The mystery of the Acre (Akko) Tower shipwreck may be closer to being solved. The Jerusalem Post reports that 100 hundred brass nails may have given away the secret.

Discovered in 1966, the wreck was long assumed to be a British naval vessel sunk at the entrance to the port of Acre, in the northern end of Haifa Bay, to block access to Napoleon Bonaparte’s navy in 1799. Later research cast doubt on that explanation. Napoleon approached in Acre by land, making blocking the harbor channel less useful. Also the wreck, which was originally thought to be a vessel of 45 meters long was determined to be closer to 25 meters of length, and was thus more likely a merchant ship than a Royal Navy man-of-war. 

Now researchers have analysed the metallurgy of 100 brass nails found in and around the wreck and determined that “the lead isotope analyses of the nails suggest that the raw material most probably originated in Great Britain. Hence, it is suggested that the Akko Tower Wreck is the remains of a European merchantman which sank in Akko harbor about the middle of the nineteenth century.”  The findings were published in the journal Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis.