Antikythera wreck yields more exciting discoveries

Divers working with Greece’s Culture Ministry bring up a marble statue base found during excavations of the Antikythera wreck off the southeast Peloponnese that took place May 23 to June 15. The team made some exciting discoveries in this round of research, including of a larger-than-life-size head that may belong to a late Hellenistic statue of the divine hero Hercules found at the site in 1900 and displayed at the National Archaeological Museum. It also found two human teeth, which will be sent for DNA analysis. ‘Part of the wreck was covered by boulders. We cleared one area this year… giving us access to important discoveries,’ Lorenz Baumer, an adviser at the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, which took part in the excavation, told Kathimerini on Monday. The removal of the boulders from the seabed was possible thanks to a new system developed by Swiss watchmaker Hublot. [Greek Ministry of Culture/InTime News]