[#CommuniquéDePresse] Pillage de l'épave "Fort Royal 1" au large de Cannes : les services de l'état se coordonnent pour la protéger —Préfecture maritime de la Méditerranée (@Premarmed) April 27, 2022
Posted on 04/30/2022 9:09:08 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
An ancient trading ship carrying wine that lay undiscovered at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea for more than 2,000 years has been damaged and looted since being discovered by archaeologists, French authorities said Wednesday.
The ship, named Fort Royal 1, is thought to have sunk off the coast of Cannes on the French Riviera during the second century BC.
Divers tasked with the first official explorations of the wreck, which was discovered in 2017, found that some of the clay containers used to transport wine at the time had been removed by divers who had broken into the vessel.
"Well-conserved wrecks from this period are particularly rare," said a joint statement from the department of marine archaeology in the French culture ministry and local police. "That's why the opportunity to study the wooden body and the cargo is absolutely exceptional."
"The losses of scientific and historical information are probably significant" as a result of the damage, it added, saying the thefts had been carried out recently and were ongoing.
The boat was discovered in 2017 by renowned French marine archaeologists Anne and Jean-Pierre Joncheray, who spent decades scouring the floor of the Mediterranean. Jean-Pierre Joncheray died in 2020 aged 79.
The area around the wreck "is now off-limits for moorings or sailing and an investigation has been opened by maritime police in Marseille," the statement said.
Last month, the United States returned a trove of looted treasure from a 1746 shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean to France. The illegally obtained artifacts included a skull from the Parisian catacombs, golden ingots and an ancient Roman coin.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
[#CommuniquéDePresse] Pillage de l'épave "Fort Royal 1" au large de Cannes : les services de l'état se coordonnent pour la protéger —Préfecture maritime de la Méditerranée (@Premarmed) April 27, 2022
There's a raft of new stuff on Archaeologica, some of it is coming soon.
The other GGG topics added since the last digest ping:
I just looked up "amphora" and learned this: "characteristic shape and size which fit tightly against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land or sea. "
I never thought about the nesting characteristics of that shape as a way to maximize transportation efficiency.
My view is, there were no ties on them, they were placed in a bed of wheat (which was also shipped around the Med, but not economical in and of itself) -- hence the pointy end, which made it practical to extract the wine shipment piecemeal. After set in place, the jars were 2/3 buried in wheat. AFAIK, there's no evidence for tying them, and the wheat would have kept them stable, kept them from cracking in rough seas, and would have left them available. And the wheat would be also a saleable product.
I would post a picture of the Katrina Looter guy, but I don’t have time.
Do they have any idea whose ship this was, Roman, Carthaginian, or Scandinavian?
Was this a trading ship on the tin trade route?
The rest of the Amphorae keyword:
I’m sorry....finders keepers.
It wasn't Scandinavian. Probably Greek (Gaul, Italy, Sicily, or Ionian), possibly Carthaginian, Etruscan, or Phoenician.
She would not pay out of her own pocket. She would accept the gift.
Oh, and the wine would be long gone, bummer, diffused into the sea water long ago. The jars themselves probably bore marks indicating contents, which may still be visible. Also, some success has been had identifying former contents by residues, even after long submergence. The jars themselves are generally only found whole on wrecks, as they were not typically reused, apparently, see the "Monte Testaccio" topic for more about that.
Chateau d’grifteur.
I didn’t know teens could swim
I never thought of that either.
Thanks for posting that.
Carnival Cruise?
:^) Costa Concordia 1.
“for more than 2,000 years has been damaged and looted”
I should think teredo would have eaten them long since.
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