Why are scientists obsessed with the Black Sea? - Helen Farr and Jon Adams
It's midnight on September 16th, 2017,
60 kilometers off the Bulgarian coast
and 2 kilometers beneath the Black Sea’s
surface.
A remotely operated vehicle
surveys the seabed,
transmitting video to researchers
above as it goes.
Suddenly, it discerns another
ghostly vessel in the gloom.
But this is a relic from another age.
It's an undoubtedly ancient shipwreck,
but its mast, rowing benches, and some
of its upper deck remain eerily intact.
It might be an ancient Roman ship,
but its appearance doesn’t quite match.
Notably, its splayed rudder blade
more closely resembles
those depicted on an even older
Greek vase.
To get a definitive answer, the research
team takes three samples from the wreck
and radiocarbon dating confirms
its ancient origins.
The ship is dated to between
350 and 410 BCE.
It is, in fact, the oldest intact
shipwreck ever found.
This ancient Greek vessel traversed
the Black Sea’s coasts
during the time of Aristotle
and has since rested in its depths,
unseen and undisturbed,
for almost 2,500 years.
This was just one of 65 shipwrecks
a research team discovered
at the bottom of the Black Sea
between 2015 and 2017.
Others date from the Roman, Byzantine,
and Ottoman empires.
And despite the centuries, they’ve all
survived in remarkable condition.
So, why does the Black Sea contain
so many well-preserved shipwrecks?
In prehistoric times,
the land surrounding the Black Sea
hosted early human settlements.
Eventually, it became a hub for trade,
battle, and empire-building
because of its strategic position
between eastern and western
Eurasian civilizations.
For thousands of years, it was traversed
by merchants, pirates, and warriors.
And with sustained seafaring activity
came inevitable losses.
But unlike other bodies of water
in the region,
the Black Sea is a particularly deep,
semi-enclosed basin.
Seasonal changes usually cause the layers
within a contained body of water
to mix together,
oxygenating the water.
But because the Black Sea is fed
with fresh water from European rivers,
and saltwater from the Mediterranean Sea,
it contains two distinct layers.
The denser saltwater flows
beneath the freshwater,
where it remains permanently,
making the Black Sea the world’s largest
meromictic— or un-mixing— basin.
Oxygen doesn’t reach
its lower, saltier zone,
which creates the ideal environment
for preservation,
and is why the Black Sea has been called
“the world’s biggest pickle jar.”
In other bodies of water, marine organisms
decompose materials over time.
Had the ancient Greek ship sunk
in the Mediterranean, for example,
there would likely be no organic material
left today.
But in the depths of the Black Sea,
only anaerobic bacteria— those that
don’t require oxygen— can survive.
This is why ancient ships can still be
found carrying their original cargo,
with carvings in their wood,
and their rigging still assembled.
Among the recent findings was
a medieval Italian merchant ship,
likely from around the time Italy had
a virtual monopoly over Black Sea trade.
Venetian traveler Marco Polo would’ve
probably been familiar
with this kind of ship.
Although vessels like this
one helped to modernize Europe,
contemporary scholars had never before
seen such a complete example.
And it was largely intact—
a ship’s boat still lying on its deck,
even though some seven
centuries had passed.
Many of the 65 ships that were
recently uncovered
have retained their original forms.
But while there are far fewer degradative
forces at play in the Black Sea’s depths,
anaerobic bacteria do gradually
weaken organic materials.
When researchers lifted a plank from
the ancient Greek wreck for dating,
it broke under its own weight.
While the ships are exceptionally
well-preserved, they're also fragile.
This makes it impossible to bring
them to the surface intact.
Scientists may carefully remove and study
select objects from the wreckages.
But the sunken ships will
remain protected where they are,
perhaps among thousands of others—
deep beneath us, suspended in time,
at the bottom of the Black Sea.
