Six-century shipwreck carrying a strange skeleton reveals the “ghost” that killed two-thirds of Europeans-Travel

Shiveringly intact, the Ma’agan Michael B shipwreck emerges after six centuries hidden in the sand off the Mediterranean Sea, near the shores of Israel, harboring an “unusual source of information”.

The team led by the University of Haifa (Israel) excavated and studied the ancient shipwreck. The “unusual sources of information,” as Ancient Origins called them, were tiny skeletons, as terrifyingly intact as the ship itself.

According to a publication published on the website of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, the Ma’agan Mikhael B was a 25 meter oil merchant ship that sank to a depth of just 3 meters in an area 70 meters off the coast of Israel. No one has seen the ship for centuries, possibly because it was buried in the sand.

The ancient shipwreck was recovered – Photo: HAIFA UNIVERSITY

The ancient shipwreck “appears” in an amazingly intact condition, from the main frame structures to the bulkheads, the masts are as if they had just sunk a few days. The entire hull with the crew’s cargo and daily necessities was also intact.

According to a report just published in the Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant, this is the largest Byzantine maritime archaeological find along the coast of Israel to date. Ancient Islamic pottery on board is particularly historically valuable, including a variety of amphora – antique vases with two handles, gourds, and tapered necks.

Inside the ceramic vases – most of them with lids – intact goods include Turkish walnuts and a traditional fish sauce of the Sea of ​​Galilee. Repair tools, wood artifacts, glassware, coins… and even remains were found on the ship.

But most striking are the tiny skeletons: mouse bones, most likely mice carrying the “black death” from the fleas they carry.

The ship and cargo on board were abnormally intact, possibly due to the marine environment in the Mediterranean and the state of being buried in sand – Photo: Photo: HAIFA UNIVER

According to Business Insider, it’s not clear whether these mice carried the disease, but they are tangible evidence of how rats hitchhiked on merchant ships and traveled around the world in the 1400s. This was a terrible period of the epidemic. nodules, spread to many parts of the world, especially Europe – where an estimated two-thirds of the population was wiped out.

Bone analysis showed it was a black rat, which is known to have arrived in the Middle East on merchant ships from South Asia more than 2,000 years ago, but the tooth morphology shows strange hybrid characteristics. Maybe they lived in Tunisia or Corsica before boarding.