A Roman shipwreck with a cargo of Apuan marble (marmor lunense) at Punta del Francese (Stintino‐Sassari, Sardinia)

Abstract

The wreck‐site of Punta del Francese (Stintino‐Sassari) off the island of Sardinia (Italy) is composed of 14 roughly cubic blocks and slabs of marble lying in an almost coherent arrangement. Archaeometric analyses indicate a provenance of the entire cargo of marble from the Apuan Alps (marmor lunense) of north Italy. Fragments of amphoras confirm its dating to the Flavian period (first century ce). The dimensions of the cargo, and especially of the single blocks, suggest it would have been destined for the building of an important public monument in western Hispania or southern Gallia. A first hypothesis for the ship's sailing route, and a comparison with the other cargoes of marble from Luna, are proposed.

An innovative approach for provenancing ancient white marbles: the contribution of x-ray diffraction to disentangling the origins of Göktepe and Carrara marbles

“…However, a detailed analysis of the calcite structure in terms of unit cell parameters could provide more information. As we remarked in the introduction, marbles from Göktepe generally show much higher Sr contents; Sr is a larger cation than Ca (e.g., calcite crystal structure has Ca in 6-coordination and it is well established that six-coordinated Sr has a cation radius equal to 1.18 Å against 1.00 Å of Ca, see Shannon 19 ) and this should cause a slight but detectable increase in the unit-cell parameters and volume of calcite. In order to verify such possible influence on the volume (and on the a and c cell parameters), we have refined the unit-cell parameters of all 18 samples and the relative data are reported in Table 1 .…”

Archaeological and archaeometric investigation of the Roman marble cargos of Porto Cervo (Arzachena, Sassari, Italy) and Secche della Meloria (Livorno, Italy)

“…A calculation made by Simone Parizzi, based on the weight of the cargo, indicated a possible length of the Porto Cervo ship of about 33 m with a width of 10 m and a displacement of 546 tonnes (Parizzi & Beltrame, 2020). These dimensions and weight would position this ship among the largest known in the Roman period, not very dissimilar to the big ships of Isola delle Correnti and Punta Scifo D, transporting Proconnesian marble, and very similar to another ship transporting lunense marble, that of Punta del Francese (Parizzi & Beltrame, 2020; Beltrame et al, 2020) (see below).…”

“…White marble is an excellent tool for reconstructing the trade routes of the past and studying the relationships between ancient communities (Antonelli, Bonetto, et al, 2017, Antonelli, Colivicchi, & Lazzarini, 2017, Antonelli et al, 2020; Antonelli & Lazzarini, 2013; Beltrame et al, 2019, 2020; Russell, 2013a, 2013b). Obviously, this kind of reconstruction can also be done by considering the distribution, all around the Mediterranean provinces, of sculptures and/or architectural elements made of specific varieties of marble with different geographical origins, but shipwrecks unquestionably provide an invaluable supplementary source of data for these studies.…”

“…Cargos with marmor lunense have mainly been discovered along the coasts of Gallia and Liguria and between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia (Beltrame et al, 2020: 1089) (Figure 5); their tonnages range from 3 tonnes (La Mirande) (Descamps, 1992) to 200 tonnes (Saint‐Tropez) (Benoit, 1952). The shipwrecks that lie between the two islands are that of Porto Novo, dated to 30 ce , with four column drums and five large blocks (Bernard et al, 1998), and Punta del Francese.…”

“…The investigations of the shipwrecked Roman marble cargos at Porto Cervo and Secche della Meloria are part of ‘Marble Trade Routes in Antiquity‘ project coordinated by Carlo Beltrame, in collaboration with LAMA (Laboratory for Analyzing Materials of Ancient origin) of the IUAV University of Venice. The main aims of the project are to reconstruct the dynamics of the marble trade through a systematic archaeometric analysis of the cargos, and to study the characteristics of the ships that transported marble (Beltrame & Cipolato, 2019; Beltrame et al, 2016, 2019, 2020; Parizzi & Beltrame, 2020).…”