In the early 1980s Bulgarian archaeologists of the newly established Centre for
Underwater Archaeology at Sozopol discovered the remains of a post-medieval ship in
the southern Bay of Kitten, in the lee of Cape Urdoviza. Between 2000 and 2003, the
Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University and a team from the
Bulgarian Centre for Underwater Archaeology returned to the site to complete the first
excavation of a post-medieval shipwreck in the Black Sea. The well-preserved vessel,
lost in the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III (1789-1807), featured constructional
characteristics seen in Iberian shipbuilding tradition, such as scarfed floors and futtocks
and filling pieces between the frames.
Analysis of the Kitten ship permitted the author to reconstruct the whole-molding
process used by the shipwright to build the vessel. The futtock-floor hook-scarphs
appear to be the identifying part of the molding process. Morphologically identical scarfs
have also been observed on Mediterranean wrecks such as Culip VI (14th century), Yassiada (16th century) and Sardineax (17th century), which suggests that the Kitten ship
is a very late example of a Mediterranean-wide shipbuilding tradition that developed in
the Middle Ages and from which the Atlantic vessel descended. It also points that the
Black Sea maritime culture was an integral part of Mediterranean seafaring tradition.
The dissertation offers an overview of the artifact assemblage raised from the Kitten
shipwreck. Fragments of an iconostas prove that at the time of sinking the vessel was
operated by Christians. The smoking paraphernalia found on the wreck provides
opportunity to correct the dating of some pipe bowl types proposed by previous scholars.
Personal belongings open a window into the life of the crew of a Black Sea
merchantman. Although the ethnicity of the crew cannot be determined at this time, a
group of copper galley ware suggests that they may have been Bulgarian. An unsolved
mystery is presented by the presence of a navigational instrument, probably an octant, on
board.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-2914 |
| Date | 2009 August 1900 |
| Creators | Batchvarov, Kroum Nickolaev |
| Contributors | Crisman, Kevin |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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