Ancient Skylletium?

I was having problems understanding the Italian coverage on this one yesterday (specifically, the architect’s description, which is also in Il Quotidiano), but thankfully it’s appeared in the English press this a.m. … here’s the ANSA coverage:

An amateur scuba diver has discovered what may be the ruins of an ancient city off the coast of Calabria, a local town council said Friday.

Alessandro Ciliberto, an architect with a passion for scuba diving, discovered a group of stone blocks around 3-4 metres under water while he was diving 15 metres from the shore near the town of Squillace on Calabria’s east coast.

”Standing out against the sandy seabed there’s a dark-coloured form of around two metres in length and a metre and a half wide which seems to be man-made,” Ciliberto said.

”Continuing to explore the zone a few metres away, I found a white-coloured plinth half a metre high. Further on, there are a pair of stone blocks, one rectangular and of modest dimensions and the other an undefined shape,” he added.

Squillace town council said it was possible that the ruins belonged to the ancient seaside city of Scylletium, founded when southern Italy was a Greek colony.

The town became a Roman colony in 124 BC and was the birthplace of 6th-century Roman writer and statesman Cassiodorus, who claimed that its founder was legendary Greek king Ulysses.

Ruins from the city have previously been found in the nearby town of Roccelletta di Borgia.

Not sure why ‘city remains’ are assumed here; it might be something associated with a shipwreck …

Ancient Port of Trafalgar

I’m hoping we’ll get more on this one, but many of these items reported by ANSA never seem to make it beyond ANSA’s own English coverage:

Searches along the Cadiz coast have led Spanish archaeologist Joaquim Casellas to find the ancient port of Trafalgar, 50 metres below the waves and partly buried at a depth of 15 metres below the sea floor. “This is one of the most important archaeological finds ever in Spain” said the Spanish researcher, who previously discovered some of the new rooms inside the pyramids of Cheops and Giza together with Zahi Hawass. In his research in Andalusia, Casellas has employed the airborne radar survey techniques also used in Egypt. The ruins of the port of Trafalgar, uncovered together with many archaeological finds, date back to a time before the Roman period. As Casellas explained to the press, they could go back to the era of the Phoenicians or even further. The port was found in the area of the Cape which give its name to the historic battle in 1805 in which Napoleon’s dream to conquer Britain was shattered. The site “has a surface of 15 by 3km” according to the archaeologist, “the submerged part is 50m under water, the land part is 15m below the surface.” Thanks to radar survey techniques, Castellas can now reveal that “the port is surrounded by a 30m-high wall,” with “a large-scale geometric layout similar to the pattern found in the ruins of Ampurias,” the Greek-Roman city in the Catalan region of Upper Empordà in Girona. According to the researcher, several buildings were constructed on the port in successive periods. Castellas has used aircrafts equipped with radar in his search, since diving in the area, a protected nature reserve, is not allowed. The radar used in the research can find signs of urbanisation as deep as 400m, and “was designed to survey large land masses with a fine-toothed comb.”The results of the air survey were superimposed on Google maps of area: “They make clear” the archaeologist said “the ancient port is shown in red, which stands out against the surrounding area, shown in green, littered with archaeological relicts and finds.” The method used, according to Castellas, “gives us a much wider and detailed view, enabling us quickly to find valuable archaeological sites at a lower cost per expeditions, which is the most complicated and costly parts of research.” Interest in Spain by marine archaeology has been reawakened in recent years, partly thanks to the find in 2007 of the half a billion dollars worth of golden and silver doubloons by the North American treasure hunting company Odyssey. But Castellas said, referring to the antique port of Trafalgar, that no old relicts or treasure chests will be brought to the surface. “To recover some of the treasures of the ancient civilisations” he explained “we need investments which are only possible with real political interest in archaeology.”

This Google Earth modification from ECD might give you a better idea of the nature of this find:

Roman Shipwrecks of Ventotene

This has finally hit the newswires, it appears … excerpts from the Reuters coverage:

A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a “graveyard” of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene.

The trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 meters underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said on Thursday.

[…]

The vessels were transporting wine from Italy, prized fish sauce from Spain and north Africa, and a mysterious cargo of metal ingots from Italy, possibly to be used in the construction of statues or weaponry.

[…]

Due to their depth, the ships have lain untouched for hundreds of years but Gambin said the increasing popularity of deep water diving posed a threat to the Mediterranean’s archaeological treasures.

“There is a race against time,” he said. “In the next 10 years, there will be an explosion in mixed-gas diving and these sites will be accessible to ordinary treasure hunters.”

A few days ago, the primary researcher on this one (Dr. T. Gambin) posted to Ostia-l a link to the project’s webpage, which includes a very nice photogallery of finds. This sonar image of the set should give a sense of how major this find is (those are individual amphorae):

Aurora Trust Photo
Aurora Trust Photo

Gela Shipwreck?

This is another one from the Italian press which I’ve been hoping would get some notice in the English press, but it doesn’t appear that that will be happening. The Carabinieri have been diving in the sea near Caltanisetta to recover assorted archaeological items which appear to be associated with several periods and several (?) shipwrecks (and, to judge from the divers, a crime of some sort). Artifacts are said to come from Roman, Greco-Hellenistic, and Byzantine periods. The only artifact that is specified as being recovered is an intact Byzantine patera, inscribed with a dove.

Boka Kotorska Shipwreck

AFP seems to be the only major news agency that picked this one up … via IAfrica:

A shipwreck believed to date back to Roman times was found at the bottom of Montenegro’s Boka Kotorska bay, officials said on Tuesday.

“We believe we have found the wreckage of a ship that could have been used to transport goods,” Montenegro’s regional Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute said in a statement.

Officials refused to reveal the location of the shipwreck until the area was fully secured.

The wreckage was found by the crew of the US explorer ship Hercules. Since May, the crew and the ship have been assisting Montenegrin archaeologists to map and discover underwater findings.

The Romans were present in the waters off what is now Montenegro from the year 9 AD till the 5th and 6th centuries AD, before Slavic people inhabited the area.

The incipit of a similar piece at Visitmontenegro.com adds a few details:

Underwater archaeological exploration performed on 25th May from the research vessel “Hercules” resulted in the latest discovery of the remains of ship which carried ceramic tiles used as roofing material – it is assumed that it dates from the Roman period.

The General Manager of the Regional Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Ruzica Ivanovic, says that, in case additional analysis confirm that this is the boat of the Roman period it will be the most significant archaeological discovery made on the bottom of the sea in Montenegro.

Within the research project of the Regional Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, the Regional Center for Training of Divers, the Center for Underwater Demining and the “RPM Nautical” Foundation from Florida, there were other important discoveries: the wreck of a German submarine sunk 90 years ago and one amphorae locality.

… it goes on with a plea from Ivanovic for more funding for cooperative projects like this one.