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A small portion of the bottom of the hull, 3 x 3 m, was found in 1983. 109 The
remains were described as “exceptionally strong, with 8 cm-thick planking and two rows
of wedges [tenons] alternating and fixed by wooden pegs.” 110 The two rows of mortise-
and-tenon joints indicate that the merchantman, in order to carry its marble cargo, was
heavily built. The two rows of fasteners would have produced a stronger hull, and
minimized movement and distortion of the hull. The ship might also have been double-
planked, even if it is impossible to be certain without observing the keel, which should
have been double-rabbeted in order to fit the two rows of planks. 111
Without further evidence it is also difficult to say if the Punta Scifo A marble
carrier was a sailing ship or a large barge that, for safety reasons, was towed behind
another vessel. It is a safe guess that it was mostly undecked to facilitate the loading and
unloading of the column shafts and blocks. Small living areas were probably located at the
bow and at the stern where, according to Freschi’s data, a galley existed.
The Punta Scifo A shipwreck was carrying, according to Pensabene’s and my own
visual analyses, a mixed cargo of the most expensive and cheapest varieties of marble used
in the Imperial age: pavonazzetto from Docimium, and Proconnesian from the eponymous
island in the Sea of Marmara. From Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, enacted in
A.D. 301, it is known that pavonazzetto was one of the most expensive marbles of the
109 Lattanzi 1984a, 574-5.
110 Lattanzi 1984a, 574; Lattanzi 1984c, 11.
111 The Madrague de Giens shipwreck, sunk in southern France in the middle of the first century B.C. with ca.
400 tons of cargo, provides a well-known example of a double-planked hull. See: Steffy 1994, 62-5. Actual
remains of a marble carrier with a double-planked hull have been found at Mahdia (Höckmann 1994, 61).
The only other marble carrier of which hull remains are preserved, the Torre Sgarrata shipwreck, had planks
joined with one single layer of mortise-and-tenon joints. Two small fragments of wood, suspected to be the
ship's keel, were poorly preserved; there is no enough information available to determine if they were
double-rabbeted. (Throckmorton 1989, 265; Antonelli 2002, 77).
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