Beneath Türkiye’s waters: A window into the region’s ancient maritime heritage

For a country better known internationally for its Byzantine and Ottoman landmarks and for ancient ruins scattered across its landscape, the scale of what lies beneath its waters is far less familiar to outsiders.

Shipwrecks, cargoes of copper ingots, ancient amphorae and bronze weapons are among the finds recovered from Türkiye’s waters, which for millennia carried ships between the civilizations of Anatolia, the Aegean, the Levant and Egypt.

The country has more than 8,300 kilometers (5,157 miles) of coastline bordering four seas — the Mediterranean, Aegean, Marmara and Black seas — placing it at the intersection of several major maritime routes.

Its southern and western shores in particular were part of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean trading world.

We have detected and documented more than 430 shipwrecks along Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast alone, said Hakan Oniz, an underwater archaeologist at Akdeniz University in Antalya, southern Türkiye.

“This is an amazing number of documented shipwrecks all over the world, not only for Türkiye,” he said.