Forty fully preserved ancient shipwrecks were found on the bottom of the Bulgarian portion of the Black Sea coastline, British Professor Jon Adams, Director Centre for Maritime Archaeology in Southampton has announced.

Together with researchers from Bulgaria, Greece, USA and Sweden his team scoured the sea bed, lands that were inundated with water at the end of the last Ice Age. The ships were perfectly preserved because they were found at a depth of 150 meters where there is no oxygen in the water. Some of them date back to the time of the Ottoman Empire, others still further back to the Byzantine Empire. The shipwrecks are an invaluable source of information about navigation and the way of life of the population living along the Black Sea coastline of what is today Bulgaria and the other Black Sea countries.