A shipwreck dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries BC has been found near Sicily along with ancient anchors made of stone and iron, Italian officials said.
The 2,500-year-old shipwreck was found buried under sand and rocks by crews working on an underwater excavation project in the waters of Santa Maria del Focallo, near Ispica at the southern tip of the Italian island. said The Director General of the Sea of Sicily in a statement on Monday.
When archaeologists found the sunken ship, they discovered a hull built using the “on the hull” method of construction, a simple early shipbuilding method often found in populations around the Mediterranean. They also found several anchors several feet from the wreck, the superintendent said, two of the anchors were made of iron and apparently came from the 7th century AD The other four anchors, which were made of heavy stone, probably dating back to the prehistoric era.
Archaeologists created a three-dimensional model of the wreck and collected samples from the materials for analysis, hoping to understand more about the materials that make them up.
“This discovery represents a remarkable contribution to the knowledge of the maritime history of Sicily and the Mediterranean and shows once again the central role of the Island in traffic and cultural exchanges in ancient times,” said Francesco Paolo Scarpinato, Sicily's regional councilor for cultural heritage and Sicilian identity, in a translated statement on the shipwreck published by the University of Udine. “The shipwreck, dating back to a crucial period for the transition between ancient and classical Greece, is a valuable part of Sicilian underwater cultural heritage.”
The three-week excavation at Santa Maria 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. The director general of the sea led the campaign with archaeologists from the University of Udine, near the excavation site.
Those involved in the project say that this wreck could shed light on an important chapter of ancient Greece, which inhabited Sicily for hundreds of years until the island was captured by Rome around 200 BC.
Massimo Capulli, is the coordinator of the Kaukana Project and a professor at the University of Udine, added in a separate statement published by the university that studying the shipwreck could help clarify the trade between the ancient Greeks and Carthaginians, two a group that for thousands of years fought for control of the seas around today. Sicily.
“We are really facing substantial evidence of ancient traffic and trade,” Capulli said.
