Ship discovery from Mahdia

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The Mahdia ship was found in 1907 in the Mediterranean near the Tunisian city ​​of Mahdia .

In 1907 the city became the focus of scientific interest due to an ancient shipwreck. The ship's find was a discovery by the Greek sponge diving captain Giorgos Sourdos off the Tunisian coast. First of all, art objects and fragments of columns were discovered, which suggested a submerged city. The French archaeologist Alfred Merlin , then director of the antiquities administration in the Protectorate of Tunisia , learned of this. With the help of his colleague Louis Poinssot , the finds were scientifically examined and the discovered wooden parts identified as ship deck planks. The find, now recognized as a wreck near today's city of Mahdia, dates from around 100 to 80 BC. The date is based on the enclosed ceramics. Most of the cargo was lifted between 1907 and 1913. According to current knowledge, the heavily loaded cargo ship got caught in one of the sudden storms off the North African coast and sank. Marble and bronze sculptures, high-quality furniture fittings and other interior design objects, catapult parts as well as capitals and column segments were on board.

Bronze satyr (35 cm) from the ship's find (National Museum of Bardo, Tunis)

Judging by the type of cargo, the sailor was on his way from the Athenian port of Piraeus to Italy and was supposed to a. rich Roman clients supply what Merlin, as an excellent expert on Roman history, already suspected back then. Merlin worked with the finder Sourdos. He, who could not dive himself, managed to find the place of discovery with the sponge divers and to carry out the rescue with helmet diving suits . The diving campaign made the researcher the first underwater archaeologist in history, thus opening up this new scientific discipline.

The find, which is exhibited in the National Museum of Bardo (Musée National du Bardo) in Tunis, includes: a. a marble bust, probably Ariadne , further marble figures, two large-format bronze statues, a herm of Dionysus with a turban-like headgear and with the engraving ΒΟΗΘΟΣ ΚΑΛΧΗΔΟΝΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ (“ Boëthos the Chalcedonians made (it)”) on the side, as well as a number of small figures and art objects Bronze. Scientists from the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn restored part of the cargo.

literature

Web links

Commons : Mahdia ship find  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfred Merlin in Bulletin de la société nationale des antiquaires de France 1908, pp. 128-131; thereafter William N. Bates in: Archaeological News : American Journal of Archeology 13, 1909, pp. 102-103.

Coordinates: 35 ° 31 ′ 55 ″  N , 11 ° 7 ′ 28 ″  E