Diving in Türkiye

Diving in Türkiye - Underwater

Türkiye is surrounded on three sides by the sea, and from the earliest times important trade routes have skirted its shores, with many of its coastal cities serving as ports of call.

The Phoenicians penetrated to every corner of the Mediterranean, while in Roman times ships laden with Egyptian wheat and Anatolian wine followed the coasts of Asia Minor on their way to Rome. This was the time when Asia Minor was being plundered of its artistic treasures, and some of the ships carrying these sank off these shores together with their priceless cargo.

Turkish waters conceal wrecks dating from every period from ancient Syrian times up to the 19th century, but most of those that lie at a depth of less than 40 metres have already been looted and form the source of the amphorae that decorate various hotels and restaurants, while those that lie a little deeper are in immediate danger. It is for that reason that we have not divulged the exact position of the wrecks that still await investigation.
Underwater Archaeology in Turkiye
In deep water sponge-fishers use a type of drag-net consisting of two wheels with a heavy chain between them that scrapes over the sea-bed and fills the net behind with sponges and other sea-growths. Very often amphorae are brought up in these nets and are usually broken up and thrown back into the sea. On one occasion, however, in August 1953, the fishers were amazed to find the bronze statue of a woman brought up in this way. This, too, would have been thrown back had it not been for Erhan Erbil, a fisher from Bodrum, who insisted on taking it to land.
Here it was examined by Prof. George Bean, who identified it as the goddess Demeter and dated it to the 4th century B.C. It was later taken to the Izmir Museum.
Interest in underwater archaeology was sparked off by this discovery, but it was not until 1958, when Peter Throckmorton, a New York reporter who came to Turkey to do a series of articles on the Bodrum sponge fishers, that further developments took place. Throckmorton's attention was immediately attracted by the ancient amphorae to be found in almost every home, and he decided to switch the subject of his inquiry to the question of sunken ships off the Turkish coast.
With the help of a local captain and a photographer from the Frogmen Club at Izmir they finally identified a number of ships that had been wrecked on the treacherous sandbanks at Yassiada near Bodrum. These included two wrecks, one Roman and the other Byzantine that had been protected from the depredation's of sea fauna and flora by a blanket of sand, and a few years later archaeological investigations were finally carried out on these ships.