22 - 08 - 2001.  SOA

Do not place your whole livelihood on hollow ships
Leave the greater part behind, and take the lesser part -
For disaster amidst the waves of the sea is a terrible thing.
Hesiod, Works and Days 689-691 (9th century BC)

The SOA team left base camp extra early this morning to get the best color and contrast in our images of the Millstone wreck. The results were certainly worth the sacrifice of a little sleep! The excitement we feel working on these shipwrecks may seem a little morbid to some, but after the passage of so many centuries, virtually nothing remains of the individuals who once sailed these ships, and perhaps lost their lives when they foundered. For us, "disaster amidst the waves of the sea" is a malfunctioning camera or scuba regulator, or forgetting to replenish the divers' cookie box. But occasionally we are presented with small reminders of the larger tragedies that occurred in this place. The small lead piece you see here was photographed by Bridget while free-diving above the Millstone wreck, and may be the stock of an ancient anchor - perhaps of a ship's dinghy? Although no examples survive, we know from written sources that some Greek and Roman merchant ships had tenders, and that these were used as 'life boats' at need. But what would a shipwrecked sailor have found on this barren cape? Berta and Bridget decided to find out.

Struggling through the thorny scrub of Cakil Burnu wearing a bikini is only marginally preferable to being shipwrecked, but we were hoping to be rewarded with some sign of human presence. One of the recurring themes in descriptions of long sea voyages by ancient authors (Homer, Vergil, Strabo, Pliny, and Diodorus Siculus, to name a few) is the importance of promontories for navigation. Ancient ships could and did sail out of sight of land for weeks at a time, but their journeys were still measured by the distance between landmarks, especially precipitous headlands. Such promontories were often regarded as sacred. These were the thrones from which the gods looked down upon man's maritime endeavors, and in the Mediterranean at least 200 bore temples and altars to various deities. Here trophies were erected to commemorate naval victories, and captains made sacrifices for a successful voyage. There are even ancient legends of human sacrifice to propitiate the gods of dangerous headlands. Throwing maidens off the cliffs was believed to be particularly efficacious. Unfortunately, we have about as much chance of finding a maiden underwater as we do on Millawanda, so we will probably never know how much truth there is behind these stories. 

At the time of our millstone wreck the ancient Greek and Roman gods were no longer worshipped, but educated Byzantines still knew Homer as well as the Bible, and it is clear that headlands retained their sanctity by the number of Christian shrines to be found on them. Byzantine sailors showed their gratitude to Saint Nicholas by throwing bread into the sea every time they passed a dangerous cape, a practice still known among Turkish sailors in parts of southwest Turkey. But if our cape ever held some sacred significance, there is no trace of it now; our search of the promontory yielded nothing. There is not even a source of fresh water here that would explain why so many ships foundered or lost their anchors along this cape - nothing to distinguish it from the next headlands to the north and south. So even as we continue to make discoveries on the shipwrecks below, we are apparently no closer to solving the mystery of this Anatolian 'Bermuda triangle'...