An Italian treasurer has announced the discovery of a Roman battering ram from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
The ram, or rostrum, formed the prow of a Roman warship. It was used in the Battle of the Aegates, the team said, a naval battle between Rome and Carthage that marked the end of the First Punic War in 241 BCE, after 23 years of conflict between the two empires.
The discovery of the rostrum, which was announced by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of the Sea Manager, was discovered by divers with the Association for the Registration of Undersea Areas. The recovery team also used a research vessel Hercules to aid in the identification and recovery of the rostrum.
The dive team found the rostrum under the sea at a depth of 262 feet (80 meters). The artifact was found in the part of the Mediterranean between Levanzo and Favignana, small islands just west of Sicily, where archaeological research has been carried out for the past 20 years. According to LiveScience, the ram is now on the ground in Favignana, and the first examination of the artifact revealed the decorative relief of the helmet and feathers.
Since the early 2000s, 27 rosters have been acquired, according to the team’s social media. The rostra was used to—guess—enemy ships, for the purpose of punching holes in them, eventually sinking them. Other wartime artifacts have also been identified in the team’s research, including 30 Roman helmets, two swords, and a common find in Mediterranean archeology, a number of amphorae.
The Mediterranean Sea near Sicily and Tunisia was a famous sea corridor during the Roman Empire—or at least it seems to be based on recent archaeological findings. Last year, an expedition coordinated by UNESCO discovered three shipwrecks in the treacherous Keith Reef between Sicily and Tunisia, one of which was between 200 BCE and 100 BCE. That research group also studied three Roman wrecks off the coast of Italy, two of which were first-century merchant ships and one of which was from the first century BCE.
The newly discovered rostrum is older than that accident, however, and is a remarkably clear window into ancient warfare, and the intense maritime conflicts that shaped the ancient world. The Battle of the Aegates saw most of the Carthaginian fleet sunk or captured, and resulted in Roman supremacy in the Mediterranean. In total, there were three Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome, which resulted in the destruction of Carthage.
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