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The Uluburun ship sank off Kaş in southern Turkey around 1300 BC, carrying copper, tin, glass and ivory gathered from across the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

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The story behind the card

In 1982 Mehmed Çakır, a sponge diver from Yalıkavak near Bodrum, reported strange metal 'biscuits with ears' on the seabed; they were copper ingots. The Institute of Nautical Archaeology, led by George Bass and then Cemal Pulak, excavated the wreck in 11 seasons from 1984 to 1994, with more than 22,000 dives. The cargo held about ten tonnes of copper and one tonne of tin, the right mix for bronze, along with glass ingots, elephant and hippopotamus ivory, ostrich eggshells, Baltic amber and a gold scarab bearing the name of Egypt's Queen Nefertiti. Its goods came from Cyprus, the Syrian and Canaanite coast, Egypt, the Aegean and beyond, about a century before that connected world collapsed. The finds are shown at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.

Türkçe oku
Uluburun gemisi MÖ 1300 dolaylarında Kaş açıklarında battı. Ambarında, Tunç Çağı Akdeniz'inin dört bir yanından toplanmış bakır, kalay, cam ve fildişi vardı.

1982'de, Bodrum yakınlarındaki Yalıkavak'tan sünger avcısı Mehmed Çakır, deniz dibinde “kulaklı bisküvilere” benzeyen metal parçalar gördüğünü bildirdi; bunlar bakır külçelerdi. Sualtı Arkeolojisi Enstitüsü (INA), önce George Bass'ın, sonra Cemal Pulak'ın yönetiminde batığı 1984–1994 arasında 11 sezon boyunca, 22.000'i aşkın dalışla kazdı. Gemide yaklaşık on ton bakır ve bir ton kalay vardı; bu, tunç yapmak için gereken orandır. Yükün arasından cam külçeler, fil ve suaygırı dişinden fildişi, devekuşu yumurtası kabukları, Baltık kehribarı ve Mısır Kraliçesi Nefertiti'nin adını taşıyan altın bir skarabe (bok böceği biçiminde bir mühür) de çıktı. Mallar Kıbrıs'tan, Suriye ve Kenan kıyılarından, Mısır'dan ve Ege'den geliyordu. Birbirine bu kadar bağlı olan bu dünya, gemiden yaklaşık bir yüzyıl sonra çöktü. Buluntular bugün Bodrum Sualtı Arkeoloji Müzesi'nde sergileniyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Uluburun shipwreck
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