page_title: Uluburun shipwreck
section_title: Cargo
hierarchical_section_title: Uluburun shipwreck / Cargo
caption_attribution_description: Egyptian jewelry; Uluburun shipwreck, St. Peter's castle, Bodrum, Turkey 1. gold disk-shaped pendant 2. gold falcon pendant 3. gold goddess pendant 4. faience beads 5. rock crystal beads 6. agate beads 7. faience beads 8. ostrich eggshell beads 9. silver bracelets 10. gold scrap 11. gold chalice 12. accreted mass of tiny faience beads 13. silver scrap
context_page_description: The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun, and about 6 miles miles southeast of Kaş, in south-western Turkey. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982 by Mehmed Çakir, a local sponge diver from Yalıkavak, a village near Bodrum.
  Eleven consecutive campaigns of three to four months' duration took place from 1984 to 1994 totaling 22,413 dives, revealing one of the most spectacular Late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea.
context_section_description: The Uluburun ship's cargo consisted mostly of raw materials that were trade items, which before the ship's discovery were known primarily from ancient texts or Egyptian tomb paintings. The cargo matches many of the royal gifts listed in the Amarna letters found at El-Amarna, Egypt.
  Copper and tin ingots
  Raw copper cargo totaling ten tons, consisting of a total of 354 ingots of the oxhide (rectangular with handholds extending from each corner) type.
  Out of the total amount of ingots at least 31 unique two-handled ingots were identified that were most likely shaped this way to assist the process of loading ingots onto specially designed saddles or harnesses for ease of transport over long distances by pack animals.
  121 copper bun and oval ingots.
  The oxhide ingots were originally stowed in 4 distinct rows across the ship's hold, which either slipped down the slope after the ship sank or shifted as the hull settled under the weight of the cargo.
  Approximately one ton of tin (when alloyed with the copper would make about 11 tons of bronze).
  Tin ingots were oxhide and bun shaped.
  Canaanite jars and Pistacia resin
  At least 149 Canaanite jars (widely found in Greece, Cyprus, Syria-Palestine, and Egypt).
  Jars are categorized as the northern type and were most likely made somewhere in the northern part of modern-day Israel.
  One jar filled with glass beads, many filled with olives, but the majority contained a substance known as Pistacia (terebinth) resin, an ancient type of turpentine.
  Recent clay fabric analyses of Canaanite jar sherds from the 18th-Dynasty site of Tell el-Amarna have produced a specific clay fabric designation, and it is seemingly the same as that from the Uluburun shipwreck, of a type that is exclusively associated in Amarna with transporting Pistacia resin.
  Glass ingots
  Approximately 175 glass ingots of cobalt blue, turquoise, and lavender were found (earliest intact glass ingots known).
  Chemical composition of cobalt blue glass ingots matches those of contemporary Egyptian core-formed vessels and Mycenaean pendant beads, which suggests a common source.
  Miscellaneous cargo
  Logs of blackwood from Africa (referred to as ebony by the Egyptians)
  Ivory in the form of whole and partial hippopotamus and elephant tusks
  More than a dozen hippopotamus teeth
  Tortoise carapaces (upper shells)
  Murex opercula (possible ingredient for incense)
  Ostrich eggshells
  Cypriot pottery
  Cypriot oil lamps
  Bronze and copper vessels (four faience drinking cups shaped as rams’ heads and one shaped as a woman's head)
  Two duck-shaped ivory cosmetics boxes
  Ivory cosmetics or unguent spoon
  Trumpet
  More than two dozen sea-shell rings
  Beads of amber (Baltic origin)
  Agate
  Carnelian
  Quartz
  Gold
  Faience
  Glass
  Jewelry, gold, and silver
  Collection of usable and scrap gold and silver Canaanite jewelry
  Among the 37 gold pieces are: pectorals, medallions, pendants, beads, a small ring ingot, and an assortment of fragments
  Biconical chalice (largest gold object from wreck)
  Egyptian objects of gold, electrum, silver, and steatite (soap stone)
  Gold scarab inscribed with the name of Nefertiti
  Bronze female figurine (head, neck, hands, and feet covered in sheet gold)
  Weapons and tools
  Arrowheads
  Spearheads
  Maces
  Daggers
  Lugged shaft-hole axe
  A single armor scale of Near Eastern type
  Four swords (Canaanite, Mycenaean, and Italian(?) types)
  Large number of tools: sickles, awls, drill bits, a saw, a pair of tongs, chisels,a ploughshare, whetstones, and adzes
  Axes, ceremonial axe made of green volcanic stone that originates from area Bulgaria
  Pan-balance weights
  19 zoomorphic weights (Uluburun weight assemblage is one of the largest and most complete groups of contemporaneous Late Bronze Age weights)
  120 geometric-shaped weights
  Edibles
  Almonds
  Pine nuts
  Figs
  Olives
  Grapes
  Safflower
  Black cumin
  Sumac
  Coriander
  Whole pomegranates
  A few grains of charred wheat and barley
caption: Egyptian jewelry 
   1 gold disk-shaped pendant 2. gold falcon pendant 3. gold goddess pendant 4. faience beads 5. rock crystal beads 6. agate beads 7. faience beads 8. ostrich eggshell beads 9. silver bracelets 10. gold scrap 11. gold chalice 12. accreted mass of tiny faience beads 13. silver scrap
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