A group of scientists conducting research in the Black Sea stumbled across 41 perfectly preserved thousand-year old shipwrecks off the coast of Bulgaria. The research team was using ROVs to 3-D scan the seabed in their expedition to uncover causes for sea level rise after the last ice age 20,000 years ago.

The ships lie in the “dead zone” where light cannot penetrate and oxygen is insignificant, making for perfect preservation conditions. Many of the ships exist in historical records from the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

Professor Jon Adams of University Southampton, principle investigator for the expedition, had this to say: “The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery, found during the course of our extensive geophysical surveys.”

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