The first underwater archeological study in Turkey is being carried out in an Aegean province, head of an archeological team said on Thursday.
In an interview with Turkey's Anatolia news agency, Professor Hayat Erkanal, the head of the team, said, "Archeologists are carrying out the first underwater archeological excavations in Limantepe."
An archeological team, headed by Erkanal from the Archeology Department of the Ankara University, is carrying out excavations in Limantepe, a settlement in Urla town of the Aegean province of Izmir dating to 6,000 years ago, Xinhua reported.
Erkanal said that a great deal of the settlement had been inundated by sea water due to a massive earthquake predicted to occur during 700 B.C.
The team launched excavations with the support of experts and equipment from Israel's Haifa University after getting amateur diving lessons.
"This is the third underwater excavation in the Mediterranean, " the professor said after enumerating the other two as the French excavations in the city of Alexandria in Egypt and the Ceaseria excavations of the Haifa University.
Erkanal said that Limantepe was a big center in the Aegean Region during 3,000 B.C. from which sea transportation was made and which had a political domination in the region.