Massimo Capulli (2020): "Fluvial Archaeology in Italy. Methods and First Results for the Study of a Roman Shipwreck Area" (original) (raw)

2020, FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 470

The Stella River (Udine, Italy) was in antiquity one of the most important watercourses of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, its relevance residing in that it connected the populations living in the foothills of the Alps to the ones living near the Adriatic coast. The Anaxum Project (named after the Roman appellation for the river), a partnership between the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage of the University of Udine and the local Archaeological Superintendency, aims to reconstruct the history of the Stella River basin focusing on human-landscape relationships through time. This article describes the part of the project focused on the study of a Roman shipwreck area; in particular, the relation-ship between the remains of a barge and a spread of archaeological material, which without a break stretches north of the hull for tens of meters. The aim was to find out if this material could be part of the cargo of the same wreck, to assess the original dimensions of the boat, as well as to ascertain the dynamics of the sinking and post-depositional events. Thanks to the methodology used during the underwater archaeological research, it was possible to establish in the whole area investigated the homogeneous presence of tegulae (roof tiles) equal to those that were part of the known cargo of the ship; the presence of the same producer names on the tegulae stamps provides the most solid proof that the spread of archaeological material is linked with the barge. However, it seems unlikely that all of the tegulae recovered were on the same boat. In accordance with the stowage scheme observed, the boat could not be laden with more than 55 tegulae per linear meter. This means that even if we do not consider the fact that we have partial data (many tiles are still on the river bottom), at its widest part the vessel would have been over 13 meters to accommodate all recovered tiles. At present, one explanation could be that this archaeological site represents a convoy and that a second vessel might have been involved in the sinking.