Another ram from the Battle of the Aegates

PUNIC WATCH: Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Warship’s Bronze Battering Ram, Sunk During an Epic Battle Between Rome and Carthage. Found near the Aegadian Islands, just west of Sicily, the bronze rostrum played a role in the last battle of the First Punic War, which ended in 241 B.C.E. (Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine).

In 241 B.C.E., two empires faced off in a naval clash off the coast of Sicily. By then, Rome and Carthage had been fighting for more than two decades. Rome’s victory in the skirmish, officially called the Battle of the Aegates, brought an end to the First Punic War, the initial conflict in a series of wars between the two ancient powers.

Now, explorers have recovered a piece of that final battle: the bronze battering ram of an ancient warship. According to a statement from Sicily’s Superintendence of the Sea, the ram was found on the seafloor off the western coast of the Mediterranean island, at a depth of around 260 feet. To retrieve the artifact, the team used deep-water submarines from the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites (SDSS) and the oceanographic research vessel Hercules.

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For several PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeology of the Battle of the Aegates, start here and follow the links. Note especially here on the underwater ecology of another ram (they have found lots of them) from the same site and the same battle.

Crosss file under Marine (Maritime, Underwater) Archaeology.

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