{"id":39300,"date":"2026-08-10T13:22:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/39300\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:22:19","slug":"ancient-booze-cruise-2000-year-old-roman-shipwreck-found-packed-with-hundreds-of-wine-jars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/39300\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient booze cruise? 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck found packed with hundreds of wine jars"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An ancient Roman-era ship<\/a> believed to be more than 2,000 years old has been recovered off the coast of Sicily<\/a> in what Italy<\/a> says marks one of the most important archaeological finds<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n

Specialist divers found the wreckage some 150ft under the surface near Mazara del Vallo, in the very west, after receiving a tip-off from local fishermen, according to Italian media.<\/p>\n

Free diver Giacomo De Mola told how he found the vessel still packed with hundreds of well-preserved ceramic jars<\/a> that would have once been used for transporting wine, oil and grain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, without a doubt, the most incredible discovery of my life,\u201d he wrote in a post on social media.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe ship was full of ceramic amphorae used to transport wine (Ministero della Cultura)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to describe what it feels like to be among the first humans, in nearly 20 centuries, to see that place again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sea never ceases to amaze us,\u201d he added. \u201cThis time we didn’t just find a wreck, we found a piece of our history<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italy’s culture<\/a> minister Alessandro Giuli said the find was “one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years\u201d, and the ministry dated the vessel to the 1st or 2nd century BC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sea continues to bring back precious fragments of our history, and the Mazara del Vallo wreck speaks to us of the people, the routes, and the exchanges that made the Mediterranean a crossroads of civilisations,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"SpecialistSpecialist divers found the wreckage following a tip off from local fishermen (Ministero della Cultura)<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch will continue to unravel its history and deliver it to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ship was around 70ft long and 20ft wide, according to local media. The ministry of culture said it was filled with hundreds of slender, wine-carrying \u2018Dressel 1A\u2019 amphorae jars.<\/p>\n

Archaeologists told Il Messaggero<\/a> that the find appeared to be in \u201cexcellent condition\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ministry said the Superintendency of the Sea would now be able to document and study the site in order to put it in its proper archaeological context and adopt protective measures.<\/p>\n

\"PartPart of the Roman-era ship found by divers and fishermen earlier this week (Ministero della Cultura)<\/p>\n

Exceptionally low water levels on the Danube river, caused by the heatwaves and drought sweeping Europe<\/a>, have also revealed several artefacts in recent days.<\/p>\n

Bulgarian archaeologists were handed a rare opportunity to document one of the Roman Empire\u2019s most impressive engineering achievements when parts of the foundations of the Constantine Bridge were exposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor archaeologists, these moments are extremely valuable because nature briefly reveals an object that is hidden beneath the Danube for most of the time,\u201d said Pavel Popov of the Regional Historical Museum in Pleven.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a rare opportunity to observe, document and study it in its real environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA drone view of the foundations of the ancient Constantine Bridge, commissioned by Roman emperor Constantine I and inaugurated in AD 328, is seen in the Danube River near Gigen, Bulgaria (Reuters)<\/p>\n

The bridge, commissioned by Emperor Constantine I and inaugurated in AD 328, linked the ancient city of Ulpia Oescus with Sucidava in what is now Romania.<\/p>\n

Stretching more than 2 kilometres, it is regarded as one of the longest bridges of antiquity, though short-lived. It is believed to have been largely destroyed around AD 367.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, a team from the Pleven museum carried out aerial photography and documentation of visible bridge remains, close to the village of Gigen in northern Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

Do you have a story? Contact james.reynolds@independent.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,558,1138],"class_list":["post-39300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rome","tag-rome","tag-science","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}