Sadana Island

Sadana Island Shipwreck Excavation - INA in Egypt

Project Director: Cheryl Ward, Ph.D.

More than 230 years ago, an immense ship slammed into a Red Sea coral reef and slid a hundred feet to the bottom of the sea. Its valuable cargo included Chinese export porcelain, earthenware water jugs, liquor and wine bottles, coffee, Indian pepper and coconuts, spices and aromatic resin-all characteristic of a profitable northern Red Sea trade in both luxuries and everyday goods. An Institute of Nautical Archaeology - Egypt survey located the site from sport divers' reports in 1994, and, with the assistance of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, we began excavating at Sadana Island in 1995.

Many archaeological excavations and historical studies focus on Mediterranean trade during the Ottoman period, but little is understood about Red Sea and western Indian Ocean commerce. One of our primary goals is to examine the ship's role within the region's historical, economic and geographical context. Its crew, like the ship itself, was non-European, and although the ship is just older than the United States, it is proving surprisingly difficult to find comparable excavated material as local archaeologists have focused on the more distant past.

Nearly 3,000 artifacts--excavated, catalogued, cleaned and conserved-tell the story of this ship's final journey, northbound, probably from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia or Mocha in Yemen. An international crew (about 25% Egyptian and 25% American) worked at depths of 90-145 feet on more than 2,800 dives in 1995 and 1996; a final season is scheduled for 1998.

The ship itself is virtually empty today although it once carried some 900 tons (see: Ship Construction Notes). Although looting of porcelain objects has been substantial, most of the ship's final cargo probably was organic in nature and has disappeared as a result of natural processes. Archaeobotanical retrieval of plant remains and historical documents suggest that coffee could have been a primary cargo; cheap textiles also formed a large part of Red Sea trade into Egypt and few traces would remain after the centuries.

About 2,000 clay jars of a type still used for cooling water in the Middle East fill the well preserved stern quarter of the ship. More than three dozen coconuts, large deposits of an aromatic resin, and a wide variety of food remains also were found in the stern. In addition to pepper, coriander, cardamom, and nutmeg from the western Indian Ocean, fig, grape, olive and hazelnut remains represent typical Mediterranean foodstuffs. Most of the four dozen copper objects recovered to date also belong in the kitchen-dishes, a kettle and a coffee pot, a large tray and cooking pots with lids. No tools or weapons have been found. The few personal possessions include tobacco pipe bowls, a pair of hinged, inlaid bracelets, a small glass flask, and some incense burners, but we know little about the precise cultural links to these objects.

The porcelain, which served as ballast, includes monochrome brown or blue glaze, blue and white pieces (about 25%), and 'Chinese Imari' wares once painted brilliant scarlet and gold over the cobalt blue underglaze but now requiring intensive detective work to recover patterns long lost to the sea's erosive action. Its strongest ties are to the collections of the Topkapi Sarayi Museum in Istanbul, where more than 12,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain are curated. Manufactured expressly for the Middle Eastern market, the Sadana Island porcelains have floral or geometric motifs and will contribute greatly to the study of Kangxi period exports. Seaborne porcelain trade previously was thought to have ended at Jeddah; the wreck at Sadana Island and three other wrecks in the northern Red Sea suggest a much stronger seaborne component.

Citation Information:

Sadana Island Shipwreck Excavation- INA in Egypt
URL, http://ina.tamu.edu/sadana.htm

HOME