The Dokos Shipwreck: Excavating the World’s Oldest Underwater Wreck
Source: Greece Is
Ceramics, Seafaring, and Traces of an Early Trade Route
At the heart of the Dokos wreck lies its cargo: an extraordinary collection of ceramic vessels that offers a precious glimpse into the domestic, economic, and artistic life of Early Helladic Greece. With more than 500 complete or reconstructable pots and over 15,000 sherds, the site represents one of the largest closed groups of Early Helladic II pottery ever discovered.
The diversity is striking. Amphorae, wide-mouthed jars, sauceboats, bowls, braziers, baking trays, and small ladle jars or “askoi” were recovered from the seabed, many still clustered together as they would have been packed aboard the vessel. Most were utilitarian – meant for storing, cooking, and serving food – but some, like the elegantly curved sauceboats with long spouts and offset handles, may have had ceremonial or elite domestic functions. Their stylistic affinities with ceramics from Askitario in Attica, Lerna in the Argolid, and several Cycladic sites suggest shared manufacturing practices and the circulation of common vessel types across the Aegean.
But perhaps most intriguing of all is the pottery’s method of manufacture. These vessels were not made on a wheel, which had not yet become common practice in the Aegean. Instead, they were shaped entirely by hand – coiled, smoothed, and carefully formed, then often burnished or coated with a slip before firing. Decoration was minimal, if present at all. Yet their apparent simplicity masks a high degree of technical control. The uniformity in shape, proportion, and finish suggests a level of standardization difficult to achieve without specialized training. This was not rustic village ware; it was precision-crafted, almost certainly in organized workshops, most likely located in the Argolid. These pots were made not for household use alone, but for distribution on a regional scale.
The inclusion of millstones and lead ingots among the cargo reinforces the interpretation of the vessel as a merchant ship, its wares bound for smaller settlements or coastal communities that lacked their own ceramic industries. This was not a personal haul, but a commercial payload – evidence that, even before the palatial economies of the second millennium BC, the Aegean was already a well-trafficked trade corridor.
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