Turkey is steeped in History, and has a rich & diverse past both on land and the sea, so it’s no surprise that each year there is a plethora of new sites and ‘treasure troves’ that get discovered.
Earlier this month, quite by chance, Mustafa Senturk was taking a dive with his wife in the waters just off Rabbit Island, when he saw a range of sunken, processed stones that were about three to four metres long & 50cm wide. Not sure what to expect at the time, he informed the Miletus Museum, and being the Didim Tourism Association President, he managed to convince their curators to take a further look.
On further inspection it was decided that these ruins must have formed part of a Harbor which belonged to the Minoan’s dating back to around 5,000 BC. They played a huge part in the development and culture of the Didim district, so it would make logical sense that a commercial Harbor would help them in their quest to grow, and continue being a powerful civilization.
Umut Tuncer, the Provincial Culture & Tourism Director who inspected the site, along with the museum added ‘the harbor ruins are some seven to eight kilometres off the Rabbit Island and are scattered in an area of two and a half to five metres’ suggesting that the harbor was damaged beyond repair after an earthquake, registered just before Hellenism.
Off the back of this new discovery, there will now be an effort to revive underwater tourism in the region, and potentially allow amateur & professional divers to visit the site.
