The sunken ship SS Mopang, situated near Sozopol, has been declared an underwater archeological site. This makes the ship protected from the attacks of treasure hunters unlike many others on the bottom of the Black Sea, says Naiden Prahov, director of the Center for Underwater Archeology in Sozopol.

Mopang is a cargo ship, part of a series of more than 100 ships built in New Jersey under a program to compensate for losses during the First World War. In 1921, on the way from Istanbul to the northern Black Sea coast, Mopang came across a mine and sank without casualties thanks to local fishermen who immediately went to rescue the sailors. The ship sank to a depth of 30 meters.

Mopang, which is 104 meters long and 14 meters wide, became known to the general public after a fuel oil leak in 2018.