A Big Piece of Luck: The Zambratija sewn boat, Croatia

Dive & Dig

Professor Lucy Blue speaks to Professor Giulia Boetto from the French National Centre for Scientific Research about what is possibly the oldest fully hand-sewn boat to be discovered in the Mediterranean. First spotted by fisherman in Zambratija Bay off a beach in northern Croatia, closer examination by archaeologists revealed small holes in the planks. Could this be a boat sewn together rather than built by the more common mortise and tendon method? Hear how French and Croatian researchers set about to date the boat, initially using carbon-14 dating, revealing it is likely to date from around the end of the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. It has since been raised and is now in Croatia, but is heading to conservation labs in Grenoble, France where it will undergo treatments before it returns to Croatia to be displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Istria, Pula.
Prof. Boetto would like to thank the following people for work on the project:
Christian Petretich, Ida Koncani Uhač, Marko Uhač, the team of the Archaeological Museum of Istria, in particular the restorers Andrea Sardoz and Monika Petrović, Pierre Poveda, Vincent Dumas, Loïc Damelet, Philippe Soubias, Philippe Groscaux, Kato Nees, Alba Ferreira Domìnguez, and Henri Bernard-Maugiron.
The main supporters: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Region of Istria, Archaeological Museum of Istria, Pula (special thanks to - Darko Komšo, director of the museum), Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France, Mediterranean Archaeology Institute - ARKAIA, Aix-Marseille University.