 . . . March 1996
Praise the sea; on shore remain.---
John Florio, Second Frutes (1591)
By Chris Monroe
Photos by Don Frey / INA
Strange paradoxes occur to all who ponder the sea and its mystery. Illusions of infinite horizon and depth. A surface moving, yet still. At once the sea inspires fear and fascination, hope and lonely despair; it is boundary and gateway, rising and falling like clockwork, yet moody and perilous to the unwary. Perhaps it is the unknowns contained that enchant us so, though these grow fewer every day as we have continually ignored Florio's admonition.
Lessons don't emerge from the sea on their own, but are extracted through human effort. Nautical archaeology, a scientific field of study only a generation old, seeks to explore the relationship of humans to bodies of water as it was played out in the past. Field research within this discipline often involves the underwater excavation of sunken cities, ships and artifacts endeavors not to be confused with salvage and treasure hunting.
Until the release of the movie Jaws, I was always more fascinated than fearful of the unseen depths. Ancestors from both sides of the family were seafaring types fishermen, ship-builders, rum-runnersand I got my exposure to the wonders of the Maine coast and Michigan lakes at an early age. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea was the first book I was not forced to read. During adolescence I entertained wistful notions of following in the fin-prints of Jacques Cousteau, but despite his weighty influence I remained the intellectually lazy teenager who lacked any definite career plans until his fourth year of college.
At Michigan State I earnestly pursued a degree in psychology, but developed a distracting appetite for history and archaeology, specifically of Classical Athens and the Phoenicians. Little did I realize the sea was creeping back into my conscious like some latent Freudian complex. The coup de grâce fell during my senior year (1984) when I noticed a newsbrief in Time magazine explaining how Dr. George Bass, "a sort-of underwater Indiana Jones," had just discovered off Turkey's rocky, convoluted southern coast the world's oldest known shipwreck (dating to around 1300 BC, the era of the fall of Troy and reign of King Tut), which he believed to be of pre-Phoenician origin.
It was simple enough to change majors again, so I switched to anthropology, got a diving certificate, was graduated, got some excavation experience in Lake Michigan and headed down to the unlikely destination of Texas A&M University and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), where I received training in the history of seafaring and shipbuilding, the reconstruction of ship remains and the conservation of marine artifacts.
 When I first joined Bass's expedition at Uluburun (the name of the site, literally "Big Nose/Cape") in 1987, the work was already in its fourth season and I had been devouring books and articles on Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BC) seafaring and trade for over two years. Thus, as I made my first descent through the 140 feet of cobalt-blue water to one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the century, I was fit to be an informed, dispassionate observer. However, in this role I met with utter failure, the first time, the second and every time after. As I initially viewed the site spilling down the steep rocky slope 50 yards offshore, my head spun with excitement, overwhelming awe, profound complacency and/or the effect of deep diving known as nitrogen narcosis, which in severe cases produces a fatal euphoria in divers that persuades them that they can live among the fish. The wreck was identifiable only in its general features as I struggled to mentally superimpose drawings I'd memorized; the real thing was far more complex, a landscape of deep pockets, rocky outcroppings and gullies filled with sand and wrecked cargo.
Everything was blending together, in form and color, as if the sea were slowly metabolizing the wreck. No wood was visible; the sail, mast, deck and any portion of the hull not tightly sealed under tons of cargo had been digested by shipworms, small crustaceans and hydrolysis long ago. Marine encrustation had engulfed the large mound of ceramic storage jars and rows of stacked copper ingots that had been the ship's main cargo. Large sandstone anchors, over 25 in all, were convenient stepping stones to bare feet that warily traversed the site while I watched from my perch atop the plexiglass, air-filled safety dome known as "the phone booth."
Normal dives tended to be less impressionistic. Teams of four made two 20-minute dives per day, in the morning and afternoon, with a five-hour interim to allow accumulated nitrogen bubbles to dissolve back into the blood. A dive consisted of any number of tasks---removing debris, measuring and drawing an object's location, repairing equipment, photography, preparing artifacts for removal to the surface---but it all had to be done within 20 minutes, minus the time it took to reach the bottom, remove one's fins, and get set up. This constant battle against time made even tedious jobs a challenge. At the end of each dive excavators returned to a station 20 feet below our research vessel, the Virazon, to decompress on oxygen. Careful timing of the dive and decompression was necessary to avoid decompression sickness, or "the bends," a painful and disabling or deadly result of nitrogen bubbles blocking the flow of blood at critical junctures. During the 11 years of the excavation, only a few minor cases occurred, and these were promptly and successfully treated in the Virazon's own recompression chamber.
Unfortunately, INA's safety record does not reflect the practice of all who have dared to investigate the Mediterranean's depths. For generations, Turkish sponge divers took far fewer precautions than we to conduct their trade, with occasionally disastrous results. It was their knowledge of the sea bottom that allowed Bass and his colleagues to locate the first shipwrecks scientifically excavated, including the one at Uluburun. In recompense, over the more than 30 years Bass has worked in Turkey, his recompression chamber has spared several sponge divers from the bends. Now the Turkish sponge industry has diminished greatly due to a shrinking sponge population and the lure of greater gains in tourism.
* * * * *
Gray-eyed Athena sent them a favorable breeze, a fresh west wind, singing over the wine-dark sea.---Homer, Odyssey, II, 420.
Although the Uluburun seafarers probably fell victim to unfavorable breezes, their demise provided nautical archaeologists with treasures exceeding all expectations. The quality and type of objects range from the mundane to the spectacular, but due to the unique nature of the shipwreck, and the energy invested in its excavation, every artifact acquires almost priceless value. Even a brief overview of the cargo presents a remarkable cross-section of the international nature of elite material culture at the time:
| from the Mycenaean world (now southernmost Greece) there is painted pottery, bronze weaponry, faience and glass jewelry; |
Mycenaean Greek, Canaanite and Cypriot swords were among the more than six tons of metal aboard the 50-foot vessel---most of it 60-pound copper ingots like those in this issue's cover photo. |
from Cyprus over 350 ox-hide shaped copper ingots and hand-made ceramic juglets,
bowls and cups; |
 Researchers removed silt from artifacts like this Cypriot bowl with giant suction tubes connected to compressors on the research vessel. To avoid severe cramps or a fatal euphoria, divers had to resurface within 20 minutes of hitting the water. |
| from the Syro-Palestinian coast more bronze weaponry, blue and purple glass ingots, gold and silver jewelry, cylinder seals, a bronze statuette, finished ivories, dozens of storage jars filled with terebinth resin, olive oil and wine; |
 Golden objects included a pendant bearing an unidentified nude goddess; a medallion with a Canaanite star emblem popular among Syrian sailors of the era; and a talisman. |
from Egypt gold jewelry (including a unique scarab seal bearing Nefertiti's name), African ebony and ivory and an ostrich egg drinking vessel.
There was enough tin (whose source is unknown) on board to convert the entire copper shipment into bronze, the metal of choice for tools and weapons of that era. Careful sieving of the storage jars produced organic remains of the Bronze Age seafarer's diet, namely, fish, figs, grapes, olives, spices and other staples. Of special interest to the economic historian are the dozens of stone weights, in various shapes and sizes, that were used to weigh out bullion on a balance-pan scale (at that time, about seven centuries before coinage, known quantities of precious metals were used as currency). One of the most spectacular finds, a golden goblet, ironically provided little or no information on the wreck's date or location, in contrast to some of the less ostentatious, yet more informative, pottery. A folding wood writing board with ivory hinges, the oldest of its kind, unfortunately contained no message for us; lessons lost, as it were.
The only reference to writing in Homer is to a "book" of this type: "...he sent him to Lycia and gave him baneful signs in a folding wooden tablet." (Iliad, VI, 169). The writing surface was beeswax coating the inner covers. If the text had survived, this would have been the world's oldest "book." |
The largest artifact found is the ship itself, which may also be the most puzzling. Preserved only in small amounts where it was deeply buried beneath cargo, the hull appears to have been constructed in a manner similar to later Greek merchantmen; that is, the planks were joined edge-to-edge via mortises and tenons, a labor and materials-intensive technique that later gave way to frame-first construction. The ship that sank at Uluburun was probably in the 50-65 foot length range and a third or a fourth wide. Where exactly the ship was built cannot be determined since the primary woods
used---fir and oak---were available all around the Eastern Mediterranean basin (save Egypt) at the time.
* * * * *
Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters---Psalms 107:23
The ship was sailing west from Cyprus toward an unknown port in the Aegean or southwestern Anatolia, but who was sailing it, for whom, and for what purpose are complicated issues. To address these sorts of questions one must venture beyond the wreck itself and ask what is known about society and economy of the 14th century BC. Toward this end I came to Michigan in 1990 to study seriously the languages, history, anthropology and archaeology of the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean.
The mixed geographic origins of the cargo is a direct reflection of political conditions at the time. Rulers of the empires of Hatti, Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, as well as smaller powers such as the Levantine city-states, Cyprus and Mycenaea, were all cooperating and competing for power and prestige within a delicately balanced system of alliances. International diplomacy was negotiated largely by the exchange of gifts (accompanied by letters) which created mutual obligations; formal
treaties often resulted from---and were validated by---gift giving. Within this atmosphere entrepreneurs were allowed to conduct international trade and were protected by treaty. Ancient records and letters tell us that many merchants were patronized by kings, but also that not all business was royal business, and that rulers acquired goods through other means besides gifts. In this era of increased internationalism foreign cities became more dependent on one another for commodities and luxury goods. From an archaeological point of view the end result of this international activity is a mixed material culture, especially at the elite level, at many sites. All of which makes it difficult to ascertain just who was running the Uluburun ship. Items estimated to be of personal nature, found mostly in the stern portion of the wreck, are likely of Aegean and Levantine provenance. Scholarly attention has now focused on trying to determine whether trade was conducted by private or royal agents, and whether it took place within a context of commercial (capitalistic) or gift (reciprocal) exchanges.
It is tempting to compare the database of artifacts from the Uluburun shipwreck to some of the letters preserved on clay tablets from the 14th century BC; the lists of objects exchanged between rulers, in a few cases, match the database practically verbatim. Do we then conclude that what we have discovered is the wreck of a royal shipment, sent from one city to another, non-stop, as it were? This would certainly satisfy those who see all early sea trade as a royal monopoly, but there are serious
problems arising from such an interpretation. First, we must admit that the records and letters at our disposal were produced by an elite, bureaucratic level of society not intimately connected to the seafaring "class." Seafarers are rarely mentioned, and when they are, there is little description of their business. In other words, the textual basis for comparison is biased; we don't know what a private shipment should look like. Secondly, some of the Uluburun cargo does not fit well into the scheme of a purely royal gift exchange. There is a lot of scrap metal, unfinished goods, and a large assortment of balance-pan weights whose commercial purpose is inconsistent with gift-giving. The argument that sea trade was conducted only by the wealthiest institutions in early societies is overturned by contemporary records that show private ownership of boats and by a 13th century BC wreck that Bass showed to be a "tramper," that is, a small craft going from port to port, buying and selling goods and services in a capitalistic, entrepreneurial way.
Thus, the contemporary evidence suggests the function of the Uluburun shipment was a combination of royal and private ventures. A cross-cultural look at the role of sea traders in society supports this interpretation. In nonindustrialized societies of various periods, and especially Medieval Italy, a consistent pattern emerges in which traders and royalty are related as business partners or clients. While it is often the case that rulers own and maintain navies, they very rarely attempt to monopolize foreign trade. Anthropological research offers reasons for this that may equally apply to the Late Bronze Age scenario.
Rulers in nonindustrial, agriculturally based states walk a fine line to acquire and maintain their power. Wealth is necessary to symbolize their high position and to pay off those who help them secure it, such as bureaucrats and armed forces. But, since these rulers are expected to be just, honest and fair, acquiring wealth becomes a politically risky business, one better left to a class of people that can be kept at a politically safe distance, namely foreigners and seafarers. Foreign merchants historically reside in special city-quarters set aside for them, and it was indeed this way throughout the Bronze Age (ca. 3000-1200 BC), as ancient records tell us.
To close a deal, Mesopotamian traders rolled a
"signature" seal on a clay tablet. The original
1750 B.C. stone design bore a king, goddess
and tiny priest. An Assyrian artisan added a
griffin circa 1350 B.C. |
Anthropological research shows that ethnic groups, defined as minority groups perceived as different from a majority, often specialize in foreign trade because of the commercial advantages of "social distance." Therefore, it may be that overseas trade in the 14th century BC was likewise handled by foreign merchants and seamen living in the merchant's quarters of port-cities. Furthermore it stands
to reason that, in these quarters, members of various ethnicities organized and financed trade expeditions that did and did not involve royal participation, as in other times and places. |
Within this framework one may explain why personal items on a ship like the one wrecked at Uluburun have various cultural affinities. To the Late Bronze Age city ruler, the merchants' quarter was, as the sea was, boundary and gateway to the outside world.
There is a final, grim lesson one can take from the shipwreck at Uluburun, namely that the wreck, itself, is a metaphor for the social collapse that was on the horizon. Not long after 1200 BC the rich urban culture around the eastern Mediterranean came to a violent end. Almost all of the Late Bronze Age palaces known from excavations were put to the torch, and later resettled by less ostentatious dwellers. The end of the Bronze Age may well have had its roots in class struggle and incompatibility of values of early capitalism and those of the agrarian majority. Like the Uluburun ship that was heavily loaded with the richest luxuries available at the time, it is possible that a top-heavy society, unable to satisfy a sufficient proportion of its members, collapsed under its own weight.
* * * * *
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas, fearless for unknown shores.---Whitman, Passage to India
Lessons from the world's oldest known shipwreck are thus highly dependent on perspective, like viewing the unruly sea itself. A final paradox: There is not a set of 14th century BC wrecks to compare ours with. The Uluburun site is unique. Or rather it was. After the 1994 expedition, the last of 11 fruitful seasons of excavation under the direction of George Bass and Cemal Pulak, the wreck is gone---completely removed from the seabed to be reincarnated as a Turkish museum collection and words and pictures in catalogs and journals. As this unique set of data it will be interpreted within a finite historical framework constructed of archaeological and textual material of its time. It can also be taken as just another piece of comparative data to be used in explaining how powerful institutions relate to private individuals, economic classes, and minority groups in society.
Florio, though in excellent humor, was wrong. There are only more wonders to discover in leaving one's shore.
Chris Monroe is a doctoral candidate in Near Eastern Studies.
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