Archaeologists in Spain have successfully raised a 2,600-year-old shipwreck dating back to the 7th century BC, more than two decades on from when the relic was initially found in the waters off the country’s southern coast.

The ancient Phoenician shipwreck was discovered – according to Spain’s Ministry of Culture – by accident in 1994 off the coast of Murcia in southern Spain just near the town of Mazarrón. It was one of two to have been located in the same general area.

The first – named Mazarrón I (after the area in which it was found) – was initially located in 1993 and lifted from the water two years later in 1995. The ancient relic was then subjected to ten years of conservation treatment before, finally, it was put on display at Spain’s National Museum of Underwater Archaeology in 2005.

It’s expected that the second wreckage and focus of the latest salvage mission – now called the Mazarrón II – will undergo similar, if not more laboured (given its state of preservation and the opportunity it presents to learn from the ancient civilisation) treatment. Astonishingly, the wreckage lay undetected for centuries just two metres deep and only 60 metres from an urbanised beach.

Such is its unique state of preservation, the discovery is of particular interest to researchers looking to learn more about the Phoenician naval culture.

According to officials, the Mazarrón II had, for years, benefitted from the protection of the sand around it, keeping it hidden it for centuries from local inhabitants. It wasn’t until the construction of a marina in the 1970s and the subsequent changes to the seabed, which finally made the relic visible.

In 2000, scientific investigations got underway and two decades later, in 2024, efforts to raise the vessel – carried out in partnership with the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Cartagena – finally commenced. 

In a video of the rescue mission issued by the University of Valencia, Carlos De Juan, an archaeologist at the university and director of the project, explained that the Phoenicians had founded colonies along the Mediterranean from the 9th century BC in search of new commercial opportunities.

The Mazarrón colony – located 800 metres from the wreck – focused on the extraction of local silver, a currency that proved crucial to their expansion within the region.

The excavation of the wreck was carried out by a team of 14 specialists who worked to lift the relic from the sea in less than two months, carrying wooden fragments of the wreck to the surface piece-by-piece between September and November 2024. 

In doing so, archaeologists have been able to learn a great deal about the ancient Phoenician civilisation, the traces of which were largely considered lost until the 20th century. Phoenicia was a civilisation populating the area of modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and Israel which existed from about 1500 to 300 BC.

Artefacts like the Mazarón II can help shed light on Phoenician culture, said de Juan. In his comments to the University of Valencia, he noted that ‘little is known about Phoenician naval construction, even now, despite the wealth of information about ships built nearby in the Mediterranean by the ancient Greeks.’

Mazarrón II measures 8.10 metres in length and 2.25 metres in width and is designed for small displacements. Its mixture of carpentry techniques between Phoenicians and natives suggests, said de Juan, that a significant exchange of knowledge took place between the two cultures.

Each piece of the shipwreck has now been transferred to a laboratory at the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, in southern Spain. The lab will work carefully to conserve its remains, in a process that will likely take several more years.

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