"A history spanning more than three millennia, from the Bronze Age to the modern era, without interruption," preserved within a park that is both submerged and coastal, a "strip of ancient coastline that must be imagined in continuity with what remains on land." This is how Rita Auriemma, a professor at UniSalento and scientific director of the project, describes the submerged and coastal park of Porto Cesareo (Lecce), inaugurated this evening and open to the public from tomorrow. "At Scalo di Furno," the professor continues, "the Bronze Age village extends underwater, with wall alignments and a paved surface between the headland and the small island, at a depth of two or three metres. The Isola della Chianca, today separated, was once attached to the mainland. Land and sea, here, are the same landscape at two different moments in time."
Studies on the site, Auriemma recounts, have led to the discovery of "a Roman settlement that lived off the exploitation of maritime resources." Collapsed structures appear, perhaps caused by an earthquake or a tsunami, and then "the amphorae, some intact, the oil lamps, the kitchen pottery, and a bronze lamp holder that was a piece of furnishing, not a warehouse item," the professor says. Some 210 coins were also found, along with a small plaque and a nail suggesting a wooden box lost in a fire. "The coins," she highlights, "tell us that all of this happened after 364 AD. Someone, that evening, did not have time to go back and retrieve their savings. Perhaps it was due to the great tsunami generated on the seabed off the coast of Crete on 21 July 365 AD."
At this site, the sea holds a cargo ship that sank between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, carrying five monumental columns in cipollino marble loaded in Euboea. "The cargo of Tripolitanian amphorae," the professor adds, "has today become a living reef of flora and fauna." There is also a Byzantine hull run aground at Bacino Grande, radiocarbon-dated between 770 and 1020. A heritage that can be admired from both sea and land. The area is, in fact, accessible via walkways, totem displays and information points, while at sea there are routes marked with underwater signage.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
