Roman shipwreck with 500 amphorae found off coast of Sicily

Discovery of 2,100-year-old vessel hailed as ‘one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years’

A 2,100-year-old Roman shipwreck carrying about 500 amphorae has been discovered 3 miles off the coast of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily.

Italy’s cultural heritage police, the Carabinieri, investigated the wreck with the help of divers and underwater cameras after receiving a tip-off from fishers. The vessel was found at a depth of about 46 metres (151ft) and was carrying hundreds of amphorae – ancient two-handled ceramic jars with a narrow neck – thought to have been used mainly to transport wine.

The wreck, measuring about 21 metres long and 6 metres wide, was described by Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, as “one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years”.

Giuli said the wreck offered “precious fragments of our history” and provided further evidence of the trade routes and exchanges that made the Mediterranean “a crossroads of civilisations”.

The divers Giacomo De Mola and Igor Bisulli described how they came across the wreck.

“Visibility wasn’t the best … I got closer. And my heart stopped. Below me was a vast expanse of amphorae,” De Mola said in an Instagram post accompanying video footage of the discovery.

“This is, without a doubt, the most incredible discovery of my life,” he said. “It’s hard to describe what it feels like to be among the first humans, in nearly 20 centuries, to see that place again.”

Most of the ship’s cargo consisted of Dressel 1A amphorae, widely used to transport wine and particularly valuable to archaeologists because they can help reconstruct the commercial networks that linked Italy with other parts of the Mediterranean between the second and first centuries BC.

Over the coming months, Sicily’s superintendency of the sea is expected to carry out a new phase of scientific documentation and research at the site. Archaeologists will seek to establish more precisely the date of the wreck, the origin and intended destination of its cargo, and the condition of the surviving material, while also drawing up measures to protect what officials have described as a site of exceptional archaeological significance.

The discovery is the latest in a series of important Roman wrecks found in Italian waters.

In 2021, another Roman vessel dating from the second century BC was discovered off the coast of Palermo. The wreck lay 92 metres beneath the sea near Isola delle Femmine and images taken by an underwater robot showed it carrying a large cargo of wine amphorae.

Before that, an almost intact Roman vessel dating from the second century BC was discovered in 2013 off the coast of Liguria. The ship, carrying about 50 valuable amphorae, was located by police divers about a mile off Alassio at a depth of about 50 metres.

In that case, police were alerted to the wreck during a year-long investigation into archaeological artefacts believed to have been looted and sold on the black market in northern Italy.

Italian police recover hundreds of illegally removed ancient Roman amphorae each year, many of them found in the homes or warehouses of collectors and art dealers.

The waters surrounding Sicily are regarded as one of the Mediterranean’s richest areas for underwater archaeology. The island’s strategic position along the ancient maritime routes linking Greece, the Middle East, north Africa and Europe means its seabed is believed to contain some of the most significant surviving wrecks from the ancient world.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report