Work was underway near the San Rossore railway station on the outskirts of Pisa in 1998, when bulldozers sliced into something wooden. Arriving on the scene, archaeologist Stefano Bruni saw that the builders had struck the hull of an ancient ship. During the next year, eight more vessels were uncovered at the site, turning it into an archaeological gold mine.
For the following 18 years, a team directed by Bruni explored the site and discovered the remains of more shipwrecks, over 30 in all. There were countless artifacts—ceramics, glass, metal, wood, ropes, fishing tools—and human skeletons. But of even more interest were the ages of the wrecks; the oldest ones date to the second century B.C. while the most recent are from the seventh century A.D. This location was an important maritime center for centuries, but the site puzzled archaeologists. The dozens of wrecks were found some distance from the city’s rivers, the Arno and the Serchio, and several miles from where the rivers meet the sea.
(How everyday items peel back the curtain on ancient Rome.)
Pisa as a port
Pisa is world famous today for its 12th-century leaning tower, but its role as a major port is not as familiar. Historians are well acquainted with Pisa’s role as a maritime trade center. Its location at the mouth of the Arno made it an important port and shipbuilding center for the Romans and for pre-Roman settlements in Italy. In the third century B.C., Pisa became an important base for the Roman fleet during the Punic wars against Carthage. Under Roman rule, it was known as Portus Pisanus. The harbor’s significance only grew under Emperor Augustus. Long after Roman rule ended, Pisa retained importance as a sea-trading city, one of the four great maritime republics of 11-century Italy.
The leaning tower and the mystery of the buried ships are linked by the region’s geology. Ancient Pisa was founded on an alluvial plain: As the city evolved, sand and soil washed downstream by the local rivers was deposited at their mouths as layers of silt. As they built up overtime, these layers upon layers led to a centuries-long recession of the coastline, leaving Pisa farther from the sea. This soft, sandy ground is the principal cause of the tilt of Pisa’s famous tower.
(This empress was the most dangerous woman in Rome.)
Sands and floods
As Bruni’s team continued to investigate the ancient wrecks, it gradually began to piece together how so many came to be clustered in one place. Analysis of the sediments suggested that the San Rossore site once lay along an ancient canal connected to a branch of the Serchio River in the north. Ships could travel from the river and down the canal to where they could unload their cargo in relatively calm waters.
The Arno River experienced major flooding many times between the second century B.C. and the seventh century A.D., the period that corresponds with the finds. Pasquino Pallecchi, a geologist involved with the excavation, believes that during these floods, vast quantities of sandy sediments were dumped onto the plain. The floodwaters sank unlucky vessels that were moored in the canal. The sand eventually silted up the canal until it disappeared from history.
(How do we find shipwrecks—and who owns them?)
The absence of oxygen in the accumulated sediments helped preserve artifacts from the ships, especially organic material. A first-century A.D ship bearing a cargo of food from Naples sank in the canal, and the skeletons of a sailor and a dog were found preserved in the wreckage. The oldest wreck found to date sank during a flood in the first decades of the second century B.C. This wreck is not fully preserved, but enough remains to determine its size. Team members estimate it would have measured about 45 feet long and some 15 feet wide, with a capacity for a cargo of almost 42 tons. Various indications suggest that it was a vessel intended for coastal navigation.
About 300 Greco-Italic amphorae were found around the wreckage, representing approximately half the volume of the cargo. It’s not certain what the amphorae contained, but pork shoulders were recovered along with the pottery fragments, leading some to posit that the boat was transporting meat stored in brine. Given that many objects belonging to the crew, such as perfume burners and vessels for preserving food, are of Iberian origin, it’s believed that the ship had set sail from there.
(Clothing from 1600s shipwreck shows how the 1 percent lived.)
Well preserved
Many finds in the former canal belong to cargo ships and vessels used on inland water-ways, but the presence of carpenters’ tools, such as mallets, chisels, nails, and rivets, indicate that shipyards once stood along this portion of the waterway. There, boats could be serviced and repaired before heading out.
Many other wrecks were once river boats. Among these, the discovery of a lintre is particularly interesting.These shallow-water craft had rounded hulls and lacked keels, making them unstable. Their shape and means of propulsion were similar to a gondola.
So far, only one wreck uncovered at the site seemed designated for military functions. On the first bench of this vessel someone once etched, in Greek letters, the Latin word Alkedo, meaning “seagull.” Archaeologists think this may have been the name of the ship. Possibly intended for river surveillance tasks, it sank late in the reign of Augustus, around A.D. 14. At more than 2,000 years old, the boat remains remarkably well preserved.
The most recent shipwreck is a large barge used for transporting sand, which sank between A.D. 580 and 640. No vessels have been found of a later date than this one. The silt that likely made the ancient canal impassable also had embalming qualities that preserved the vessels, which is why the site is sometimes called “Pompeii of the sea.”
(Shipwreck of royal "party boat" revealed.)
Today, the ships that have been extracted from the ground are displayed—along with their cargoes and other artifacts—in the Museum of Ancient Ships, Pisa, which is located in one of the city’s 16th-century warehouses. To date, more than 30 ships have been found, but archaeologists believe many more lie waiting to be discovered in the sandy soils of Pisa.
