Dressed in a canvas suit with a helmet made of copper, Elias Stadiatis plunged through the cool ocean depths, in search of the soft sponges he had spe

In the Greek islands, the Antikythera shipwreck yields statues, human teeth and the missing head of Hercules

submited by

Style Pass

2022-08-14 03:00:08

Dressed in a canvas suit with a helmet made of copper, Elias Stadiatis plunged through the cool ocean depths, in search of the soft sponges he had spent his career gathering.

Stadiatis immediately began signalling to the crew above and was soon dragged back to the surface, apparently shaking with fear and mumbling about "seeing a heap of dead people".

So his captain, Dimitrios Kontos, went down to see it with his own eyes, re-emerging some time later with the arm of a bronze statue. Or so the story goes.

What Stadiatis had mistaken in the darkness for the bodies of humans and animals were in fact sculptures and artefacts from an ancient shipwreck.

Kontos's team moved on, returning some time later to attempt a retrieval of the ship's treasures and alert Athens to the archaeological goldmine.

Almost immediately, a fleet of ships was sent to the island — including the Hellenic Royal Navy vessel Mykali, the civilian steamship Syros, and later the Navy torpedo boat Aigialeia.