Michael Duigan

A Bronze Age Shipwreck

The lecture will be on May 31 2024 at 7.00pm
in the Fenner Brockway Room, Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL.

Michael Duigan teaches ancient history and art history at a number of colleges, including the City Lit in London and London University Birkbeck College. He has spoken to us on several previous occasions on the art and sculpture of the classical world.

Michael has provided this abstract of the lecture

In 1982 a sponge diver discovered, off the south-west of Turkey, the earliest intact shipwreck in the Mediterranean. The excavation of the ‘Uluburun wreck’ was directed by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology between 1984 and 1994. The ship carried products of at least 7 cultures – Mycenaean Greek, Canaanite, Cypriot, Egyptian, Babylon (Kassite), Assyrian, and Nubian. This was probably a royal shipment containing more than 18,000 catalogued artefacts.

The vessel may have been bound for the Nile River. It extends our knowledge of seagoing ship construction back in time by nearly a thousand years. The ship was probably outbound from Cyprus (Alashiya), and carried a consignment of 500 copper ingots amounting to 10 tons from the island’s copper mines. Each ingot weighs around 60 pounds. There were also at least 40 ingots of tin. The source of these is uncertain, possibly Spain (Tarshish), or Afghanistan.

Other exotic and valuable materials and artefacts included; glass, faience, ivory, ostrich eggs (for vessels), tortoise shell (soundbox for lyres), resin & murex shell (for perfume), cylinder seals from Babylon, amber from the Baltic. Silver and gold jewellery included a unique gold scarab bearing the name of ‘the Exquisite Beauty of the Aten Nefertiti’,

The lecture will be followed by a visit to the British Museum on Saturday, June1. 

As usual, this lecture is free of charge for EMAS members, while non-members are asked to pay a fee of £3 in cash at the lecture.

We would be grateful if you could send an email to secretary@emasarchaeology.org to let us know that you are planning to attend. We hope to see you there.