UConn Prof Helps Discover Never-Seen-Before Medieval Shipwreck

STORRS, CT — A University of Connecticut researcher is part of an international team of scientists that has made dramatic discoveries of multiple shipwrecks in the Black Sea, including a never-seen-before medieval vessel.

The team has been mapping ancient underwater landscapes in the Black Sea.

Kroum Batchvarov, an assistant professor of anthropology whose specialty is nautical archaeology, is a co-director of the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project, which UConn officials described as one of the "largest maritime archaeological expeditions ever undertaken."

While conducting their mapping in late summer using the most advanced underwater survey equipment in the world, Batchvarov and his colleagues discovered a total of 43 shipwrecks, UConn officials said.

The team had expected to see sunken ships, but were surprised at just what they found — an intact medieval ship dating back to the 13th to the mid-14th centuries.

UConn officials said the vessel is probably of Mediterranean origin – a ship style known from historical sources but never-before-seen.

See more from a UConn Today story here.

According to Batchvarov: “The masts were still standing. You could see the spars, the yards on deck. Everything was there.”

Photo Courtesy of UConn via Kroum Batchvarov