A deep-sea exploration team has located the remarkably preserved wreck of a 14th-century Byzantine merchant vessel at a depth of 600 meters in the Aegean Sea. Due to the anoxic conditions at that depth, the ship's timber hull and its precious cargo of luxury silk brocades and embroidered textiles have survived nearly intact, offering a rare glimpse into the late Byzantine textile industry.
The vessel appears to have been carrying a high-status shipment intended for the courts of the western Mediterranean. Alongside the textiles, divers recovered several lead seals from the Imperial Silk Workshop in Constantinople and a cache of silver coins that help date the ship's final voyage to the mid-1300s, a period of significant economic flux for the empire.