A group of Spanish archaeologists have made detailed diagrams of a Phoenician ship that sank 2,500 years ago to help figure out the best way to retrieve it from the sea before a storm destroys it forever.
The 8 meter long ship is on the beach of Playa de la Isla, 60 meters deep, in the crystalline waters of the Mediterranean. It was named Mazarron II after the municipality in the Murcia region of southeastern Spain where it was found on the coast. It is a unique piece of ancient marine engineering.
“It is an archaeological jewel, which makes it unique. We do not have in our latitudes wreckage of the Phoenician culture that preserves its naval structure. So we only have this one. It is a piece that deserves special treatment. It was declared an asset of ‘cultural interest,’” says Carlos de Juan, archaeologist and project leader.
Nine technicians from the University of Valencia performed 560 hours of diving over two weeks to record all the cracks and fissures in the ship, which will have to be extracted piece by piece and reassembled on land.
“The photographs show us a jigsaw puzzle already assembled, we see the fusiform shape of a not very large coastal vessel, about eight meters long and it gives the impression that we have only one piece. But this is not the reality of archeology. Archaeological wood, after being under water for so long, in this case more than 2,500 years, loses its physical and chemical properties and begins to crack.
(Posted by Fabio Mendes)
Source: CNN Brasil
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