Godavaya wreck (2000 years ago)

The Godavaya shipwreck lies 33 meters below the ocean's surface, just off the fishing village of Godavaya, where German archaeologists in the 1990s found a harbor that was an important port along the maritime Silk Road during the second century A.D.

The shipwreck site was discovered by Sri Lankan archaeologists preparing for UNESCO training. It includes a concreted mound of corroded metal bars and a scattering of other ancient cargo, including glass ingots and pottery, that have tumbled around on the seafloor for hundreds of years amid strong currents and perhaps even the occasional tsunami.

The wreck, while still in the initial stages of excavation, is probably the oldest known shipwreck in the Indian Ocean and fieldwork has revealed that the ship was transporting a cargo of raw materials, including what appear to be ingots of iron and others of glass, as well as finished stone querns and ceramic bowls.