Shipwrecks

Shipwrecks are of immeasurable value in offering single-event horizons and the possibility of full assemblages of associated material being preserved together, though the remains are still susceptible to decay, movement or destruction by currents or sea creatures, and mixing with other wrecks and dumping events. They are direct material evidence for the form and construction of ships and boats; for the cargoes, personal effects, and subsistence items taken on board; and for the location of the vessel when it foundered. The frequent preservation of organic material can open a world of information about the use of substances that rarely survive in the terrestrial archaeological record; the Uluburun project is a

2.8 Clay boat model, Asine LH IIIC. After Spathari 1995: 51, fig. 51.

Shining example of the vast amount of new information that can be gleaned from specialist analyses of the excavated materials. Indirectly, the ship's contents can enlighten about the origin, movements, and final destination of the doomed voyage; about the modes of exchange and purposes of travel represented; and about the social, political, and economic conditions of the time.

Three LBA shipwrecks in the Mediterranean have been thoroughly excavated and published to date: the Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya wrecks off Turkey's southern coast, and the wreck at Point Iria in the Argolic Gulf on the Greek mainland. A fourth excavated shipwreck, a Minoan ship of MM IIB date off the coast of Crete at Pseira, is nearing publication (Hadjidaki and Betancourt 2005—2006, 2006). A fifth, near Seytan Deresi on the southwestern coast of Turkey, was fully excavated and described in preliminary reports (Bass 1976; Margariti 1998), but is not considered here because there is a high probability that it does not actually belong to the Bronze Age (Bass 2005d). Other underwater concentrations of artifacts that have been interpreted as Bronze Age shipwrecks, although without the benefit of timber remains or systematic excavations, include Aegean wrecks off Dokos island (EBA) and at Kyme off the coast of Euboea (LBA, with nineteen “pillow" type copper ingots); and a number of scattered cargo sites on the Israeli coast that are difficult to interpret (Lolos 2001; Wachsmann 1998: 205—211). In the absence of excavation, we cannot rule out that the remains may represent palimpsests of material from multiple wrecks, or mixed shipboard and land-based debris near harbor sites.

The problem of working back to the Bronze Age ships represented by these sites is exacerbated by the near absence of surviving ship remains. Only the Uluburun and Gelidonya shipwrecks have produced small amounts of hull remains, on which basis the Uluburun ship is estimated to have been 15 meters long and 5 meters wide, and the Gelidonya ship 9—10 meters long but of uncertain width. This material provides crucial information on such aspects of shipbuilding as general hull construction and joinery methods, but is insufficient to furnish independent confirmation of inferences drawn from iconography on a host of unresolved questions. Neither of these wrecks is likely to be a Mycenaean vessel, but as types they must have been familiar in the Aegean.

The most interesting aspect of the four excavated shipwrecks is that they possess contrasting cargo assemblages and exemplify a range of distinctive modes of exchange, as defined above. The Uluburun wreck, with its enormously valuable cargo of precious metals and other luxuries, epitomizes the directional, emissary exchange so vividly described in Near Eastern texts, while at the same time carrying large quantities of non-elite commodities such as poor-quality Cypriot pottery, which merchants on board operating in freelance mode could trade at ports of call (Pulak 1997, 1998). The Gelidonya ship also carried raw metals: 34 copper oxhide ingots (about one ton), 20 bun and 19 slab ingots of bronze, and a few badly degraded tin ingots; more prominent, however, is an inventory of more than 250 pieces of bronze scrap along with intact tools for coppersmithing, and the absence of luxury finished objects and raw materials such as ivory (Bass 1961, 1967, 1988, 1990). The Gelidonya ship is seen as a prime example of independent, entrepreneurial cabotage, that is, freelance exchange, but with a specific focus on itinerant metal working. This in itself is fascinating, because itinerant artisans are often postulated to explain the appearance of foreign styles, but rarely are the toolkit and the peripatetic lifestyle of the itinerant craftsman so clearly captured. The Point Iria and Pseira shipwrecks seem to have been small ships plying local networks with cargoes of foodstuffs and other staples transported in utilitarian pots, though there are some points of difference. The cargo of the Point Iria wreck is composed exclusively of pottery (a small anchor found nearby may also belong to the wreck) of three distinct groups: eight Cypriot pithoi, eight Cretan LM IIIB2 transport stirrup jars, and nine assorted Helladic vessels, mainly storage jars and amphoras, but also including a decorated deep bowl that helps to date the entire assemblage to LHIIIB2, probably closer to 1200 BC. With this sort of mixed assemblage, several interpretations of the ship's origin, movements, and mission are possible. It may have left a home base on Cyprus, traveled to Crete, picking up commodities packed in coarse stirrup jars, and continued on to the Argolid — where we know Tiryns had ties to Cyprus and Crete at the time — to conduct business and pick up mainland goods, before finally wrecking on the shallows off Point Iria. Because these transport vessels are so portable, however, the ship could equally have come from Crete, or perhaps most likely of all, it belonged to a local trader carrying produce to neighboring settlements in the Gulf in recycled storage vessels (Dickinson 2006: 35). Cheryl Ward (2010: 157) cogently interprets the Point Iria wreck as “ . . . the cargo of a small, open boat, not unlike a small modern caique, taking on merchandise at a central location and then traveling within a close-knit network of settlements along the coast." She also reminds us that the detailed and imaginative reconstructions of the ship and its activities that have been published have no basis in material evidence (Ward 2010: 157; see Vichos 1999 And especially fig. 16). Finally, the Pseira wreck is dated to MM IIB (roughly the middle to late eighteenth century) by dozens of complete

Transport amphoras and hole-mouthed jars in local fabrics of the Mirabello region (Hadjidaki and Betancourt 2005—2006: 84—85; P. P. Betancourt, personal communication, 2011). The local provenience and utilitarian function of the pottery have led the excavator to the provisional interpretation of the wreck as a small ship engaged in local-scale trade around the Gulf of Mirabello, which we might imagine as the center of a maritime small world. In the Point Iria and Pseira shipwrecks we have, at last, a glimpse of local-scale maritime networks.