Turkey's seas reveal thousands of ancient shipwrecks and new museum projects
Underwater archaeologists have documented over 430 shipwrecks along Turkey's Mediterranean coast and are uncovering Bronze Age vessels, while the government expands museum plans for the finds.
Turkey's extensive coastline has yielded an unprecedented tally of more than 430 documented shipwrecks on its Mediterranean side, according to underwater archaeologist Hakan Oniz. Highlights include a Bronze Age wreck near the Kekova islands carrying Levantine amphorae, a 3,600-year-old vessel off Kumluca loaded with Cypriot copper ingots, and a late Hellenistic or early Roman “Ceramic Wreck” off Adrasan that held hundreds of clay plates and bowls, dated to the mid-first century B.C. The country’s underwater archaeology roots trace back to the 1960 Cape Gelidonya excavation and even earlier Ottoman dives ordered by Osman Hamdi Bey in the 1890s, supported by the 1884 Asar-i Atika regulation.
The Culture and Tourism Ministry, led by Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, is advancing the Legacy to the Future program, which by 2025 covered 255 sites and recovered over 15,000 artifacts. New museum projects in Antalya’s Kemer district and Istanbul’s Haydarpaşa station aim to showcase the maritime heritage uncovered from the Mediterranean, Aegean, Marmara and Black Seas.
