Ancient 2,600-year-old shipwreck is salvaged from seabed in historic find opening up world of long-lost civilisation
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A SHIPWRECK from the Iron Age has been recovered from the seabed decades after it was first discovered, offering experts a gateway into an ancient civilisation. The Mazarrón II is 2,600 years old and has been successfully salvaged from its watery grave off the southeastern coast of Spain by archaeologists.
![[The 2,600-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Spain was first located in 1994]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/depths-ancient-2-600-year-961109018.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Officials say that it will help them explore more about the long-lost civilisation of Phoenicia which was established on the eastern Mediterranean coast between 1500 and 300 BCE. This is what we now know to be Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. The Phoenician shipwreck was first found in 1994 in the waters of Murcia, Spain's Ministry of Culture revealed.
![[A team of divers carefully disassembled the shipwreck to safely bring it to the surface]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bab69118-76b8-472f-b118-aeab19a8f3c1.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
It was one of two wrecks found near the town of Mazarrón, which they have both been named after. Mazarrón I was located in 1993 and salvaged in June 1995 to go on display at Spain's National Museum of Underwater Aracheology in 2005. But, Carlos de Juan, the director of the excavation project of the second shipwreck revealed in a video shared by the Univeristy of Valencia why this latest excavation is so key.
![[Carlos de Juan, the director of the excavation project says the wreck can teach us a lot about the long-lost civilisation of the Phoenicians]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/depths-ancient-2-600-year-961112195.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
He explained that Mazarrón II has long excited experts due to how well it has been preserved. The ship measures 8.10 meters in length and 2.25 meters at its widest point. It is one of only a few from that era that is still intact and the Phoenicians have long been considered a lost civilisation until the 20th Century.
![[Special supports were made for each fragment to be brought to the surface as they have a 'cake-like' consistency]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/00068e1e-622d-4127-8758-24f8c5225e1e.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
