Spares

Off Kekova, thirty metres down, the slope has kept the cargo and none of the ship.

No wood to burn for a date, so they read the jars: two handles, a ridge at the waist, a flat base for a floor that is gone, the same shape as jars in Egypt already known to be that old.

Some still hold a glossy dark. Oil, wine, resin, nobody knows yet, or only the last of many fillings. Jars like that went out and came back for years. Not this time.

And three stone anchors, because on a long run a rope can part on rock and you go on with the next one.

They packed for the loss they could live through. All three are still here.