Madrague de Giens

Discovered by divers from the French Navy Diving School in 1967, the archaeological investigations of the Roman wreck at Madrague de Giens constituted the first large scale, “truly scientific underwater excavation[s] carried out in France”. The wreck lies at around 18 to 20 metres depth off the coast of the small fishing port of La Madrague de Giens on the Giens peninsula, east of Toulon, on the southern Mediterranean coast of France. Sunk around 75-60 BCE, the vessel has been found to be “a large merchantman of considerable tonnage - 400 tons deadweight with a displacement of around 550 tons”, making it one of the largest Roman wrecks excavated, with only the wreck at Albenga, Italy exceeding it at the time of its discovery. The vessel wrecked at Madrague de Giens measured around 40 metres in length; “showed a sharp bottom with “wine glass” section and a prominent keel creating a large leeboard”; displayed extended raking of the stem and stern; and had two masts. The hull was characterised by a reverse stempost in the shape of a ram with a big cutwater which “must have given... [the] craft high-performance sailing qualities”. The ship sunk while transporting a large cargo of wine and black glazed pottery from Italy. It is not known why it sank.

In the summer of 1972 a team of maritime archaeologists of the Archaeological Institute, run jointly in Aix-en-Provence by the University of Provence and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique began what was planned as three years of work on the recently discovered Roman wreck at Madrague de Giens. The archaeological investigations would end up running for 11 seasons, only concluding in 1982, and are notable for first utilising a number of archaeological techniques still used in underwater excavation. Unbeknownst to the team of diver-archaeologists who first began documenting the wreck, the Madrague de Giens vessel would soon be revealed as one of the "largest ancient ships whose remains have ever been found under the sea".

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