Marine archaeologists have
recovered a bronze arm from an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of
Antikythera, where the remains of at least seven more priceless statues from
the classical world are believed to lie buried. Divers found the right arm, encrusted
and stained green, under half a metre of sediment on the boulder-strewn slope
where the ship and its cargo now rest. The huge vessel, perhaps 50m from bow to
stern, was sailing from Asia Minor to Rome in 1BC when it foundered near the
tiny island between Crete and the Peloponnese. The project team, from the Greek
Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and Lund University in Sweden, discovered
the buried arm with a bespoke underwater metal detector which has revealed the
presence of other large metal objects nearby under the seabed.
The Antikythera wreck first came
to light in 1900 when Greek sponge divers happened on the scene in 50 metres of
water. Archaeologists have since pulled up spectacular bronze and marble
statues, ornate glass and pottery, stunning pieces of jewellery, and a
remarkable geared device – the Antikythera mechanism – which modelled the
motion of the heavens. During the 2017 excavations, divers recovered a bronze
disc that may be a missing part of the ancient device. But it is the statues
that made the wreck famous. In the 1900s, archaeologists working at the site
surfaced pieces of a beautiful Hellenistic bronze, named the Antikythera Youth.
The statue now stands in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens alongside
an impressive bronze head named the Antikythera philosopher, also hauled from
the wreck.
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