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A shipwreck dating from the 5th and 6th centuries BC. C. was discovered near Sicily along with ancient anchors made of stone and iron, Italian officials said.
The 2,500-year-old wreck was found buried under sand and rocks by teams working on an underwater excavation project in the waters of Santa Maria del Focallo, near Ispica on the southern tip of the Italian island. saying The Superintendent of the Sicily Sea in a statement on Monday.
When archaeologists unearthed the sunken ship, they discovered a hull built using an “over-shell” construction technique, a primitive and simplistic shipbuilding method often traced back to populations throughout the Mediterranean. They also found a trove of anchors several feet from the remains, the superintendent said, two of the anchors were made of iron and probably originated in the 7th century AD The other four anchors, which were made of heavy stone, probably date back to the 7th century. prehistoric era.
Archaeologists created a three-dimensional model of the shipwreck and collected samples of the artifacts for analysis, hoping to understand more about the materials that made them up.
“This discovery represents an extraordinary contribution to the knowledge of the maritime history of Sicily and the Mediterranean and highlights once again the central role of the island in the traffic and cultural exchanges of antiquity,” said Francesco Paolo Scarpinato, regional councilor of cultural heritage of Sicily. and Sicilian identity, in a translated statement about the shipwreck published by the University of Udine. “The shipwreck, dating from a crucial period for the transition between archaic and classical Greece, is a precious piece of Sicily’s submerged cultural heritage.”
The three-week excavation at Santa María del Focallo, which was part of the Kaukana Project, an archaeological research initiative, ended in September, but officials did not share their findings until this week. Superintendent del Mar led the initiative together with archaeologists from the University of Udine, near the excavation site.
Those involved in the project say this shipwreck could shed light on an important chapter of ancient Greece, which occupied Sicily for hundreds of years until Rome took the island around 200 BC.
Maximo Capulli, a coordinator of the Kaukana Project and professor at the University of Udine, added in a separate statement released by the university that studying the wreck can help shed light on how trade occurred between the ancient Greeks and Carthaginians, two groups who fought for control thousands of years ago. of the seas around present-day Sicily.
“In fact, we are faced with material evidence of trafficking and commerce from a very ancient era,” Capulli said.
