| Şeytan Deresi: The Excavation |
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Attributing his initial impression that the Şeytan
Deresi pots belonged to the Bronze Age to wishful thinking, George
Bass
concurred with the view of the specialists he consulted after the survey
and dated the wreck to the Iron Age or Archaic Period in his first
reports of the discovery. The
general shape and distinctive handles of the krater (SD 9) raised during
the 1973 survey seemed to justify this late date for the specific
artifact and the wreck as a whole, but convincing parallels for this and
other Şeytan Deresi finds, from either the Iron Age or the Archaic
Period, were lacking.
Even as a Geometric or Archaic assemblage, the discovery
seemed important and the site worthy of excavation.
INA scheduled a project for 1974 but military conflict
in the region thwarted plans. Excavation
finally took place the following year and lasted for almost six weeks.
The original team comprised 18 members, yet on October 14, the
last day of excavation, only six of the crew remained as the others,
mostly student volunteers, had to return to their academic pursuits.
It was the first excavation undertaken by the nascent Institute
of Nautical Archaeology (INA), and the first official collaboration of
the Institute with Oğuz Alpozen, then a commissioner overseeing the
project on behalf of the Turkish Archaeological authorities and now
director of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.
The morphology of the site and complicated layout of the
artifact scatter emerges from the site plan and the excavators'
descriptions. The finds
spread over a 42-square-meter area but the main concentration, including
the two complete vessels raised during the survey, lay at the northern
end of the site in a sandy bottom at a depth of 32 to 33 m.
Above a rocky slope located east of this sandy area, at shallower
depths (27 m), another stretch of sand held a pithos (SD 13) not seen
during the 1973 survey. The
pithos contained large rocks, an amphora neck (SD 18), an amphora base
(SD 17), a lead fishing weight (SD 22), and, significantly for the
understanding of wreck formation processes, two sherds of SD 6 and SD 8,
both amphoras of the same type. Not
visible on the site plan are smooth stones, "presumably
ballast" according to the excavator, of which the divers removed
several basketfuls in the sandy area of the site.
Also not indicated on the plan are additional finds from
shallower waters. Bass
mentions “large sherds and a handle identical to those of pithos SD
10” lying in 2 or 3 m of water and heavily concreted to the rocky
bottom between the site and the shore.
Having moored a 50-ft barge over the site, the team laid
down a PVC grid of four 2-m squares around the findspots of krater SD 9
and pithos SD 10. A metal
grid soon replaced the PVC piping, and squares were added as the
excavation progressed. Using
30 cm steel probes, they located concentrations of pottery buried in the
sand. Since most of the
sherds recovered from this area joined to form complete or nearly
complete vessels, Bass was satisfied with the thoroughness of
excavation.
In spite of combing of the area, the rocky slope, where
the divers had seen and collected random sherds during the 1973 survey,
did not yield any further artifacts in 1975, except for the base of
amphora SD 6. Bass points
out that in their hasty efforts in 1973, the divers are not likely to
have collected all sherds present among the rocks and, adding that few
of the sherds from the rocks joined, speculates that other parties may
have visited the site before the archaeologists returned.
A further possibility, not necessarily exclusive of Bass's
interpretation, is that sherds covered with concretions escaped notice
both times; Bass himself notes that the base of SD 6 "was nearly
invisible under concretion." Furthermore, the relatively short duration of the project
coupled with the dwindling crew towards the end allow for the
possibility that, despite meticulous efforts, the divers missed valuable
scraps of evidence scattered throughout the site.
After conservation and mending, the finds of the main
group were estimated to represent 17 individual vessels, of which 10
were restorable to their original shape.
A perusal of the site plan reveals that, in general, pieces from
the sandy area, especially those belonging to vessels restored to
complete or near-complete profiles, were lying in discrete groups.
Despite exceptions to this pattern, it seems that most of the
ceramic vessels lying in the sandy area had reached the seabed intact;
four of them (SD 9, SD 10, SD 12 and SD 13) remained whole, and were
slowly buried in situ. Others
broke upon impact and a deep layer of sand gradually covered their
remains. Some fragments,
however, were found among sherds of different vessels.
Currents and marine creatures may be responsible for such
movements, which obviously occurred before substantial deposition of
sand over the site. In one
extreme case, the fragments of amphora SD 6 were dispersed over a
relatively wide area, primarily in the deeper sandy section; the base
was concreted to the rocky slope and a body sherd was found inside
pithos SD 13 in shallower water.
Despite the absence of ship timbers, it seems that the
assemblage at Şeytan Deresi represents a single cargo that sank in
a shipwreck, as opposed to items jettisoned from aboard a ship, or
debris from shore. The
location of the site at considerable depth off the eastern point of
Kerme bay precludes the possibility of refuse from land, especially
since no settlement site is reported in the vicinity. The
uniform fabric of the ceramics ascribe the assemblage to a single source
and a single shipment while the relatively concentrated layout of the
finds and the presence of ballast stones among them contradict the
scenario of cargo jettisoned from a ship in distress.
In his study of stratification and contamination in
ancient Mediterranean shipwrecks, A.J. Parker provides a simple
classification of shipwrecks, based on their state of preservation. He groups shipwrecks into three broad classes: well
preserved, relatively coherent, and scattered.
In well-preserved shipwrecks, "coherent timber structure and
cargo survive, with a dense concentration of material."
In relatively coherent shipwrecks, "part of the disturbed
cargo, and, possibly, some structural timbers, survive more or less in
situ, though the rest of the wreck is dispersed or lost," while
in scattered shipwrecks only fragments of the cargo survive, widely
spread, and small finds or fragments of the hull are only occasionally
preserved. Individual shipwrecks are likely to fall between
categories, yet Parker's classification is useful in defining the degree
of disturbance each site has suffered.
The relatively dense main concentration of pottery, which appears
to have survived more or less in situ, the presence of ballast
stones, and additional ceramic finds scattered over a wide area
including much shallower waters, combined with the absence of any hull
remains or small finds, place the Şeytan Deresi assemblage between
Parker's classes 2 and 3. Despite its nature as an open deposit, the Şeytan
Deresi site offers sufficient evidence for the reconstruction of the
main shipwreck event and speculation on the ship's original contents. The intrusive material at Şeytan Deresi is easily
detectable; comprising distinctly random pieces it does not detract from
the uniformity of the main assemblage. Its presence indicates that, in
addition to the main event of wreck formation at Şeytan Deresi, at
least three other incidents, probably minor and chronologically far
removed from one another, contributed to the final morphology of the
site. The circumstances that caused the shipwreck at Şeytan
Deresi pertain to local geography and weather conditions. The coast of the Gulf of Gokova features a series of parallel
mountainous ridges and deep valleys that run in a north-south direction
perpendicular to the shore. The
excavation team had pitched their tents on the beach of the small bay at
the issue of a deep valley known as Şeytan Deresi.
The wreck site itself lies off the bay's easterly point, labelled
“Gatal Burun” (Cape Fork) in nautical charts.
These ominous names warn the traveler about the prevailing
conditions in the area. Mehmet
Turguttekin, then captain of the Kardešler, told Bass that when
he was a young man he had seen a waterspout right inside the bay.
Bass describes the eerie atmosphere at camp in the evenings,
which he ascribes to the unpredictable gusts of wind sweeping down the
valley and menacing the camp only to die down as suddenly as they had
appeared. On one occasion,
the violence of such a blast caused the anchors of the expedition's
barge to drag, while at another time it snapped a cable.
Is it likely, as Bass postulates, that a similar incident caused
the ancient wreck? The
location of the underwater site approximately 100 m off the easterly
point of the bay suggests that the ship was rounding this cape when she
came to grief. Since Kerme bay does not seem to hide the navigational
hazards, such as reefs or shallows, that beset the neighboring bay of
Mazı, a violent gust of wind that hit the vessel unexpectedly as
she was entering the bay and caused her to list dangerously and take in
water or capsize may explain the disaster. Having rejected the idea that the cargo might have been
tossed overboard to lighten a ship in distress, Bass wondered initially
whether the ship had tipped and spilled its cargo when already on its
way to the bottom or had capsized while still at the surface, spilled
its cargo, and then floated away to be smashed on the rocky shore.
Later, based on the group's failure to locate even the slightest
pieces of hull timbers he leaned decisively towards the idea of
capsizing. He states that
the sand in the area of the main concentration was deep enough to have
preserved at least some of the timber, had the hull gone straight to the
bottom with the cargo. In
very shallow water (2 or 3 m deep) near shore, findings of pithos
fragments, including a basket handle similar to those of pithos SD 10,
provide a relevant, yet ambiguous, additional clue.
Bass offers two possible explanations for the presence of these
sherds so close to shore. If the entire cargo spilled as soon as the vessel capsized,
then some of the pithoi might have floated away to be smashed onto rocks
near the shore. It must be
kept in mind that one of the intact pithoi (SD 13) had certainly floated
away and come to rest in a sandy area about 30 m away from the main
concentration in shallower water (27 m) above the rocky slope. Presumably, the hull hit the rocks nearby, or was carried
out to sea by the surge. If,
on the other hand, the vessel spilled most but not all of her cargo upon
capsizing, she may have floated towards shore with a couple of pithoi
still in her hold. According
to this scenario, when she eventually hit the rocky shore, her broken
timbers floated away, leaving pithos fragments to indicate the area of
the final impact.
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| Bibliography
Roxani Eleni Margariti. The Seytan Deresi Wreck and the Minoan Connection in the Eastern Aegean, The Excavation. Master's Thesis, Texas A&M University, 1998. A.J. Parker. "Stratification and Contamination in Ancient Mediterranean Shipwrecks," International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 10 (1981): 309-335. A.J. Parker. Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces. British Archaeological Reports International Series 580, 1992.
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| Citation Information
Roxani Eleni Margariti
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| Design and colorizations by Ralph K. Pedersen | |||||||||||||||
| © Institute of Nautical Archaeology, 2003 | |||||||||||||||
