The southern portion of Tantura Lagoon, with the islands of Tafat and Dor.  Aerial view to the northwest. (slide# B075) The southern portion of Tantura Lagoon, with the islands of Tafat and Dor.  Aerial view to the northwest. (slide# B075) Photo: A. Beltiushtan.

Tantura Lagoon is one of the few natural harbors along Israel's long and straight Mediterranean coast. The cove has served as a port facility for Tel Dor, one of the largest ancient mounds in Israel, as well as for its immediate environs, for at least 4,000 years. Due to the cove's geographic configuration, ships that wrecked here tended to be buried and preserved under a thick anaerobic blanket of sand. These considerations - of antiquity and geography - make the cove an exceptional laboratory for the study of historically and archaeologically significant shipwrecks.

Since 1994 Tantura Lagoon has begun to reveal some of her secrets to a long-term joint project of exploration carried out jointly by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Haifa University's Center for Maritime Studies (CMS).

In 1995, we completed field work on a hull - subsequently named Tantura A - that we discovered the previous year. The portion we examined constitutes about twenty-five percent of the bottom of a small local coaster, that originally was probably about twelve meters long. Our study of the vessel confirmed the suspected Late Byzantine period (fifth-sixth centuries A.D.) date. We also established that this hull had been constructed without the aid of unpegged mortise-and-tenon joinery that had, until its discovery, been considered standard for that time. This makes Tantura A the oldest recorded shipwreck in Mediterranean waters to have been built in the innovative methods that were to evolve more fully and become standardized during medieval times.

During the course of the 1995 season, we also carried out a hydraulic probe survey in the immediate area surrounding Tantura A, in search of additional portions of it. While none were found, remains of four other shipwrecks were located.

A parking lot for shipwrecks... Plan of the shipwrecks found in Tantura Lagoon during the 1994-1996 seasons of exploration.  The superimposed hatched rectangle represents the size of a regulation basketball court (28.65x 15.24m.).  All of the coherent hulls that we have uncovered are aligned in a NW- SE direction, probably the result of powerful N-S storm currents in the lagoon. (slide# C173) Drawing: P. Sibella

In 1996, we returned to study an early ninth-century A.D. shipwreck. This hull is remarkable both in dating to a century from which there are no other documented Mediterranean shipwrecks, as well as for having a previously unrecorded hull shape. The hull is remarkably long and narrow, and the uniform continuity of the hull breadth tentatively suggests a long narrow vessel. This combination of angles, breadths and lack of longitudinal strengthening has not been recorded previously on any medieval Mediterranean shipwreck, leading noted hull reconstructor J. R. Steffy to suggest that this arrangement may indicate medieval galley (oared ship) construction, which also has not been documented till now.

Stratigraphy - the subsequent layering of archaeological artifacts - is rare in nautical archaeology. In Tantura Lagoon, however, we repeatedly found stratified artifacts . Undoubtedly, the most remarkable occurrence of this phenomenon was our discovery that the Tantura B hull had come to rest upon another, Roman period, shipwreck! This latter hull appears to be a small portion of an enormous sea-going vessel.

Additionally, our continuing survey revealed another well-preserved shipwreck in Trench X, directly north of Tantura B. We have now recorded the remains of seven (!) different vessels in an area about the size of two regulation basketball courts, confirming the impression that the cove is, quite literally, a graveyard of shipwrecks and one well worth further investigation.

Wachsmann, S., and K. Raveh, 1984. A Concise Nautical History of Dor/ Tantura.  International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 13: 223-241.