Archaeologists get in the swim

The future of archaeology is underwater, claims Claudio Mocchegiani Carpano, director of the Italian culture ministry's underwater department and lecturer in underwater archaeology at Ravenna University.

Italy's universities have evidently come to the same conclusion. Viterbo and Ravenna, have already opened courses in underwater archaeology. A third, Naples, is expected to do so soon. The new interest in underwater archaeology is to some extent the result of Dr Mocchegiani's own efforts. For over 20 years as a scuba diver and archeologist he has tried to draw attention to the archeological wealth to be found beneath the sea, lakes and rivers.

"We have plotted literally thousands of sunken ships from Greek, Roman and later eras dotted along the coasts of Italy," says Dr Mocchegiani. "Now, at last, we are beginning to train archeologists to work under water."

While earthbound archaeology graduates face unemployment, the work to be done beneath the sea, but also in lakes and rivers, is virtually limitless. "It is the new frontier of archaeology," says Dr Mocchegiani. "Along the coasts of Italy at depths down to 80 metres we have identified more than 1,000 important sunken ships, mostly from Roman times. More and more are being discovered and reported each year by amateur scuba divers. A large number has also been reported deeper than 80 metres, and only God only knows how many we may find once we start looking seriously.

"For example, in 1980 an airliner crashed off the island of Ustica, near Sicily. They sent a robot-submarine down to make videotapes of the wreckage. By chance, at a depth of 3,200 metres, it filmed a perfectly preserved merchant ship from the third or fourth century, still fully laden with amphorae of wine.

"Until recently we concentrated on mapping out the sunken ships from pre-Roman, Roman, and medieval times, with the bulk being from the heyday of the Roman empire. But now we are trying to cover later periods, including the first and second world wars.

"It is not just a matter of sunken ships. In the bay of Naples, for instance, there is an entire town dating from Roman times; you can see the streets, the remains of the buildings, and even some mosaics. It is a vast area, between four and 12 metres underwater, where the shore evidently subsided. To examine something like this one needs teams of qualified archeologists who are also qualified divers."

Scuba divers have discovered bronze-age villages in several lakes in Italy. Italy can count on only 15 archeologists who are also trained divers, plus about 70 divers who are also storers, photographers or technicians.

Dr Mocchegiani has struggled with the complex bureaucracy that connects the Beni Culturali, the ministry responsible for Italy's cultural and artistic heritage, to the universities to get them involved in underwater archaeology.

"For the past two decades it has been a matter of a very few archeologists of the Beni Culturali diving with the assistance of military frogmen and sometimes with boats or pontoons supplied by the navy. But we could do little more than make a superficial survey of what had been reported by scuba divers or fishermen and hope that nobody would steal anything before, if ever, we could examine and recover it ."

"Now, at last, the universities are beginning to turn out archeologists specialised in underwater archaeology. Many of these are training, or will train, also as divers."