Forgotten Wrecks 



In 1832 a Piombino fisherman brought this 

 bronze statue of Apollo up in his nets. 

 It is dated about 460 B.C. and is now on 

 display in the Louvre, Paris. 



The sea is so vast, and men must move so hesitantly within it 

 that a widespread, systematic search for lost wrecks would take 

 hundreds of years. Besides, a lost wreck of the past is concealed 

 like a timid fish whose coloring is so perfect that it has only to lie 

 still and the hunters will pass by, unseeing. Luck is the leading 

 lady in this drama. Divers may search for a wreck for days or 

 weeks and give up in despair before seeing encrusted pottery pro- 

 truding from the mud and weed at a particular angle, or the Hnear 

 pattern which means the work of man. 



Fishermen who drag their Uving from the sea sometimes bring 

 up in their nets carved stones which are of no apparent value to 

 them. Most submarine archaeological discoveries have been made 

 this way. A novel variation of this theme was provided recently 

 when a classical wreck was revealed accidentally by television 

 during the search for the Comet aircraft that crashed off Elba in 

 1954. The chance finds that have been made over the last 150 years 

 fascinate archaeologists and divers alike, particularly if it is possible 

 to place the wreck, or a fragment of its cargo, in the proper historical 

 context. 



When the Romans ransacked the temples of Greece, many of 

 their ships, loaded to the gunwales with sculptures, columns, and 

 furniture, were wrecked by storms. In 1 8 3 2 a fisherman at Piombino 

 hauled up in his net a statue of Apollo dating from the fifth century 

 B.C. It can now be seen in the Louvre. A beautiful bronze of a boy 

 was found at Eleusis in 1829, and nearby at Livadhostro, a bronze 

 of Poseidon. But it is more likely that both of these statues fell 

 into the sea during the looting of temples, and are not part of the 

 cargoes of wrecks. 



A team of sponge fishers were working off Anticythera near 

 Cape Malea in 1900 when they noticed a coagulated black mass 

 twenty-five yards from shore and 180 feet deep in the crystal-clear 

 water. It turned out to be a corroded heap of marble and bronze 

 statues in and around a wreck 150 feet long. The Greek govern- 

 ment sponsored the salvage, and divers, who could work only five 

 minutes at a time at that depth, raised statues, utensils, tiles, and 

 amphorae. Most of the marbles were so corroded that they were 

 unrecognizable, but one statue of Aphrodite was intact, as was a 

 gigantic marble Heracles. A perfect bronze of Perseus was also 

 discovered, plus broken limbs of dancers, athletes, boxers, and the 

 head of a philosopher. When they were examined, many of the 

 statues were found to be copies of famous works made for export. 

 On one of the objects, a metal dial of a curious astronomical in- 

 strument, appeared the name of a month which was not introduced 

 until 30 B.C., and since there were some early types of pottery 

 among the wreckage, the date of the voyage is thought to be 

 Augustan. The ship was probably sailing from Athens to Rome. 



In 1 92 5 a boat fishing off the sandy shore near Marathon brought 

 up a perfect bronze statue of a boy, four feet, three inches high, 

 in the style of Praxiteles. In the same nets was a bronze base of a 

 candelabrum and some planks. Since there are no temples or 

 shrines in the vicinity, there is almost certainly a wreck here, but 

 no search has been made for it. 



The fishermen who found the bronze arm of a statue at Arte- 

 mison, in 1920, brought it secretly to Athens and tried to sell an 

 option on the rest of the statue to a variety of local dealers. The 



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