The Uluburun Shipwreck

Frequent readers—and judging by my hate mail there are more than a few of you—know that I’m fascinated by shipwrecks.  The only individual topic that has appeared more frequently than Napoleon in the past seventeen years’ worth of blogs is the Titanic.  However, my favorite shipwreck (and the one that I have learned the most from), is the Steamboat Arabia.

The Arabia was a side-wheeler riverboat that sank rapidly in the Missouri River in 1856, after her bottom was ripped out by a tree stump.  Despite the rapid sinking, the only casualty was a mule that had been hitched to some sawmill equipment and was forgotten.  Within hours, the entire wreck sank in the mud, making salvage operations at that time impossible.

In 1987, Bob Hawley and his sons located the wreck in a field, now forty-five feet below the soil surface and half a mile from the river.  After being snubbed by numerous historical and archaeological groups, the Hawley family recovered the material themselves and, in the process, became the world’s experts in recovering and conserving this type of material.  When the Arabia sank she was carrying an incredible amount of cargo, including the entire starting inventory of a hardware store.

Due to the ground being perpetually near freezing, the material recovered is still in amazing shape.  Pickles in glass jars were still edible and the bottles of champagne were still drinkable.  For historians, this was like a time machine, that offered a view back at the material culture of the mid-nineteenth century.  The photo below is just a small fraction of what is on display in the museum, and the last I heard, the Hawley’s were still opening and conserving more contents from the ship.

I was a guest of the US Army at Fort Leavenworth—not the prison but the college, at which I was taking a two-week graduate course in military history.  With plenty of time on my hands, I started checking out the excellent   local history museums, of which Kansas City has more than her share.  I had never heard of the Arabia but visited anyway.  For the next week and a half, I spent every available free moment in the museum, taking notes and asking questions.  The recovered goods I saw changed the way I thought about what was then the frontier of America—including the kinds goods available and how quickly new merchandise reached the edges of settlement.

I’ll give two quick examples.  I had always heard that shoes for sale about the time of the Civil War came in only one pattern, and that left and right shoes were identical, not anatomically  specific.  There were thousands of shoes on the Arabia and nearly all of them came in pairs, with the right shoe the mirror of the left.  And I had been led to believe that wooden matches—also known as shack matches or Aggie flashlights—did not come into common use until the 1880’s.  The Arabia carried thousands of them.

While I am still grateful to the US Army for its generosity in letting me attend the prestigious school, to be honest, I learned far more at the Steamboat Arabia Museum than I did in the classroom.  If you travel or live anywhere near Kansas City, I highly recommend visiting it.

Which brings me to the Uluburun Wreck, which is the oldest shipwreck in the world.  The name comes from the site of the wreck, just off the coast of present-day Turkey, since we don’t know the name of the ship (or if she even had one).  The ship comes from the Bronze Age, in roughly the fourteenth century BC, when ships were not commonly named.  Nor are we certain where the ship came from or where it was heading, though it was probably going from somewhere near Cyprus to somewhere in Greece, along the Aegean.

The fifty-foot ship probably sank about 1320 BCE—give or take a couple of decades:  the exact date is a little fuzzy.  Radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology (dating by examining tree rings) overlap a little, but among the treasures found was a likeness of Nefertiti, so, the three dating methods together give us a pretty good idea.  Nor are we really certain exactly what the ship looked like, since 3000 years of seawater have played havoc with the ship’s timbers.

The wreck was discovered by sponge divers who reported the discovery of “metal biscuits with ears” on the sea floor.  These were copper “oxhide” ingots weighing about 60 pounds each.  To make them easier to carry, the copper was formed into rectangles with a protruding handle at each corner.  This report led to a recovery team making over 22,000 dives from 1984 to 1994.

What is important in the wreck—just as with the Arabia—is the nature of the  cargo that has been recovered.  The wreck’s cargo reveals an astonishing array of artifacts that reflects the extensive maritime trade networks of the Eastern Mediterranean.  Among the finds are raw materials such as copper and tin ingots (essential for bronze production), as well as luxury items including glass ingots, ivory, and precious gemstones.  The assortment also contains a variety of finished goods like pottery, tools, and weapons, which highlights the ship’s role in both commercial exchange and cultural interaction among ancient civilizations.

In addition to the utilitarian cargo, the shipwreck also has yielded culturally significant items that provide insight into the artistic and ceremonial practices of the time.  Artifacts of Mycenaean, Canaanite, and Egyptian origin were found aboard, including scarabs, ceremonial vessels, and intricately designed jewelry.  Some of the items had come from as far away as China, down the Silk Road.  These objects not only underscore the diverse origins of the ship’s cargo but also illustrate the interconnected nature of Bronze Age economies and societies.  Overall, the Uluburun shipwreck serves as a remarkable underwater time capsule, shedding light on the complexity and reach of ancient trade and the cultural exchanges that helped shape the ancient world (and our modern world, too).

The remarkable array of artistic objects in the Uluburun shipwreck has fascinated artists by the remarkable array of artistic objects.  Viewing the wreck’s contents is akin to an artist’s going shopping in a Bronze Age art supply store.  The ship contained 175 glass ingots of cobalt blue, turquoise, and lavender, along with ostrich eggshells, ivory of both elephant and hippopotamus, glass beads, and jars filled with resin for making turpentine.  The cargo also included intricately designed jewelry, finely crafted ceremonial vessels, and ornamental scarabs—each a testament to the sophisticated artistry of ancient cultures.  

These items, with their delicate engravings, elegant forms, and vibrant use of materials, showcased a blend of styles from Mycenaean, Canaanite, Egyptian, and other Mediterranean cultures.  This diversity not only highlighted the technical prowess of ancient artisans but also provided a tangible record of cross-cultural artistic exchange, making the wreck an invaluable source of inspiration and study for modern artists and historians alike.

I would really like to see the museum in Bodrun, Turkey that houses all the recovered artifacts.  If I argued a good enough case for it, do you suppose the Army would like to pick up the tab for a really great museum trip?