In the fourth episode of Dive & Dig Season II podcast, Professor Bettany Hughes and Dr Lucy Blue head to Yenikapi, in Istanbul, home to one of the largest archaeological digs in the world, with over 58,000 square metres discovered during development work.
Most of the remains relate to the artificial Theodosian Harbour from the Byzantine period, including more than 37 remarkably well-preserved shipwrecks, the largest group of Byzantine shipwrecks ever found.
The site is a treasure trove of finds, from preserved camel skeletons to a container of cherries. In this episode, Bettany heads to the conservation lab to speak with Ufuk Kocabaş from the Department of Conservation and Restoration, Istanbul University, to see some of these remarkable finds first-hand, and Lucy speaks to Michael Rice Jones, one of the archaeologists working on the shipwreck remains.
Turkey has been recently impacted by a devastating earthquake.
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Episode facts:
- Discovered in 2004 during the development of a rail and metro network, the site covers 58,000 square kilometres.
- The main site comprises a 4th-century port and 37 shipwrecks, from trading ships to military ships, some are very rare examples. However, beneath this there are even older finds, going right back to a Neolithic village.
- The military ships are known as galleys, these light vessels were built for speed not cargo, so they normally float away and break up and are very rarely found in the archaeological record, so finding them at Yenikapi was astonishing.
- Amazing preservation has led to the team discovering entire animal skeletons, bowls of cherries dating back over 1,000 years and huge ship timbers. Beneath a ship the archaeology team even found a 1,100 year old leaf that was still green!
