Divers find ancient Roman cargo from 1,600-year old shipwreck in Israel

Record ID: 103325

  • Title: Divers find ancient Roman cargo from 1,600-year old shipwreck in Israel
  • Date: 16th May 2016
  • Summary: CAESAREA, ISRAEL (MAY 16, 2016) (REUTERS) CAESAREA'S PORT SIGN READING 'CAESAREA' VARIOUS OF SEA IN CAESAREA'S PORT
  • Embargoed: 31st May 2016 17:05
  • Keywords: Antiques Underwater shipwreck Israel Roman
  • Location: CAESAREA, ISRAEL
  • City: CAESAREA, ISRAEL
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA0044I257PJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS ORIGINALLY 4:3 VIDEO
    Archaeologists in Israel have recovered bronze statues and thousands of coins from a merchant ship that sank off the Mediterranean coast some 1,600 years ago during the late Roman period.
    The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said two divers had made the discovery several weeks ago in the ancient harbour of Caesarea in the eastern Mediterranean.
    Successive dives recovered a haul including a bronze lamp depicting the image of sun god Sol, a figure of moon goddess Luna, fragments of life-size bronze cast statues as well as two lumps of thousands of coins.
    "It's one of the largest Roman cargo that we saw, I think that in the last decade... having a lot of parts of statues, oil lamps, bronze oil lamps and something like 20 kilograms of coins," Jacob Sharvit of the IAA's Marine Archaeology Unit told Reuters TV in Caesarea.
    Sharvit added that the findings can teach researchers about the way the harbour functioned as well as about how rich the city was at the time.
    "This giving us some more information about the site, about the type of the ship wreck, we are speaking about 150 to 200 ton of ship with a very large iron anchors. So this is very important information for the Maritime of Caesarea," he added.
    The IAA said the vessel had probably hit a storm as it entered the harbour and had drifted before hitting rocks and the seawall.
    The range of items recovered reflects a "period of economic and commercial stability" in the late Roman Empire, the IAA said and added that past marine excavations in Caesarea had uncovered a small number of bronze statues but this haul was much bigger and the sand-protected statues were in "an amazing state" of preservation.
    Last year divers found a haul of 1,000-year-old gold coins inscribed in Arabic on the sea bed off Israel.
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