World's oldest shipwreck discovered off Türkiye's coast enters Guinness World Records

A shipwreck discovered during underwater excavations near Kekova Island in Türkiye's southern Antalya province has entered Guinness World Records as the world's oldest shipwreck.

Hakan Oniz, head of the Department of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at Akdeniz University's Faculty of Fine Arts, told Anadolu that his team has been conducting research along the Mediterranean coastline for years on behalf of the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

Oniz said the team has uncovered many significant shipwrecks and shared its discoveries with the international community.

During underwater excavations conducted near Kekova Island since 2024, researchers recovered approximately 4,700-year-old amphorae from what has now been recognized as the world's oldest shipwreck.

He said the discovery attracted international media attention and reached billions of people worldwide.

"This is a source of pride for us. As our president has said, Türkiye is one of the world's leading countries in underwater archaeology. In our view, it is among the top two or three countries," Oniz said.

"We have excellent infrastructure and highly qualified experts working in this field. Most importantly, we are working along one of the world's richest coastlines," he added.

Highlighting the success of the underwater excavations, Oniz said the Kekova discovery received official recognition this week.

"The shipwreck we discovered in the Kekova region entered Guinness World Records this week as the 'world's oldest shipwreck,' and this was officially announced," he said.

"This shipwreck was just one of our projects. We discovered the Kekova wreck in 2024, but when we first found it, we thought it belonged to the Ottoman period," Oniz noted.

Artifacts to be displayed in different museums

Oniz said researchers initially believed the shipwreck was between 100 and 400 years old, while their work had primarily focused on wrecks dating back 2,000 to 2,500 years.

However, further examination of materials recovered from the wreck, located at a depth of 35-40 meters (115-131 feet), and scientific research revealed its much greater age.

"The wreck in Kekova is a 4,700-year-old shipwreck. It is a vessel that is nearly 5,000 years old," Oniz said.

"Some of the artifacts resembled more recent objects that we were less familiar with. However, during our publication research last year, we found similar amphorae in Egypt."

He explained that researchers identified comparable amphorae in publications documenting archaeological discoveries in Egypt, prompting them to return to the site with permission from the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

"When we returned to the site and conducted further research, we realized that this was indeed a shipwreck dating back to the Early Bronze Age," he said.

"The artifacts we recovered, predominantly amphorae, are currently undergoing conservation and examination at both our regional laboratory and Akdeniz University's underwater archaeology laboratory in Kemer."

Oniz said artifacts recovered from the shipwreck would be displayed in the coming months at the newly completed "Four Seas, One Museum" in Istanbul's Haydarpasa district.

Some of the artifacts will also be exhibited at the Mediterranean Underwater Archaeology Museum in Antalya's Kemer district, where construction is nearing completion.

Oniz and his team first identified objects and materials off the coast of Kekova in 2024 during coastal and surface surveys, determining that they belonged to a shipwreck.

They subsequently conducted additional dives with permission from the ministry, recovered materials, and continued scientific examinations.

Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on Oct. 14 that around 4,700-year-old amphorae belonging to the world's oldest shipwreck had been discovered near Kekova Island in Antalya.

HOW DID IT EARN A PLACE IN GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS?

Guinness World Records provides the following details on its website:

-The world's oldest-known shipwreck is located at a site 30 m (100 ft) below the surface near Kekova Island in Antalya, Türkiye.

-The cargo and anchors recovered from the wreck are estimated to date back between 4,400 and 4,700 years, placing it in the Early Bronze Age.

-The preliminary findings of the analysis of the wreck were published in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology on 24 July 2026.

-No structural remains of the wooden trading vessel, believed to have originated somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean and measured approximately 10 m (33 ft) in length, have survived. However, three stone anchors dating from the same period and, most importantly, more than 30 amphorae (storage vessels), believed to have formed the ship's cargo, were recovered from the wreck site. These physical remains were examined to establish the age of the wreck.

-The discovery surpasses the previous record-holder, a shipwreck located off the Greek island of Dokos in the Aegean Sea. Peter Throckmorton first discovered the Dokos wreck on 23 August 1975. Identified by a large pile of pottery lying 20 m (65 ft) below the sea, the wreck was dated to 2200 BCE by archaeologist George Papathanasopoulos, making it approximately 4,200 years old.