Study firms up date of famous ancient shipwreck off Cyprus

When scientists in the 1960s excavated the wreck of an ancient Greek merchant ship off the northern coast of Cyprus, what they found was an amazing time capsule from a pivotal period in the Mediterranean world following the death of Alexander the Great.

But determining the date of the Kyrenia shipwreck with any sort of precision has proven difficult, and some previous scientific dating yielded conclusions that conflicted with the archeological evidence. Researchers have now calculated this timeline with new precision using improved techniques that they said can be applied to date other ancient shipwrecks as well.

By analyzing organic material from the wreck, including the vessel's wooden timbers, almonds from its cargo, and a gaming piece called an astragalus made from animal bone and used like dice, they concluded that the ship went down around 280 BC. That is a bit...