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Underwater Archaeology
Underwater archaeology consists of the exploration and
investigation of submerged cities or the wrecks of sunken
ships.
The first recorded attempt at underwater archaeology was
made in Lake Nemi near Rome in 1446. Divers were brought
from Genoa to investigate rumours of sunken ships, and after
combing the lake they returned with the fragment of a large
statue. In 1555 a diver went down in a diving suit and carried
out a further survey, bit it was not until the time of Mussolini
that the ships and their contents were finally recovered
by the rather drastic means of draining the lake.
In 1900 a diver gathering sponges off the little island
of Andikithria in Southern Greece found a bronze arm. Further
excavations resulted in the recovery of 36 statues, 31 fragments,
and a marble horse, as well as numerous implements and utensils.
In order to recover these, however, it was necessary to
dive to a depth of over 54 metres. This made it impossible
for a diver to make more than two dives of five minutes
each per day, and even then three suffered from 'stroke'
and one died.
Another chance discovery made by sponge divers in 1907
revealed the existence of a wreck off Tunis which yielded
enough finds to fill 6 rooms of the Bardo Museum.
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| Rhodes amphora. Beginning of 2nd century
A.D. |
As a result of the great advances made in diving technique
after the Second World War a number of wrecks were found
off the French and Italian coasts, but the first underwater
plans were those made in the investigation of the submerged
sections of ancient cities. Work of this kind was first
carried out in the ancient city of Tyre, and revealed both
the size of the old port and the ship-building techniques
employed at that time. Work on other submerged cities in
Israel, the Lebanon and Crete showed that ancient writers
had often given wrong information, but it is the Russians
who have given the greatest importance to this type of archaeology
and who have succeed in excavating and drawing up plans
of a number of ancient cities lying submerged in seas and
lakes.
A great step forward in underwater archaeology was made
in the excavation of the wreck of the Grand Conglobe off
Marseille, which was carried out by the Director of the
Marseille Museum and Cousteau. Here photographs were taken
of the finds in their original position before removal,
and work on the detailed plan of the wreck continued for
several years.
As the time a diver can remain under water is severely
limited new methods of drawing up plans had to be invented.
One of these, which was employed on the wreck of the Spargi
off Sardinia, consisted in lowering a grid square over the
wreck. These squares were divided into yet smaller squares,
thus enabling the necessary measurements to be taken quite
easily. This was the method later employed at Bodrum and
Yassiada in Turkey.
As for the actual salvage of sunken ships, the wreck of
a ship that had sunk off Stockholm and whose existence had
been known since at least 1628 was finally brought to the
surface in 1956 in a perfect state of preservation, while
another wreck, this time off Kyrenia in Cyprus, was recovered
in 1967 and is now exhibited in a special temperature-controlled
room in Kyrenia Castle.
Activities
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