Roman Shipwrecks
Photographs by Priit J. Vesiland
Text by Robert D. Ballard
The skies glowered for days as our support ship, Carolyn Chouest, heaved 70 miles west of Sicily. The sea roiled, and one huge wave thundered over the starboard deck to rip Jason, a 1.5-ton remotely operated vehicle (ROV), off its platform. Slipping in the wave wash, I struggled along with the crew to re-lash the delicate and irreplaceable ROV to its cleats. Damage was minimal; we were lucky.
Only days before Jason’s video cameras had swept over the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, revealing the remains of ships that had foundered in such squalls over the past 2,000 years. Some were wooden trading vessels of the Roman world—square-rigged and deep bellied. Their skippers had been entrepreneurs, risktakers—blazing directly from Rome to Carthage, near today’s Tunis, hoping to turn a profit from their cargoes of wine, olive oil, or fish sauce. But many paid dearly for their courage.
NGM 1998/04