The Greek Ministry of Culture announced marine archaeologists have discovered more extraordinary treasured including gold jewellery, cook pots and other valuable ancient artifacts in the historic wreck of the “Mentor,” which belonged to Lord Elgin and sank off Kythera Island in 1802.
The wreck of the Mentor contains antiquities Lord Elgin’s team stolen from the Parthenon and other Athens monuments. The ship crashed onto the rocks of Cape Avelemonas and sank on September 15, 1802, with 16 boxes of artifacts Bruce’s agents had loaded aboard.
The salvage work on the historic shipwreck of "Mentor" wrapped up another season recently with small finds including sections of the sail pulleys, Greece’s Ministry of Culture said on Tuesday.
This year's underwater excavations which took place between August 27 and September 15, included a 12-member team directed by archaeologist Dimitris Kourkoumelis of the Underwater Antiquities Department. Work focused on cleaning away the surviving section of the hull, and photos were stitched together to provide a view of the entire area and the wreck's state. Some of the ship's parts were spread over the area by the efforts of the crew to raise the boxes with the antiquities.
Findings included a cooking vessel, a gold ring with intricate flower depictions, a pair of gold earrings, fragments of a pair of calipers, a fragment of an ancient Rhodian amphora handle with a seal impression with the inscription "Antimachou" ("belonging to Antimachos"), three chess pieces (added to four found at previous excavation seasons), various items of bone or wood, and at least ten pulleys and accessories, some of them still preserving the sail-securing ropes.
*Images courtesy of The Greek Ministry of Culture
