For release 11 a.m. Wednesday,
July 30, 1997
WASHINGTON -- Using a remotely operated vehicle and a nuclear submarine deep on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, a team of oceanographers, engineers and archaeologists led by Robert Ballard has discovered the largest concentration of ancient shipwrecks ever found in the deep sea, one of them dating to before the time of Christ.
The cluster of eight ships, along with thousands of artifacts spanning more than 2,000 years of human history, lies 2,500 feet (762 meters) beneath an ancient trade route -- almost a half-mile (805 meters) below the surface. They include five ships from ancient Roman times lost between about 100 B.C. and 400 A.D., one Islamic ship from the 18th or early 19th centuries, and two modern ships lost in the 19th century.
The discovery -- including retrieval of more than 100 artifacts -- was announced Wednesday at the National Geographic Society.