“In 1900, [sponge divers] took out the statue of Hercules [from the sea] and now in all we have probably found his head, “said Professor Lorenz Baumer, the classical archaeologist overseeing the underwater mission to the University of Geneva. “It is a more impressive marble piece,” he said, describing features that bore all the hallmarks of one of the great heroic figures of Greek and Roman mythology. “He is twice life size, has a long beard, a very special face and short hair. “There is no doubt that it is Hercules.” The head has short curly hair and a large beard. The discovery of the sculpture – along with the plinth of another marble statue, human teeth and parts of the ship’s equipment – was made possible by the removal of three 8.5-ton boulders that had partially covered the wreck on the seabed. For three weeks the research team of marine archaeologists and specially trained divers – working at a depth of 50 meters – had access to an area that had never been explored before. “They are so deep that they can only stay down there for 30 minutes,” Baumer said. “But now we have an idea of what lies beneath these rocks; each finding helps us to better combine the context in understanding the ship, its cargo, its crew and their origin.” A team of divers worked at a depth of 50 meters to retrieve the objects. Photography: Nikos Giannoulakis / PR The two teeth were embedded in coated marine deposits that had accumulated in the 2,000-year-old shipwreck. Genetic and isotopic analysis of the remains could prove pioneering in shedding light on the people who sailed the ship. The ship, believed to have sunk in a storm off the small island of Antikythera in the first 50 years of the first century BC, was towed by spongers in 1901. The most famous of its cargo is giant marbles and bronze statues. ceramics and glassware was a mysterious device used to map the movements of the sun, moon and planets, which has been described by scientists as the first analog computer in the world. Why the instrument, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, was aboard a ship increasingly believed to be a merchant ship traveling from the eastern Mediterranean to Rome. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST Further missions are expected to reveal further secrets on the seabed outside the tiny island. “The ship could have fallen anywhere, but that, every discovery puts us on the map and is fascinating,” said Stratos Charchalakis, mayor of Kythera, under whose jurisdiction the Aegean outpost falls. “The truth is that for an island with only 30 inhabitants, the shipwreck had a huge social and economic impact. “She helped keep her shops and people.” Professor Baumer said the team had “an idea” of what future research might bring. “You never know what archeology will offer tomorrow, but what we do know is that the Antikythera wreck is an extremely rich site, the richest in the ancient world.”
