Fabulous Bronze Age Wreck Discovered Off Devon Coast

In a bay named Wash Gully, near Salcombe (south Devon), in a few meters of water, a team of amateur marine archaeologists have uncovered a Bronze Age Wreck.

According to OneIndia.com: The cargo recovered includes 259 copper ingots and 27 tin ingots. Also found was a bronze leaf sword, two stone artefacts that could have been sling shots, and three gold wrist torcs - or bracelets.


The Independent.co.uk notes that sadly the timbers of the ship are, of course, gone. But that it's a truly exciting discovery. And that,

A Bronze Age settlement is known to have existed on the coast near Wash Gully where the wreck was found – the boat was probably attempting to land there when it came a cropper just 300 yards from the shore. The waters around this stretch of the Devonshire coast are notoriously treacherous. A nearby reef hints at the most obvious reason for the vessel’s demise.


What I thought was intriguing was this statement from the above source:

The large quantity of copper and tin found aboard the ship – which appears to have come from scattered locations as far afield as the Iberian Peninsuloa, Switzerland, France or Austria via a wide and complex trade network – would have been used to make bronze, which was the key product of the period. The bronze would in turn have been used to fashion all from tools to weapons and jewellery.

I wonder how they could have discerned, so quickly, where the ingots originated from. Let's hope we hear more.

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