Civitavecchia, Carabinieri find wreck of ancient Roman ship at sea

The Latium coasts continue to amaze and return very important discoveries such as the wreck of the Roman ship identified in recent days off the coast of Civitavecchia by the Archaeology Section of the Operational Department of the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, assisted by the Centro Carabinieri Subacquei (Underwater Carabinieri Center) of Genoa and Rome, with the help of the deep-sea patrol boat of the Naval Service of the Civitavecchia Company, coordinated by the Civitavecchia Public Prosecutor’s Office itself and under the aegis of the National Superintendency for Underwater Cultural Heritage of Taranto.

The technical equipment of the Centro Carabinieri Subacquei di Genova and the Nucleo Carabinieri Subacquei di Roma, specific equipment and means for such operations, made it possible to locate the wreck and take video footage and photos as evidence of the important operation. It would be an ancient Roman honorary ship of the 2nd-1st century B.C., lying on the seabed at a depth of 160 meters still in good condition and with a full cargo of amphorae considered of great value for quantity and content.

The famous Rov, the underwater robotic “Remotely Operated Vehicle ”was employed, which thanks to sonar and echosounder mapped the seabed of the archaeological site also thanks to the deep-sea patrol boat of the Carabinieri of Civitavecchia (class N 802 “Frau”). In the vicinity of the wreck were also located the two perfectly preserved metal Roman anchor logs.

This is a discovery of great importance, a short distance from the coast, which allows us to hypothesize as many situations along the Latium coastline, at the time of Farsi a place of great naval bustle of the Roman power between commercial and military routes.

To be precise, the Carabinieri report that the wreck is lying at a depth of about 160 meters on the sandy seabed, with a cargo of hundreds of Roman amphorae type “Dressel 1 B,” most of them intact, which formed a deposit of the dimensions of 12 meters wide by 17 meters long, from which it can be assumed that the ship could have exceeded the dimensions of 20 meters.

Even from these dimensions the exceptionality of the find so much so that the National Superintendence for Underwater Cultural Heritage (based in Taranto) has initiated the necessary procedures to survey and safeguard the underwater archaeological area and discover the still unknown details of the ship and its cargo.

Civitavecchia, Carabinieri find wreck of ancient Roman ship at sea

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