Ancient Greek Shipwreck is creating another mystery for treasury

The shipwreck that gave the world the deeply mysterious Antikythera mechanism is producing remarkable treasures and is teaching researchers about the rich lifestyle of the ancient Greeks.

The latest dives at the wreckage which has been dubbed as the “Titanic of the ancient world”, yielded a bronze armrest that is believed to part of a throne, a bone flute, some extremely well crafted glassware, fine ceramics and a single piece from an ancient board game.

“This shipwreck is far from exhausted,” commented a marine archaeologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in a press release. “Every single dive on it delivers fabulous finds, and reveals how the ‘1%’ lived in the time of Caesar.”

The wreckage was found by sponge divers off a Greek island in 1900 and Woods Hole comments that it is carrying out the first systematic excavation of the site using the information gathered by a robotic submersible in 2014. The wreckage dates back around 65 B.C. This was no ordinary shipwreck; it has been considered as one of the biggest underwater archaeological projects in the world at the moment.

The institute commented that it was very fortunate to have made over 60 dives to the ship’s main wreckage, in the previous month thanks to some very pleasant weather.

“We were very lucky this year, as we excavated many finds within their context, which gave us the opportunity to take full advantage of all the archaeological information they could provide,” an institute archaeologist commented.

The divers have found that they need to dive much deeper into the ocean floor than earlier, to get their hands on the more ‘lucrative treasures’ out there.

The team had recently found an extremely well-crafted wine jug, a portion of a cooking pot and small pieces of bronze. However researchers believe that there are far more significant finds down in the ocean floor. “There’s obviously stuff down there. We just weren’t digging deep enough before.”

The lifestyle of the elite 1% during Caesar’s time is being slowly unfolded as the divers bring out more of the prized possessions from beneath the ocean.