Divers Pull Marble Head of Hercules From a 2,000-Year-Old Shipwreck in Greece
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Divers Pull Marble Head of Hercules From a 2,000-Year-Old Shipwreck in Greece
The Antikythera shipwreck, discovered in 1900, continues to yield new artifacts
Elizabeth Djinis
Elizabeth Djinis
Daily Correspondent
June 27, 2022
First discovered in 1900, the Antikythera shipwreck has yielded some of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. Photo by Nikos Giannoulakis © Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece / Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
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A marble statue of Hercules in Athens’ National Archaeological Museum is missing one notable component: its head. Now, divers exploring the 2,000-year-old Antikythera shipwreck may have recovered it.
“In 1900, [sponge divers] pulled out the statue of Hercules and now in all probability we’ve found its head,” Lorenz Baumer, a University of Geneva archaeologist who is directing the excavations, tells the Guardian’s Helena Smith. “It’s a most impressive marble piece. It is twice lifesize, has a big beard, a very particular face and short hair. There is no doubt it is Hercules.”
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Divers uncovered the head this summer, according to a statement from “Return to Antikythera,” a project dedicated to researching the site. The wreck dates to around 60 B.C.E., and it was first discovered off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera by a group of sponge divers in 1900. The site has revealed multiple bronze and marble statues, human remains and—perhaps most famously—the Antikythera Mechanism, which some call the first computer.
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But since then, only a handful of researchers have investigated the wreck. Until the “Return to Antikythera” project began studying it in 2012, the last expedition was in the mid-1970s under the watch of explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.These latest excavations involved relocating natural boulders—each weighing up to 8.5 tons—that had covered parts of the shipwreck, per the statement. In addition to the marble head, divers also discovered parts of the base of a marble statue, pieces of the ship’s equipment (including components of the anchor) and two human teeth.
“It’s so deep they can only be down there for 30 minutes,” Baumer tells the Guardian. “But now we have an idea of what has been hiding under those rocks … [E]ach find helps us piece together more context in our understanding of the ship, its cargo, the crew and where they were from.”Ensuing excavations, including those conducted by Cousteau’s team in the mid-1970s, revealed many more objects, including a bronze statue named the “Antikythera Youth,” the head of a Stoic philosopher, coins from cities in Asia Minor, and bones from at least four people.
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Comments
This is yet another example that shows underwater archaeology has so much to offer us in terms of historical discovery.
Very interesting...and still providing new finds. I have read about the Antikythera Mechanism, google it and check it out. Cheers, RickO