The new Punic War shipwrecks at Marsala

[Ildar]

I'll try to answer

Well, I'm waiting.

if I manage to survive so many familiar meals these days...

[Praefectusclassis]

WM Murray's analysis of the Athlit ram and especially the Actium monument - which has cutouts in the base for the rams of captured ships - actually suggests a very strong correlation between ram and ship size.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Wow! Would the Athlic ram be from a quinqreme? Must have been a hefty vessel? Happy New year All

Regards

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Ildar, the problem with your idea with these rams is that they do not fit in any way the "regular" protruding part of the Roman ships......

ill show what i mean........(quick sketch)



now if that particular ram would have been mounted on the protruding part like this it would have broken off at first impact...

so with this particular ram the theory of the protruding part does not work....

M.VIB.M.

[SvenLittkowski]

Here is one of my illustrations (reconstruction proposal) showing a similar ram.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

look again.... closely to the point where the top rim veers upward...
its impossible to make any strong connection with a protruding part of a boat... same with your reconstruction, it also will break off at the joint part...

btw... your reconstruction is of a different type of ram.

are Jasper and me the only ones seeing this??

M.VIB.M.

[Dan Diffendale]

Alas, the only Italian I know is Latin, so I can't read the Italian articles on the subject. I'll have a look at that article on rams.

Hi Sean (and others...)-- I edited my post above to include an English translation of the Italian article, it's not the cleanest but you'll get the idea...

[Sean Manning]

A thousand thanks. Laus ad te! (I hope to start on French or German one of these days, but there is so much else do do and learn and I have already spread my university courses across three main departments. Thus if I ever learn Italian it will be a long way out).

[Ildar]

2008-07-01 14:08
Ancient Roman ramming tool found

Bronze rostrum found in sea off Sicily may be from Punic War
(ANSA) - Palermo, July 1 - An extremely rare Roman bronze rostrum used for ramming enemy ships - which may have been used in the last great naval battle in the First Punic War - has been found off the northwest coast of Sicily.

The rostrum, a single piece of fused bronze, would have been positioned at the ship's bow and was smashed with force into enemy boats in order to sink them fast.

Divers working for Sicily's maritime affairs department recovered the rostrum near the Egadi Islands in water 70 metres deep with the aid of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

''At the moment this is the fifth extant rostrum in the world,'' said department head Sebastiano Tusa, adding that Sicily is the only region to possess two.

The second rostrum was recovered by art police in 2004 after fishermen discovered it in water near Trapani, not far from the Egadi Islands.

The Trapani rostrum is now conserved in the city's Pepoli Museum.

Tusa said that the Egadi rostrum confirms his theory that a battle took place north-east of the island of Levanzo between fleets from Rome and its great enemy, Carthage, during the Battle of the Egadi in 241 BC.

The battle, won by the Romans, ended the First Punic War and saw the Carthaginians hand control of Sicily to the Roman Empire.

The word rostrum was later used for the main speaking platform in the Roman Forum. This was because it was decorated with the prows of captured ships.



http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus ... 82788.html

[Ildar]

Photos here: http://www.regione.sicilia.it/benicultu ... a/news.htm

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Excellent articles gents. Many thanks.

I thought it was well documented, the battle around the islands off of the northern coast? Sicilly must have a multitude of remains from the Roman fleets lost during this war.

What is the other article with the picture of a column base? Same area?

[C. Apollonius Priscus]

It says something along the lines of an unknown structure found at the ancient port of Lipari. It's a bit of distance to Egadi where they found the ram.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Thanks! Getting back to the ram and the fleets that were lost, not only in the area around these islands, but also the areas where the Romans lost fleets during storms....have there been any major underwater archaological searches for these remains, say along the lines of Ballards work? i.e. as with the ship in the Black sea etc?

[Sean Manning]

Thanks! Getting back to the ram and the fleets that were lost, not only in the area around these islands, but also the areas where the Romans lost fleets during storms....have there been any major underwater archaological searches for these remains, say along the lines of Ballards work? i.e. as with the ship in the Black sea etc?

I haven't heard of any such study, although I have heard of one at Actium and one at Mt. Mycale where a Persian fleet went down in -V. It seems that that ancient warships tended to swamp not sink because they had very little ballast. So most of the wrecks tended to be salvaged or float ashore, where a ship full of amphoras would go straight to the bottom. We got lucky at Marsala because some wrecks were driven into mudbanks and covered over before they could finish rotting.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I still wonder though, about the ones lost in thestorm....with so many men and ships lost, you have to wonder if there is a grave yard of finds somewhere....there were several hundred ships in the fleet after all.
Even if only a dozen or so actually were totally lost, that would be an amazing resource to find.

There is always the possibility that Polybius? made more of the fleets loss than there really was, to make the recovery from the disaster sound all the more glorifying for Rome!