Free Republic

Thanks to decades of political isolation under the reign of paranoid Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania's coastline has long been off-limits to divers of all kinds. "Virtually nothing is known about the cultural resources in the waters off Albania," says Jeff Royal, archaeological director of the nonprofit RPM Nautical Foundation. Together with Adrian Anastasi of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology, Royal is now directing a survey of the area, one of the last unexplored coastlines of the Mediterranean world. Though only two years into the project, the team has already made numerous finds. "There are all kinds of sites down...

Encrusted with tiny shells and smelling strongly of the sea, a 2,400-year-old Greek jar lies in a saltwater bath in Durres Museum, on Albania's Adriatic coast. Part of a sunken shipment of up to 60 ceramic vessels, the 67-centimeter (26-inch) storage jar, or amphora, was the top find... Launched in July, the month-long survey was the first step in compiling an underwater cultural heritage map that could eventually plot the position of sunken fleets from ancient and mediaeval times believed to lie along Albania's 360-kilometer (220-mile) coastline... The light-brown clay amphora, probably used to store wine or oil, was found...

Naval archaeologists think they’ve found the only example of armor from Carthage to survive the destruction of the city-state by Rome in 146BC. The helmet, recovered from the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, northwest of Sicily, is dramatically different from the Celtic style worn across Europe, popularly known as a Roman helmet. It appears to have a nose guard, a broad brim protecting the back of the neck from ear to ear, and a high, narrow crest, said Dr Jeff Royal, director of archaeology at the RPM Nautical Foundation in Florida. Roman helmets, called montefortinos, are easily...

Highlights from the start of the 2019 field season! Follow us on board R/V Hercules as we go from Malta to Albania to Sicily. | June 2019 RPM Highlights Medium | RPM Nautical Foundation | Published on Jul 3, 2019

Hailed as one of the top archaeological finds of 2015, the discovery was made by a joint Greek-American archaeological expedition in the small Fourni archipelago with an area of just 17 square miles. This is a collection of 13 islands and islets located between the eastern Aegean islands of Samos and Icaria. "Surpassing all expectations, over only 13 days we added 12 percent to the total of known ancient shipwrecks in Greek territorial waters," Peter Campbell, of the University of Southampton and co-director from US based RPM Nautical Foundation, told Discovery News. Fourni lies right in the middle of the...

KEY WEST -- Research divers and marine archaeologists expect to find shells, rocks and remnants of shipwrecks when they excavate areas of the ocean bottom. But pine cones, tree branches and charred limbs -- thought to be about 8,400 years old -- were an unexpected and intriguing treasure awaiting archaeologist Corey Malcom, who spent much of the summer underwater in search of the remains of the Henrietta Marie, a British slave ship that sank 35 miles off Key West in 1700. In August, Malcom, who is director of archaeology at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, was joined underwater by George...

The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage. The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars. Archaeologists think the newly discovered remnants of the warship date from the final battle of the first Punic War, which allowed Rome to expand farther into the Western...