Spanish archaeologists prepare to save a shipwreck that dates back 2,500 years
To determine the best way to extract a 2,500-year-old Phoenician shipwreck from the water before a storm completely destroys it, a team of Spanish archaeologists has created comprehensive schematics of the ruin. The eight-meter-long Mazarron II, which has the name of the town in the Spanish province of Murcia in the southeast where it was discovered off the shore, is a rare example of prehistoric marine engineering.
In order to document all the craters and fissures in the ship, which is located 60 meters (66 yards) from the Mazarron’s Playa de la Isla, nine technicians from the University of Valencia completed 560 hours of scuba diving over the course of more than two weeks in June.
The specialists will provide recommendations on how to safeguard and recover the disaster later this year, maybe as early as next summer.
According to the project’s coordinator, archaeologist Carlos de Juan of the University of Valencia’s Institute of Nautical Archaeology, it may be pieced together again out of the water by exploiting the existing fissures.
Instead of stressing every time a major storm approaches, he told Reuters, “it is more reasonable to rescue the ship, treat it, and exhibit it in a museum for people to enjoy it.”
From 1,500 BC to 300 BC, the Phoenicians, who originated in coastal regions of modern-day Lebanon and Syria, built colonies and trade centers all across the Mediterranean.
The Mazarron II, which was most likely built about 580 BC, has been used by historians to record how people transported metals like lead from the Iberian Peninsula.
It was discovered about 30 years ago after being buried in silt for more than 2000 years owing to changes in sea currents brought on by shoreline development.
It is presently encircled by sandbags and a metal framework that was put in place as protection, and it is submerged under around 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) of the clearest Mediterranean water. The building had to be partly dismantled because it was crushing the wreck since it was sinking into the sand more quickly than it was.
