Ancient Shipwreck's Stone Cargo Linked to Apollo Temple - HISTORY

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Underwater archaeologists investigate massive drums of marble found in an Aegean Sea shipwreck.

The stone dates back 2,000 years and was intended to form a column at the Temple of Apollo at Claros, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Kızılburun, off the west coast of Turkey.

Photograph courtesy Deborah Carlson

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                                        Ancient Shipwreck's Stone Cargo Linked to Apollo Temple






Helen Fields
for National Geographic magazine
February 23, 2009

For a few days back in July 2007, it was hard for archaeologist Deborah Carlson to get any work done at her site off the Aegean coast of western Turkey. She was leading an underwater excavation of a 2,000-year-old shipwreck, but the Turkish members of her crew had taken time off to vote in national elections. So things were quiet at her camp on an isolated cape called Kızılburun.

The shipwrecks' main cargo was 50 tons of marble—elements of a huge column sent on an ill-fated journey to a temple, Carlson thought. But she didn't know which temple, so she used all her days off to drive around the area looking at possibilities.

There were a lot—western Turkey, once part of ancient Greece and later in the Roman Empire, is home to sites like Ephesus and Troy. But Carlson had narrowed down her choices to a list of nearby temples that were in use in the first century BC—the likely date of the shipwrecks' column.

The Temple of Apollo at Claros, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Kızılburun, was at the top of her list during the July 2007 election holiday. She drove up to the deserted site and knew she was on to something when she looked at the fallen-down marble columns scattered on the marshy land. "I was struck pretty much right away," she recalls. The columns were Doric, the same as the marble on the ship, and looked like the right size. She waded around in the spring water that floods the site, checking chunks of columns with a tape measure. "I thought, wow, this is definitely a candidate."

A year-and-a-half later, it looks like Carlson's first impression was right. Using a variety of techniques, she has linked the column in the Kızılburun shipwreck to its likely intended destination, the Claros temple—as well as to its origin, a marble quarry 200 miles (322 kilometers) away on an island in Turkey's Sea of Marmara.

While there is plenty of ancient marble among the shipwrecks that cover the bottom of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, this is the first time archaeologists have pinpointed both where the marble came from and where it was going. And that is helping them learn new things about how ancient architects built their temples.

The shipwreck was one of five found in Kızılburun in 1993 on a survey of Turkey's Aegean coast by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M University, where Carlson works. INA has a research center in Bodrum, Turkey. Carlson excavated this "column wreck" from 2005 to 2008, with support from the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, and work will continue this summer. 

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                                                 Kızılburun shipwreck (İzmir)






The shipwreck off Kızılburun, to the west of the Sığacık Gulf, southwest of Izmir, has been excavated since 2005 by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M University, under the archaeological direction of Deborah N. Carlson. The main cargo of this Late Hellenistic or Roman stone carrier was a complete Doric column 9 m high with an unfinished capital, surely intended for the building or repair of a temple facade.


2007
In 2007 work continued to raise the marble column drums. The remaining four were raised to expose three additional marble slabs and more crushed wood from the ship itself. Work then focused on excavation of the wood to determine whether the ship was a purpose-built stone carrier (navis lapidaria).


2006
As well as the huge Doric column, the ship also carried other marble items. In addition to those listed in the 2005 report there were six uninscribed marble stelae, confirming that the marble items had been newly quarried. The best parallels for the stelae are from Smyrna in the 2nd century BC. The pottery gives a date in the first half of the 1st century BC and includes many intact amphoras. They include East Greek and Egyptian types but most are Adriatic and so perhaps the ship had sailed at some time from the western Mediterranean. However, isotopic analysis suggests the marble is Proconnesian and so the latest journey would seem to have been from the Black Sea.

A terracotta herm provides evidence of the ship cult, and the ship's anchor, of lead stock, has been located. It weighs more than 100 kg.

A main goal of the expedition is to study the hull and loading of this purpose-built navis lapidaria. Four of the eight column drums have now been raised to expose the preserved hull. Each weighed 6.5-7.5 tonnes, and under drums 5 and 7 were small, very thick, undressed marble slabs, perhaps ballast or packing, or they may have been used in the transfer of the drums to the ship.

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2005
Dr Carlson kindly provided the following report.

During the summer of 2005, INA initiated the excavation of an ancient stone carrier wrecked off the Aegean coast of Turkey at Kızılburun. The stone carrier, which lies at a depth of between 42 and 45 m, is one of at least five shipwrecks in the area discovered in 1993 during one of INA's annual surveys for shipwrecks. This wreck is distinguished by a cargo of eight massive marble column drums, stacked neatly in four pairs, and topped by what appears to be an unfinished Doric capital. The drums, which measure about 1 m in height and range in diameter from 1.53 to 1.75 m, appear to comprise, with the capital, a single Doric column over 9 m tall, probably destined for the façade of a temple or other monumental building. A sample drilled from one of the drums during the 2005 excavation season was sent to Dr Scott Pike of Willamette University for isotopic analysis, which revealed that the marble drum(s) likely originated in the Marmara region of Turkey.

Exploration of the sandy area adjacent to the drum pile revealed portions of the ship's secondary cargo, which is characterized by numerous large rectangular blocks that may represent architectural elements associated with the column. Other marble artifacts include two large basins (louteria) with pedestal bases, a roughly worked but very fine smaller hand basin, and an unfinished headstone (stele). Ceramics associated with the column wreck include fineware pottery and transport amphoras from East Greece, the Adriatic and even Egypt, and suggest that the ship went down in the early first century BC.

Excavation around the drums themselves yielded hundreds of nails and wood fragments, indicating that the massive size and weight of the drum cargo may have preserved a substantial portion of the ship's wooden hull. One major goal of the 2006 excavation season will be the removal of the marble drums (which are estimated to weigh as much as six or seven tons apiece) in order to excavate and raise any surviving hull remains. Archaeologists know regrettably little about the construction and lading of ancient stone carriers, and preservation of the ship's longitudinal stress timbers could tell us a great deal about the construction of purpose-built vessels such as this navis lapidaria from Kızılburun.

The presence of a Doric column on a shipwreck of the early first century BC is unusual inasmuch as Hellenistic architects clearly preferred the more fashionable Ionic and Corinthian orders to the rather traditional Doric. Furthermore, the Kızılburun marbles provide important evidence for Proconnesian exports beyond the Troad, in the centuries before the island's intensive exploitation by the Romans; evidence that has not survived on the island itself. While isotopic analysis of the marble has given us a fairly sound idea of where the Kızılburun cargo originated, the process of tracing the ship's voyage and working out its final destination promises to occupy much of our future research.



Website


The excavation website is at

http://ina.tamu.edu/kizilburun

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                                         Sites : Kizilburun Roman Column Wreck







Location - Kizilburun, Turkey
Coordinates : 38 07.1000N  026 32.5000W (WGS84)    Depth : 40-50m   

Conditions : Excellent visibility, no tide

Type : Roman stone carrier    Download Site file   
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In 1993, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M University located the remains of an ancient stone carrier wrecked off the Aegean coast of Turkey at Kizilburun, a rocky promontory southwest of Izmir (ancient Smyrna) and east of the Greek of Chios.  The wreck Transport amphoras from East Greece, the Adriatic and even Egypt suggest a date in the first quarter of the 1st century BC.
The site lies in 45 – 48m water depth and by 2006 covered an area approximately 40m x 20m with flat sand on rock terraces.  Diving time is limited because of the depth to two 20 minute dives each day.
 
The image below shows part of the site plan from the 2006 excavation in Site Recorder 4.  The plan shows artefact positions, artefact detail drawings and survey control points overlaid on top of a sketch showing areas of reef and a small photomosaic of the remaining six drums.