Ballard and the Backyard Bathyscape
Many years ago I read a magazine article about an Italian resident of New York whose dream it was to raise the Titanic. To this end he had formed a consortium with his neighbours and persuaded them to pay the construction costs for a bathyscape, which he was building in his backyard. Photographs accompanying the article showed the steel monster towering over the tenements of the Big Apple and indicated that the craft was nearing completion and would soon be roaming beneath the seas in search of the fabled liner.
The daring of this underwater Don Quixote fired my youthful imagination and I eagerly awaited further news of his success in finding and raising the legendary wreck. Alas, I waited in vain: if any budding newshound out there wishes to gain my undying gratitude, he could find out and report what happened to the backyard bathyscape and its glib-tongued creator. It was not until 1985 that Robert Ballard, an American, used Cold War technology to discover the last resting place of the Titanic and bring a few evocative artifacts to the surface.
Since then Ballard has not been idle. Using the latest advances in GPS (Global Positioning Satellites), computer-enhanced sonar imaging and fibre-optic cables, he has discovered or been involved in the discovery of the pirate Blackbeard's flagship, which sank in the Atlantic off the coast of North Carolina, American gunboats that fought the British on the freshwater Lake Champlain in 1812, the wreck of the Bismark and a Japanese submarine lost in the South Atlantic while carrying $21,000,000 to Hitler's Germany.
In his latest expedition, Ballard teamed up with the National Geographic Society and marine archaeologists from Britain's Centre for Marine Archaeology at the University of Southampton. Jonathon Adams, who gained his experience working on the Mary Rose twenty years ago, declares that the techniques used in this expedition are as revolutionary as the invention of scuba diving by the famous French marine scientist Jacques Cousteau.
The six-week voyage of discovery in the western Mediterranean involved Jason, an unmanned submersible, Carolyn Chouest, a surface support vessel, and the romantically named NR-1, a US Navy nuclear submarine. Scuba divers are limited to depths of less than 200 feet, but the capabilities of these three vessels mean that 98% of the ocean floor is now within the reach of scientists and explorers.
The busiest sea route of the Roman world was the one that linked the Italian port of Ostia with north Africa, which was the granary of Rome. Although Carthage was possibly the most important of the African ports, there were numerous other possible destinations — but they all had to sail through the relatively confined waters between the western tip of Sicily and the eastern coast of Sardinia. This enabled Ballard to bring his search down to a practicable area and by concentrating on the port of Carthage he was able to narrow it down further.
Along this route Ballard looked for an area subject to bad weather and discovered it in a 20-square mile area off the north-western tip of Sicily where the seas are subject to violent and unpredictable storms. Within a short time of beginning the search Ballard's team discovered their first wreck and by the end of the six week expedition they had found a further seven — five Roman vessels dating from 200 BC to AD 400, an Islamic fishing boat from the 17th century and two 19th century ships.
The oldest of the Roman ships was also one of the earliest found. It measures 100 feet in length and carried a cargo of bronze pots and pans and at least eight different types of amphorae, the multi-purpose clay jars that held anything from wine to olive oil to fish sauce. Another Roman ship, a galley, was loaded with blocks and pillars of granite and may have been carrying a small, prefabricated temple.
The archaeologists accompanying Robert Ballard are delighted with their discoveries, for ships sunk in deep water tend to be better preserved than those in shallow water, where wave action and human interference usually result in considerable destruction. Using a robot arm mounted on Jason and working by the image on television screens, the team has recovered a large collection of objects from the various wrecks, including a number of amphorae and other pottery ware, and a couple of fragile glass bottles whose survival astonished the scientists. Jonathon Adams declared, "Around the Islamic vessel were some rather nice ceramics, including extremely fragile glass artefacts that look like mosque lamps. Jason was able to pick them up without breaking them. I could not believe it. I would not have trusted a diver to pick them up by hand, let along a robot!"
Less delighted are Italian archæologists who have accused Ballard of "plundering" the wrecks. Rosalia Scovazzo, Director of Antiquities in Sicily, claimed that Ballard was an adventurer, financed by the US government to come a loot a naval cemetery. In view of the fact that there were two professional archaeologists on board throughout the voyage one can safely dismiss the charge of "looting" as a classic case of sour grapes.
On the other hand, the Italians have raised quite serious points that need to be considered. Under-water archaeology is not the exact science of its dry-land counterpart. The purpose of archaeology is to gather knowledge, not objects. Given the limited time that divers can spend underwater at any one time, the semi-liquid mud at the sea bottom, the poor visibility thanks to clouds of silt raised by any digging operation, and the additional hazards posed by storms, waves and currents, the difžculties are enormous. In his brief expedition, using a method analagous to the surface survey that always preceeds any archaeological work, Ballard has, quite legitimately, brought to the surface a number of objects that will enable the archaeologists to date the wrecks he has discovered. Any further recovery of objects would indeed render him liable to the charge of looting and plundering.
There seems no danger of this at present, as Ballard's next expedition — to the Black Sea — has already been planned. However it seems unlikely that the US government, however generous, will permit one of its valuable nuclear submarines to be stationed in the western Mediterranean for the many years that would be required to properly excavate even one of the newly discovered wrecks. Nor is it clear that the discoveries that could be expected would be an adequate recompense for the enormous expense of keeping Jason at work tediously recovering one amphora after another while scientists sit in the darkened control room drawing up the plans and plotting the finds.
Despite these reservations, however, we look forward to a full report of Ballard‘s expedition in the National Geographic magazine at some time in the future. Remember, however, that you read it first on Digging Up the Past!
