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in deep water would be preserved from the destructive forces 

 dominating tiie surface of the sea. 



Although the land archaeologist is concerned with the same 

 kind of material as the underwater archaeologist, a complete wreck 

 and its cargo can still be found only beneath the sea. But even in 

 the motionless depths a wreck is not safe. Soon the weeds grow 

 over it and marine borers begin to eat their way into the wood. 

 After a while the structure is so weakened that the hull collapses 

 like an egg shell beneath the weight of the cargo, the sides fall 

 outward, the cargo settles down onto the keel strip, and the splin- 

 tered deck is devoured by the borers. Its death agonies are now 

 over, and the corpse can lie unchanged for a thousand years until 

 men come again to disturb the grave. 



If by chance the ship settles into very soft mud, and is quickly 

 covered over with sea bottom deposits, the wood will be per- 

 manently protected. But few such rewarding wrecks are found, 

 simply because they are so difficult to detect. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, a diver brings up bits of a hull during commercial excavations 

 in places like London and Ostia. But before describing some of the 

 wrecks and lost cities discovered in the Mediterranean, we should 

 first say something about the periods of sea power of various 

 civilizations, the extent of their trade, and the construction of their 

 ships. 



Hundreds of ships of classical times 

 foundered on treacherous rocks along the 

 Mediterranean coast. This Admiralty chart 

 shows the sites of several wrecks (circled In 

 red) near the entrance of Toulon Harbor. 



127 



