Consider this.

The oldest known pieces of literature in the Western world are the Iliad and the Odyssey. We don’t know how old they actually are, since they were originally created in oral form and were performed verbally for perhaps centuries before being written down in the 700’s BC. Most scholars believe they were created by a blind poet (or a collective group of poets) named Homer, who lived in Ionia, which is where Izmir, Turkey is located today. And they are epically long; a bard who would perform the Odyssey in its entirety would have to recite over 12,000 lines of dactylic hexameter; to perform the Iliad, the number is a herculean 15,000.

These two stories were performed so ubiquitously in the ancient Greek world that by the 400’s BC, Homer’s major characters and themes were well-known and commonly featured in Greek art and architecture. One preeminent example is a piece of pottery called the Siren Vase, which was created in Athens between 480 and 470 BC. The vase is actually a type of two-handled urn called a stamnos, which is shorter and chubbier than the more common amphora, and which is designed for mixing water and wine. And it is renowned for its magnificent black and gold graphics, which depict one of the preeminent episodes of the Odyssey.

We see Odysseus lashed to the mast of his ship, looking upward at three bird-like sirens, who are mercilessly tempting him with their song. Odysseus’ crew is comprised of five bearded men, four of whom are rowing, one of whom is steering, and presumably all of whom have put wax in the ears as Odysseus ordered. The boat itself is a trading vessel, powered by a combination of a small sail and a line of oars down each side, with an oversized rudder at the back.

And now, consider this: archaeologists believe they have just found one of these actual boats. Completely intact.

Off the coast of Bulgaria, in the Black Sea, about a mile down. It’s a 75-foot boat almost exactly like that depicted on the Siren Vase. Due to the extreme depth of the water, the ship has been deprived of oxygen and remains almost perfectly preserved. It is sitting upright on the sea floor, the mast is still standing, the rowing benches are in place, the rudder is still attached. And a small piece of the wreck carbon-dated by the University of Southampton reveals that it is approximately 2,400 years old. If so, it is the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind.

The team that found the ship has made a documentary film about their find, which they will present next Tuesday at the British Museum. Which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the home of the Siren Vase. So, in a way, the ancient vase and one of the ships that it featured will be reunited. Some two-and-a-half millennia after they were created.It’s an odyssey of time.

(And to think, it only took Odysseus ten years to get home to Ithaca.)