ROMAN SHIPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 12

ROMAN SHIPS

GREAT SALVAGE TASK ENTERPRISE ON LAKE NEMI The problem of recovering the famous “Ships of Tiberius,” lying at the bottom of Lake Nemi, which, for scores of years, has been the ambition of archaeologists, has been brought near solution by Premier Mussolini signing a convention with five firms which offered to salvage the largest of the two ships lying nearest the surface free of charge, as an act of “homage” to II Duce.” They propose to lower the level of Lake Nemi some twenty feet by draining its waters into the nearby Lake Albano, which lies at a lower level. This will be accomplished by means of powerful pumps which will eject the water through an ancient tunnel built at the time of the Roman Republic. The preparatotfc r work, which will begin immediately, will take about three months, while another month will be required to lower the level of the lake twenty feet. It is hoped, therefore, that the recovery of the ships will be an accomplished fact this summer. The voluntary contractors also propose to build a cable railway to the water’s edge permitting easy access to sightseers. The two ancient craft, usually known as the “Ships of Tiberius,” but which historians have established were built by the Emperor Caligula, were two floating palaces which he used for his pleasure. According to contemporary accounts, they were filled with all sorts of art reasures and were considered among the world’s wonders. What caused them to sink is unknown, but both were sunk near the shore, the larger in about twenty feet of water and the smaller in about thirty feet. Repeated attempts to salvage them were only partly successful, but sufficient fragments have been recovered to prove that the ships are more than legendary and are still so well preserved that it is possible to refloat th£m. The recovery of the ships in Lake Nemi, together with the continuation of excavations at Herculaneum, have been the fondest hope of Italian archaeologists. The excavations at Herculaneum are now in full swing, and it is now felt here that the recovery of the ships is merely a matter of time.