Underwater archaeological research at the Nissia shipwreck, Paralimni

In this paper, given in Greek at the annual review of the archaeological work of the University of Cyprus for 2017, Stella Demesticha presents the underwater investigation of the Nissia shipwreck off Paralimni (Protaras, Green Bay).

Demesticha begins with the modern history of the site, drawing on research by doctoral student Anna Demetriou. Divers knew of a wreck with cannon at Green Bay from the 1980s. Diver Demetris Pourgouris reported it to the Department of Antiquities in October 1994, prompting an inspection by the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. In 2005 German archaeologist Hans Martin and Axel Schiller of the diving company Aquatec sought permission to work at the site, which was not granted. Because Cypriot law before its 2016 amendment did not allow the declaration of underwater archaeological sites, the wreck remained unprotected during decades of recreational diving and looting, and was reported again in 2006 by Spyros Spyrou and Spyros Mylonas.

When funding problems after the 2013 financial crisis interrupted field seasons at the Mazotos shipwreck, Demesticha turned to Nissia in 2014, with support from the Onassis Foundation, as a sheltered site 670 metres from shore at a depth of 27 metres where student divers could train. The 2014 season recorded surface timber and three cannon, opened a trial trench exposing framing timbers that gave the hull's orientation, and raised an iron cannon 2.26 metres long that had been left half-buried vertically after an attempted looting. Analysed with XRF by Andreas Charalambous and treated by electrolysis in Larnaca with the York Archaeological Trust, the cannon carries no stamp but is tentatively dated by typology to the first half of the nineteenth century and may be of English type.

In 2017 the University of Cyprus returned with a 34-person team and a third field school run with the Nautical Archaeology Society. Expanding the 2014 trench and opening two more, the team exposed the keelson, a mast step, ceiling planking, outer hull planking, and wooden treenails and iron fasteners documented from photogrammetry by Andria Evripidou. Comparisons with the Akko 1 wreck of c. 1830 suggest a vessel over 35 metres long. Portable finds, to be studied by Deborah Cvikel and Athanasios Vionis, included corroded iron fasteners, sparse glazed and unglazed pottery of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Islamic types, three Ottoman pipe fragments, firebricks suggesting a ship's galley, and logs and worked pointed timbers stacked in at least two rows over the frames. Whether the ship was a warship or a merchantman whose cargo perished or was salvaged remains open; Antonis Hadjikyriacou is undertaking archival research on the Ottoman-period context first opened in Cyprus by Euphrosyne Egoumenidou.