Smuggled Cargo Found on Ancient Roman Ship

Discovery News ^ | Wednesday, April 25, 2012 | Rossella Lorenzi

[SunkenCiv]

A Roman shipwreck, dating to the third century AD, has revealed signs of smuggling. [Sebastiano Tusa]

[SunkenCiv]

Ancient Greek Ships Carried More Than Just Wine
Nature | Friday, October 14, 2011 | Jo Marchant
Posted on 10/16/2011 7:46:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2793761/posts

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[hinckley buzzard]

I need to remember every so often to thank you for posting these fascinating articles. Thanks.

[Ken H]

They bought these small tubes cheaper in Africa, hid them everywhere within the ship, and then re-sold them in Rome

So, poor government regulation of a product resulted in a black market for that product, and people willing to risk life and limb to supply it.

Who'd have guessed that would happen?

[GeronL]

They need to find and punish those smugglers now. lol

[mamelukesabre]

I’m not quite getting it. These tubes interlocked to do what? Build a stay-in-place form for a masonry arch?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks hb for the kind remarks!

[Graewoulf]

Maybe. The varying thickness of the ornamentation on these objects are consistent with a Crinoid stem, a marine animal attached to a solid substrate, or object.

Were they pure calcite, and round on the end view?

Look for them in in the literature as calcite jewelry: necklaces,, bracelets, ear-rings, etc.

[JRandomFreeper]

Architechural do-dads. I don't think they were structural.

We just glossed over that at culinary school, so I'm not completely clear on it myself.

/johnny

[TigersEye]

"They are small terracotta tubes with one pointed end. Put one into the other, they formed interlocking, snake-like tiles. Rows of these so-called fictile tubes were used by Roman builders to relieve the weight of vaulting,"

That makes it sound like they were structural but I don't have the slightest idea how they were used. They seem too small to have any value in a building.

[JRandomFreeper]

As I said, I'm not clear on it myself. And I can't think of a single expert to call tomorrow to ask about it. If you find out, ping me.

/johnny

[TigersEye]

It’s a deal. I used to work in construction but not that long ago.

[fella]

Smuggeling or just old fashioned small scale capitilism?

[blam]

Fictile tubes (or vaulting tubes) are architectural elements that sustain and underline the shapes of cupolas and vaults. Several of these, sampled in three churches of Milan (S. Ambrogio, S. Lorenzo and Duomo) have been recently dated at the Archaeometry Laboratory of Milano Bicocca University. These architectural elements, differently shaped, styled and sampled from different structures, were all produced, according to thermoluminescence (TL), in the period 970–1080 AD.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[Larry Lucido]

and turn up in many places such as Syracuse,

Dang, they beat Leif Erikson over here!

[central_va]

Vaulting Tubes explained - hot kink

[Larry Lucido]

Did you mean hot link or hot kink? Is this safe for work?