Geoarchaeology of the 18th century Qoroq shipwreck, Caspian Sea, Iran: A tale of sailing in a dynamic environment

Abstract

Despite frequent historical documents on shipping and trade routes in the Caspian Sea since early historical dates, the maritime archaeological evidence remains largely undiscovered. Exposing a shipwreck in southwest corner of the Caspian Sea at the shoreline of Qoroq village in Guilan Province of Iran provides an opportunity to study some frames of historical maritime activities in southern Caspian coasts. Sedimentological and geophysical, archaeological, and historical investigations were conducted to detect the age of the shipwreck, its probable origin and the impacts of environmental changes on preservation, exposing and damaging the ship. The results showed that the ship was broken down along its longitudinal axis and the remains were distributed along the shore where they are buried by coastal sediments. Pinus sylvestris is the tree species used in building the ship and the Caucasus Mountains was considered as a timber supply area. A combination of radiocarbon data and historical evidence showed that the ship’s construction date is mostly back to mid-18th century. It seems that the ship sunk in a high energy environment. Deposition of various types of sediments inside and around of the shipwreck suggests that the ship was dragged from the high energy environment to the current location. The hydrodynamics of the coastal area along with rapid Caspian sea-level changes were mostly responsible for preservation as well as exposing the ship.