Today’s dives focused on cleaning the Roman wreck and recording the various amphora types, but as always there were many interesting discoveries: a mysterious curved metallic concretion, a large roof tile, and an elegant one-handled jug. A number of the amphora necks still have their heavily-concreted stoppers in place, perhaps because their bodies were shattered against the rocks before the pressure could ‘pop the cork’. Blackened residue inside some of the broken amphoras suggests that we are once again dealing with a wine-carrier. Finally, a thin, battered piece of metal, curiously twisted and curled over on itself (a bit like our dinghy after the storm!) appears to be a piece of lead sheathing.The ancient practice of sheathing and patching wooden hulls with lead attached to resin-impregnated fabric has been controversial subject among modern scholars, and in light of the current debate, our discovery of lead sheathing on a 1st century AD Anatolian shipwreck is very interesting. Lead sheathing has been reported from about 60 Mediterranean shipwreck sites, from late Classical to late 2nd century AD. Hellenistic/Republican ships in particular employed a lot of lead, but thereafter it gradually went out of use (even though lead remained cheap and plentiful). The only two previously reported examples of lead sheathing from Anatolia are both 4th-3rd century BC shipwrecks. The late 4th century BC Kyrenia ship, with a total loaded displacement of 32 tons, was patched with about 1000 kg of lead sheets. Larger ships, for example the massive freighter built for Hiero of Syracuse in the 3rd century BC, were sheathed with lead when new; the luxurious 1st century AD Roman barges from Lake Nemi were also built with lead sheathing. The latter example in particular suggests that the primary purpose of lead was not to prevent marine fouling, but to make the hull watertight (although there is still disagreement about this among modern scholars).
It has been suggested by Dr Frederick Hocker that the use of lead sheathing may be related to methods of shipbuilding. As traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery was pushed to its limits in the construction of the massive ships of the Hellenistic through Early Imperial periods, so lead sheathing went from an expedient form of patching (as on the Kyrenia ship) to an integral part of the hull (as on the huge 1st century BC Madrague de Giens freighter, which carried between 3,900 and 7,800 wine amphoras). The decline of lead sheathing under the Roman Empire may therefore relate to the movement away from reliance on the integrity of a finely crafted hull to the strength of a sturdy skeleton – but if so, it appears to have occurred several centuries earlier than the changeover from shell-first to frame-first construction. Were better methods of caulking or hull design discovered? One small piece of lead from a badly shattered and looted shipwreck may not seem like much of a discovery, but our understanding of the ancient economy and technology, as reflected in the evolution of ship-building, is based on a multitude of small discoveries just like this.
With such a large site to explore, it was deemed absolutely necessary for Ministry of Culture representative Gokhan Bey to take our ‘Littlest Mermaid’ scooter for a spin around the shipwreck, where it proved far more ‘visibility-friendly’ than our fins. It is worth noting here that, under the auspices of INA, nautical archaeology in Turkey has been a catalyst for the development of a great deal of diving-related technology. Even as we seek to discover more about the past, we are constantly looking for ways to make underwater research better, safer, and easier. However, some things never change, and one of those things is cocktail hour, which means we must now sign off for today…