The Porticello Wreck

A 5th Century B.C. Merchantman in Italy. Like the Byzantine ship at Yassi Ada (INA Newsletter Vol. 1, No.2) the Porticello shipwreck was excavated by INA staff members while still working for the University Museum. The wreck, located on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina, near the village of Porticello, was discovered by a local Italian fisherman and heavily plundered by him and diving associates in the Fall of 1969. Because of a dispute among the looters, the wreck's existence was brought to the attention of the local antiquities authorities. Dott. Giuseppe Foti, superintendent of antiquities in Calabria, Italy, sought the aid of Franco Colosimo, a Sicilian diver who had assisted in the excavation of other ancient wrecks in Italian waters, and a group of specially trained divers of the Italian state police. They mapped the site and recovered remains still visible on the seabed.