The most amazing underwater finds in history include the 5,000-year-old city of Pavlopetri in Greece, the drowned Egyptian port of Thonis-Heracleion, and Shackleton’s Endurance, found in 2022 at 3,008 metres. We rebuilt this list in 2026, dropped the stories we could not verify, and ordered it by what each find taught us.
Not every find here came from a scuba diver: the deepest need submersibles and robots. All are real, documented discoveries, and where experts disagree we say so.
What are the most amazing underwater discoveries? (at a glance)
| Rank | Find | Found |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pavlopetri, Greece | 1967 |
| 2 | Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt | 2000 (stele) |
| 3 | The wreck of Endurance, Antarctica | 2022 |
| 4 | The Antikythera shipwreck, Greece | 1900 |
| 5 | The Titanic wreck, North Atlantic | 1985 |
| 6 | The Yonaguni Monument, Japan | 1986 |
| 7 | The I-400 submarine, off Hawaii | 2013 |
| 8 | The Dornier Do 17 bomber, Goodwin Sands, England | 2010 (raised 2013) |
| 9 | The two SS Mahrattas, Goodwin Sands | Wreck of 1939 |
| 10 | Sharks’ teeth and aircraft on the seabed | Ongoing |
The 10 finds
1. Pavlopetri, Greece
About 5,000 years old and widely described as the oldest submerged city known, Pavlopetri lies in Vatika Bay off southern Laconia in the Peloponnese. It was rediscovered in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming and mapped in 1968 by a Cambridge team. Early studies dated it to the Mycenaean period, 1600 to 1100 BCE, but later work pushed occupation back to around 3500 BCE. Its near-complete town plan of streets, buildings and tombs is what makes it unique. A 2009 survey produced the first digital 3D map of a submerged town. It ranks first on our list because nothing else underwater tells you what an ordinary town looked like.
2. Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt
Thonis-Heracleion was an Egyptian port near the Canopic mouth of the Nile, about 32 km northeast of Alexandria, whose ruins now lie in Abu Qir Bay. It was the country’s main port for international trade in the late period, active mainly between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. Historians long thought Thonis and Heracleion were two cities until a stele found in 2000 proved they were one. Earthquakes, tsunamis and rising seas, plus soil liquefaction around 101 BCE, drowned it.
3. The wreck of Endurance, Antarctica
Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915, and the search team Endurance22 found the wreck on 5 March 2022, nearly 107 years later. It lies at 3,008 metres, in what the team called a brilliant state of preservation. It is protected as a historic site under the Antarctic Treaty. No scuba diver will ever see it, which is rather the point of ranking it this high.
4. The Antikythera shipwreck, Greece
In early 1900, a crew of sponge divers led by Captain Dimitrios Kontos found a Roman-era cargo wreck 45 metres deep off the island of Antikythera. Among the artefacts was the Antikythera mechanism, a hand-powered Greek device built in the 2nd century BCE and often called the oldest known analogue computer. A 2005 X-ray scan showed at least 35 meshing bronze gears. A wreck dated to about 70 to 60 BCE still keeps changing what we think ancient engineers could build.
5. The Titanic wreck, North Atlantic
Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 and was found in 1985 by a joint French and American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The wreck lies at about 3,800 metres, about 600 km off Newfoundland, in two main pieces roughly 600 metres apart. It is famous, but its discovery was a technology story: sonar searches failed for years before cameras found it.
6. The Yonaguni Monument, Japan
Divers looking for hammerhead sharks off Yonaguni island in 1986 spotted what looked like stepped architecture on the seabed. Marine geologist Masaaki Kimura argues the formations are man-made, but the claim is described as pseudoarchaeological, and geologists such as Robert Schoch think they are natural sandstone fractured along parallel joints. The Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs does not recognise it as a heritage artefact. We rank it for the argument, not for an answer.
7. The I-400 submarine, off Hawaii
The Japanese I-400 class were the world’s largest submarines until nuclear missile boats arrived in the 1960s, at 122 metres long. On 1 August 2013, the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory’s submersible Pisces V located the wreck of I-400 southwest of Oahu, 557 metres down, with the hull intact but showing implosion damage. After the war, the US Navy sank it off Hawaii in 1946 to keep it out of Soviet hands, so the discovery closed a long loop.
8. The Dornier Do 17 bomber, Goodwin Sands, England
Shot down on 26 August 1940 after attacks from Boulton Paul Defiants, this Do 17Z lay on the Goodwin Sands for decades. It was thought no Do 17 had survived intact, until the RAF Museum announced the discovery of one in 2010, and a salvage team raised the airframe on 10 June 2013. It now sits at the RAF Museum’s Cosford site for conservation.
9. The two SS Mahrattas, Goodwin Sands
The Goodwin Sands have claimed countless ships, and in the case of the SS Mahratta, they claimed it twice. The first Brocklebank Line Mahratta, launched in 1891, ran aground on the Goodwin Sands in 1909. The second, launched in 1917, was inbound to London from Calcutta when she ran aground in October 1939. After she broke up, she was found resting on top of the first Mahratta.
10. Sharks’ teeth and aircraft on the seabed
Not every great find is a city. Divers regularly report fossil shark teeth from off Florida, and wrecks of aircraft from the 20th century sit on seabeds worldwide. We dropped the specific Venice megalodon tooth and Subic Bay F-4 stories from the first edition because we could not verify them, and kept this slot for a reminder: always check a viral underwater find before you share it.
How we put this list together
We checked every claim against archaeological and historical records and removed stories we could not confirm. Rankings are our own judgement of how much each find changed what we know.
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FAQ
What is the oldest underwater city?
Pavlopetri in Greece, about 5,000 years old, is widely described as the oldest submerged city known.
When was the Endurance found?
The Endurance22 expedition found the wreck on 5 March 2022 at 3,008 metres in the Weddell Sea, nearly 107 years after it sank.
Is the Yonaguni Monument man-made?
It is disputed. Masaaki Kimura says yes, but many geologists believe it is natural sandstone fractured along parallel joints.
Which finds could a scuba diver actually visit?
Pavlopetri sits in 3 to 4 metres of water and the Antikythera wreck lies at 45 metres, while Endurance, Titanic and I-400 are only reachable by submersible.
Why were some finds removed from the old list?
We could not verify them, including the Venice megalodon tooth, a Bahamas sphinx and the Subic Bay F-4.
Last updated: October 2026.
