat bases doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗. After a detailed analysis of the wreck using orthophotography, two amphorae were recovered for close examination: one in 2024 and one in 2025. Their technical characteristics, clay composition and intended uses differ, and no other amphora of the first type has been found at the site doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗.

The second amphora resembles vessels used commercially to carry agricultural products such as wine and olive oil, and possibly others. Its upper part has two parallel lines made with a pointed tool and a zigzag pattern in the middle. The amphorae not yet recovered are similar in general form but not identical in technical and decorative features doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗.

Two three-holed stone anchors and one single-holed anchor were found at different distances around the wreck. It is not yet known which of them, if any, belong to it. The three-holed anchors resemble those from Bronze Age Minoan, Cypriot, Anatolian and Levantine contexts, and the single-holed one resembles anchors from the Bronze Age Anatolian and Levantine coasts doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗.

Dating and next steps

The wooden structure of the vessel has not survived, so radiocarbon dating was not possible. The age was estimated from the shape and decoration of the amphorae, which, according to Öniz, correspond to vessels from Egypt and the Near East dated to 4,400–4,700 years ago. Current information suggests a small vessel that sank while sailing from east to west during the Early Bronze Age doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗.

Further remains are likely to be found in excavations planned for 2026 at present and deeper points on the partly sandy, partly rocky seabed doi.orgJournal of Maritime Archaeologydoi.orgOpen source ↗. Guinness gives the previous record to a wreck off Dokos island in southern Greece, estimated at 4,200 years old. The oldest wreck with part of its wooden structure preserved lies in the Black Sea off Bulgaria and is about 2,400 years old.

Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said in mid-October that the amphorae probably carried olive oil or wine. He added that clay analyses suggest they could have been made in workshops in the Jordan Valley.