natural harbors, ideal sites for cities. But the cities that sprang up 

 at such sites were menaced by heavy silting, with the result that old 

 coastal towns like Myos, Miletus, Priene, and Utica are today one 

 to twelve miles inland from the sea. 



Regions subject to such large-scale sedimentation are very often 

 subject to subsidence, so that any city built on or near a delta - 

 even if it is not threatened by silt - risks being inundated by the 

 sea. This was probably the fate of Fos-sur-Mer near the Rhone, 

 Carthage near the Medjerda, and the small island of Pharos off the 

 Nile delta. Although there certainly have been absolute changes in 

 sea level since 400 B.C., it is extremely difficult to measure them, 

 simply because we cannot be certain about land movements. Conse- 

 quently we must attribute many of the submerged cities of the 

 Mediterranean to local earth movements or earthquakes. Helike 

 obviously disappeared in an earthquake; Epidaurus probably did; 

 and Apollonia, the port of Cyrene, possibly did. Because our knowl- 

 edge of absolute sea level changes and land movements is so 

 confused, the analysis of present positions of ancient sites is of real 

 value to the geologist I'nd oceanographer. 



Man's feeble ability to combat the ponderous and inevitable 

 movements of the coast line in the past has been matched by his 

 helplessness in the face of capricious storms of the open sea. The 

 ocean bed of the Mediterranean is littered with the wreckage of 

 ships. Through five thousand years of maritime adventure, war, 

 squalls, rocks, and a variety of other hazards have sent hundreds of 

 ships to the bottom. These too, like sunken cities, contain archae- 

 ological treasures that can help us fill in many details of history. 

 While the study of the movements of coastal cities is inevitably 

 linked with geology and oceanography, the study of wrecks is pure 

 archaeology. The essential fatts that are interesting about a wreck 

 are its date, cargo, construction, origin and destination, and the 

 reason it sank. Usually we can assess the cargo fairly quickly, which 

 gives us the approximate date of the voyage, and with a bit of luck, 

 the ports of origin and destination. 



If the ship is an unknown type, it is extremely difficult to deter- 

 mine just how it was constructed, unless the cargo has covered and 

 preserved the beams, in which case the whole cargo must be exca- 

 vated. On the other hand, we can sometimes deduce the method of 

 construction by comparing a few key parts with wrecks previously 

 excavated. Complete excavation is such a lengthy and expensive 

 business that only once in ten years or so do we find a wreck 

 worthy of detailed analysis. Each excavated and unexcavated wreck 

 is recorded by archaeologists, who then can build up gradually a 

 picture of volumes of trade over various trade routes. 



Discovering sunken cities and wrecks is tedious work. Classical 

 histories, old charts, and archaeological reports must be searched 

 minutely, and whenever possible the researcher should make full 

 use of local sources. Even so, we find most wrecks by chance, and 

 it is a cunning research worker who can find the man who knows 

 the man who actually knows the exact site of a classical wreck. 



If a ship with its cargo sank in a shallow harbor, it would either 

 have been salvaged almost immediately, or destroyed to prevent 

 danger to other ships. If a ship was driven onto the shore by a gale, 

 the wreck would soon be pounded to pieces by the crashing surf. 

 Only the ships that struck isolated rocks or were swamped and sank 



This third-century B.C. mosaic from Ostia, 

 the port for Rome, shows Sardinian ships 

 being ioaded with amphorae. Thousands of 

 amphorae from this period (beiow) have been 

 recovered from wrecks in the Mediterranean. 



These spheroid-type amphorae, probably used 

 for storing oil, were found by Cousteau 

 near the Tie de Maire, off Marseilles. 



126 



