Sunken vessel's cargo delights archeologists
Clay jars contain delicacies for the Roman Empire
By Daniel Woolls, Associated Press | November 14, 2006

MADRID -- A shipwrecked first-century vessel carrying delicacies to
the richest palates of the Roman Empire has proved a dazzling find,
with nearly 2,000-year-old fish bones still nestling inside clay
jars, archeologists said yesterday.

Boaters found the vessel's cargo of hundreds of amphoras in 2000 when
their anchor got tangled with one of the two-handled jars.

After years of arranging financing and crews, exploration of the site
off the coast of Alicante in southeast Spain began in July, said
Carles de Juan, a co-director of the project, who works for the
Valencia regional government.

The ship, estimated to be 100 feet long with a capacity for around
400 tons of cargo, is twice the size of most other Roman shipwrecks
found in the Mediterranean, de Juan said.

Its cargo of an estimated 1,500 well-preserved clay amphoras was used
to hold fish sauce, a prized condiment for wealthy Romans, he said.

For nearly 2,000 years, the 3-foot-tall amphoras lay undisturbed
except for the occasional octopus that would pry one open, breaking
the ceramic-and-mortar seal in search of food or shelter.

Besides the size of the ship and good condition of its cargo, the
site is also important because it is so easily accessible -- in just
80 feet of water about a mile from the coast. Other wrecks are so
deep they cannot be examined by scuba divers.

"I am not going to say it was on the beach, but almost," said de
Juan, who was among the first divers to examine the shipwreck in 2000.

"We knew it was an important find but had no real idea until now," he
said. "It is an exceptional find."

The last time a ship of this size and quality was discovered was in
1985 off Corsica, he said.

Javier Nieto, director of the Center for Underwater archeology of
Catalonia and who is not related to this project, also called it
immensely important because of the good condition of the cargo.

"For archeologists, a sunken ship is a historic document that tells
us about ancient history and how its economy worked," Nieto said from
Barcelona. "This ship will contribute a lot."

This ship probably sank in a storm while sailing back to Rome from
Cadiz in the south of what is now Spain. The storm is believed to
have been ferocious because it is odd for such a vessel to have been
so close to shore.

De Juan and the other co-director of the project, Franca Cibercchini
of the University of Pisa in Italy, presented their first report on
the site at a marine archeology conference last week in the town of
Gandia, near Valencia.

When word of the find first spread in 2000, pirate scuba divers
raided the site and stole some of the amphoras.

What remains of the wooden structure of the ship itself -- about 60
percent -- is buried under mud in the seabed, de Juan said.

The cargo probably also includes lead, which the Romans used for
plumbing, and copper, which they mixed with tin to make bronze for
everything from plates to jewelry.

The fish sauce is no longer in the amphoras because the seals were
not hermetic and could not withstand 20 centuries under water. But
traces of fish bone remain inside and these will help researchers
determine how the sauces were made, de Juan said.