About 1300 B.C., a ship carrying cargo from around the eastern Mediterranean foundered off the Uluburun promontory, in southern Turkey. Among the goods aboard the ship were hundreds of copper “ox-hide” ingots from Cyprus (see cover and photo of oxhide ingot), Canaanite gold jewelry, a ton of valuable terebinth resin from the Judean hills west of the Dead Sea, Egyptian scarabs, Mycenaean pottery and African ebony. Discovered in 1982 by a Turkish sponge diver, the wreck was excavated for more than a decade by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology—only the second scientific excavation ever carried to conclusion on the sea floor.
