#MAREMonday 09

On 06.12.2021 we present the ninth session of our online lecture series with a contribution by

Cristina Laurenti
(University of Oxford)

The Archaeological Site of Pisa San Rossore (Italy): The History of the Site and the Study of a Roman Merchant Ship

Abstract:

This PhD research project deals with the main purpose of developing the knowledge on the Pisa San Rossore Ship A, a roman cargo sank in the second half of the second century AD. The context of recovery of the Ship A is of outstanding archaeological importance as excavations have uncovered the remains of several ships and boats, along with various typologies of archaeological materials. The place of the archaeological findings is located near the second railway station of Pisa. In Roman times it was a portion of a secondary river, and it was a short distance away from the Roman city of Pisa. In this location, several flood events, coming from the adjacent Arno River, had caused the sinking of boats, ships, and their cargoes, which created an impressive archaeological deposit. Because of this situation, between 1998 and 2015, a project of excavation, restoration, analyses and, at last, musealization was carried out by the Superintendence of Pisa and Leghorn, and all the materials are now exposed in the Museum of the Ancient Ships of Pisa.

This presentation will introduce the history of the excavation, the environment, and the reasons behind the creation of this archaeological deposit, following by an overview of the depositional process phases. Regarding Ship A, the naval architecture, the study of structure, and the dating, will be presented with the purpose of outline the significance of this discovery. The PhD project aims to complete the study of Ship A, with a hypothesis of reconstruction, and the study of the transported cargo. This approach will be explained during the talk, in order to show how integrating a comprehensive study of Ship A could help better understand how trade and shipbuilding were introduced around the ancient city of Pisa during the Roman period.