AD 2016 Q1
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DIVE SLATE<br />
ANCIENT SHIPWRECKS<br />
Two years earlier I had the honor of diving with<br />
Koutsouflakis on a newly discovered ancient Roman<br />
shipwreck that he had found off the southeast coast<br />
of Greece. That single dive with him turned out to<br />
be one of the highlights<br />
of my diving career, and<br />
it sparked in me great<br />
enthusiasm for ancient<br />
shipwreck diving. I<br />
have been diving on<br />
underwater wrecks for<br />
many years, mostly in<br />
the North Atlantic, but<br />
this was something quite<br />
different for me.<br />
As we descended<br />
through the water column,<br />
a spectacular debris field<br />
came into view. This was<br />
a deep wreck, so<br />
the ancient artifacts<br />
were intact, adding<br />
to my excitement.<br />
Koutsouflakis and<br />
I surveyed the<br />
footprint of this<br />
Roman shipwreck<br />
and its contents, and<br />
I could not help but think of the long-lost history of this<br />
find and how honored I was to be the first diver outside<br />
of the Greek archeological diving community to visit this<br />
historic treasure. After the dive Koutsouflakis told me<br />
about the history of the wreck, its trade route and cargo.<br />
“This Roman wreck is loaded with a main cargo of<br />
Lamboglia 2 amphorae, which are wine containers made<br />
on the Italian peninsula,” he said, “with a secondary<br />
cargo of wine amphorae originally from the island of<br />
Rhodes. Rhodes was famous for its wine and was one of<br />
Rome’s biggest suppliers. So 90 percent of the cargo on<br />
this wreck was wine, and it originated from Italy. The<br />
wreck is dated between 130 and 80 BCE.”<br />
What we could not see intrigued me the most. We<br />
were looking at the top deck of the ancient ship, and<br />
there were two more decks below the visible debris<br />
field that were covered by sand. An enormous trove of<br />
artifacts lay beneath just waiting to be viewed.<br />
Three days later I was invited to join a team of<br />
Greek underwater archaeologists that was working<br />
on an ongoing underwater site just off the island of<br />
Poros. Christos Agouridis, a friend and colleague<br />
of Koutsouflakis, invited me to dive with his team<br />
at Koutsouflakis’ behest. This site was an ancient<br />
Clockwise from above:<br />
The 2015 Fourni<br />
Underwater Survey<br />
team; amphorae dating<br />
to the Archaic Period<br />
(800-400 BCE) lay<br />
scattered among the<br />
oldest shipwreck the<br />
team found; the team’s<br />
conservator painstakingly<br />
cleans marine growth<br />
from an encrusted<br />
amphora; an amphora<br />
and funerary table found<br />
among a Hellenistic<br />
Period (323-31 BCE)<br />
shipwreck; the team’s<br />
conservator inspects a<br />
recovered amphora<br />
Mycenaean shipwreck dated to 1200 BCE. I spent the<br />
night in base camp with the team and in the morning<br />
headed to the wreck site aboard their support vessel.<br />
They were in the process of 3-D mapping the wreck,<br />
uncovering its artifacts and documenting their finds.<br />
The team, made up of both male and female Greek<br />
divers, had training in underwater photography,<br />
archeology and architectural design, and several<br />
seasoned commercial divers filled out the ranks. I<br />
was amazed by the team’s experience and impressed<br />
with the passion they showed for their work. The<br />
experience also made me aware of the enormous<br />
challenges these kinds of underwater operations face.<br />
Fast forward to today, Sept. 10, 2015 — I am excited<br />
to be joining the team again. This next underwater<br />
20 | WINTER <strong>2016</strong>