#Mustafa Emre Kolbakır

Archaeological underwater work continues in Antalya

Kumluca Bronze Age Shipwreck Excavation Head Assoc. Prof. Hakan Öniz and his team are working on new discoveries on the coasts of Kumluca and Finike, known as the Ancient Lycia region, where Gelidonya and Uluburun Bronze Age shipwrecks are located. Accompanying the work, underwater documentary producer and cinematographer Tahsin Ceylan and underwater photographer Mustafa Emre Kolbakır dived to view the team's work off the coast of Finike district. After the necessary preparations were completed, Ceylan and Kolbakır went down to a depth of meters and viewed the underwater surface explorations of Associate Professor Hakan Öniz, Head of the Cultural Heritage Preservation and Restoration Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Akdeniz University, the works they had previously documented, and the work carried out to find new shipwrecks. Öniz and his team examined and measured the previously located artifacts. The works are carried out with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Excavation Director Öniz told the AA reporter before the dive that they, as Akdeniz University, carried out underwater research in Antalya and Mersin with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Stating that they are diving to check whether there have been any changes in the shipwrecks they previously documented on the coast of Finike in the last two years and to make new discoveries, Öniz said, "We will investigate new shipwrecks and document new archaeological artifacts. Have any pirate dives been made to the shipwrecks whose locations we know? Is there any deterioration in the artifact? We will understand that." Tahsin Ceylan stated that Turkey's seas have a large inventory of underwater cultural assets. Pointing out that introducing underwater cultural assets and bringing them into diving tourism will provide significant economic returns, Ceylan said, "Kekova region also needs to be brought into diving tourism. It would be an exemplary work for the world." 335 archaeological shipwrecks were found during excavations On the other hand, during the underwater excavations carried out on the Mediterranean coast for about 10 years under the direction of Hakan Öniz, 335 shipwrecks of archaeological quality were found, which are considered to belong to a wide date range from the 16th century BC to the 19th century AD. The majority of these shipwrecks contain amphorae thought to contain commercial cargo such as wine or olive oil. Among these are the 3,600-year-old Middle Bronze Age shipwreck loaded with copper ingots, located in Kumluca and described as the "oldest shipwreck in the world", and the wreck of an Ottoman period merchant ship that sank in the 1720s and was excavated in Alanya. Some of the artifacts brought to science and tourism from the Roman period include materials such as plates, tiles, bricks, sarcophagi and block stones.