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CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE STUDIES
The main purpose of this chapter is to review the history of archaeological work
carried out on the sunken marble carriers south of Croton between 1908, when a local
fisherman fortuitously discovered the first site, and 2006, when the last INA campaign
took place. Although each of the five wrecks had already been located before 2005,
almost no details about their size, location, or cargo composition had been made
available to the scientific community. Furthermore, all the sites underwent
archaeological excavation, but the collected data never left the public library of the
Archaeological Museum of Croton. Patrizio Pensabene was the only scholar who
conducted research on the Punta Scifo A and Capo Cimiti sites before the 2005 survey
began.
The following pages present the histories of these five sites as known from
archival documents found in the Archaeological Museums of Reggio Calabria and
Croton. Proper credit will be given to the original discoverers, who have been almost
forgotten since the early years of the 20 th century.
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