BMCR 2008.12.19, Roberto Petriaggi, Archaeologia Maritima

Roberto Petriaggi (ed.), Archaeologia Maritima Mediterranea. An
International Journal on Underwater Archaeology. Volume 5.  Pisa and
Rome:  Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2008.  Pp. 214.  ISBN ISSN: 1724-6091.
Subscription: Italy: EUR 145.00 (individuals); EUR 395.00
(institutions with online edition); Abroad: EUR 195.00
(individuals).

Reviewed by John Peter Oleson, University of Victoria, Canada
([email protected])
Word count:  2360 words
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This useful and well-produced journal has now reached its fifth
anniversary, still under the direction of founding editor Roberto
Petriaggi of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro in Rome. The
Comitato scientifico has remained the same as well; a group of 13
scholars from various Mediterranean countries, Portugal, and England.
The journal has appeared in a timely manner, usually in the first half
of the calendar year attributed to the volume. In his introductory
comments (1, 2004: 9-10) the editor introduced a journal aimed at
scholars interested in topics concerning archaeology under water in the
Mediterranean region, including the conservation and presentation of
cultural remains from underwater archaeological sites. How well has the
journal served this audience, and how has it evolved over the past five
years? In her review of the first volume in this journal (BMCR
2005.09.64), Jean MacIntosh Turfa praised its production, scope, and
contents and made this prediction: "If subsequent volumes appear in a
timely fashion, this journal will be essential reading for students of
Mediterranean history, economic history, conservation, etc." Has the
initial promise been fulfilled?

The single, annual issues have varied in length from 184 (3, 2006) to
222 (2, 2005) pages, including numerous black and white photographs and
line drawings. Although printed on a heavy white bond rather than
glossy paper, the photographic images are very clear. Each issue
includes an editorial introduction, eight to ten articles, a small
number of book reviews (varying from none at all to three), and a
catchall section that started off as Acta Diurna, Comunicazioni e
agiornamenti scientifici and by volume 4 (2007) was whittled down to
Acta Diurna. This section contains notices of conference presentations,
sometimes with detailed accounts of the papers and interventi,
discussions of new museum displays, notices of new journals, proposals
for scholarly initiatives, comments on publications, and obituaries.
Obviously the articles form the core of the journal and will constitute
the most important focus for the readers.

Of the 44 articles published in the first five issues, 32 have been
written in Italian, ten in English, and two in French. Most of the
authors are seasoned scholars, but several articles were written by
Italian graduate students. Approximately 28 of these articles are field
reports, 16 are synthetic studies of various topics involving ancient
Mediterranean seafaring or the conservation of artefacts. The field
reports usually concern shipwrecks or harbours in Italian territorial
waters, but there are also reports of work off Croatia and Israel.
There is some overlap, of course, but approximately 19 articles
principally concern ships or shipwrecks, two concern navigation, five
concern harbours, seven concern conservation, and 13 involve a variety
of topics. Only one of the articles is focussed on the Bronze Age, and
three on the post-classical period. Each article is followed by an
English abstract, apparently furnished by the author. Unfortunately,
some of the abstracts are barely comprehensible, and the editor should
intervene where necessary. He should also ensure uniformity in the
methods of citation within articles, and in the bibliographies that
follow.  In some articles the citations appear in the text in social
sciences format, with occasional use of footnotes, while in others the
citations all occur as footnotes. The footnote numbers start a new
series on each page, an inconvenient and curiously old-fashioned
detail. Some authors put all of their bibliography at the end of the
articles, while others maintain the irritating habit of placing all
references within the footnotes, with frequent cross-references and no
summary bibliography. In some articles each item in the bibliography is
prefaced by an abbreviation used in the text, which seems unnecessarily
complicated, while in others it is not. I found only a few
typographical errors. Seven of the nine books reviewed in the first
five issues were published in Italy, one in France, and one possibly in
Malta, although the place of publication is not indicated. In each
issue, anywhere between two and six of the items in the Table of
Contents has been authored by a member of the Comitato scientifico. As
the journal matures, it is to be hoped that the circle of contributors
will expand sufficiently to avoid such a large proportion of in-house
authors.

In the fifth issue the editor Petriaggi thanks the contributors and
expresses justifiable pride that the journal has fulfilled its promise
to be of service to the whole scholarly community in gathering and
disseminating information (p. 9). He follows with a lament, common
among Italian archaeologists concerned with submerged cultural remains,
about the difficulty of protecting and studying the cultural heritage
in Italian coastal waters. Petriaggi also brings up the related problem
of the lack of permanent teaching staff in Italian universities
qualified to instruct the next generation of underwater archaeologists
and conservators, the absence of jobs for young scholars, and the
reliance of Italian universities on poorly paid temporary teaching
staff. To varying degrees, universities throughout Europe and North
America share the same problems.

This is not the place to review the articles in all of the last four
issues, but a quick survey of the articles in volume five will provide
an idea of the scope and character of the journal.

Piero dell'Amico (pp. 13-22) revisits the eighteenth-century reports of
a wooden boat (2.5 x 14 m) found in 1777 at Mariana in Corsica during
the excavation of a canal. The hull was apparently well preserved, but
it was soon lost to decay. The author makes use of contemporary
drawings and descriptions to reconstruct its character. The carvel
planking was joined with pegged mortise and tenon joints and lay
against one-piece semicircular frames. Dell'Amico discusses the special
characteristics of the design, cites parallels among wrecks found more
recently, and concludes that the boat belonged to the epoca archaica.

Valentina Purpura (pp. 23-44) reviews the data in Parker's Ancient
Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces (Oxford 1992)
concerning nine wrecks of marble-carrying ships (naves lapidariae)
around the coastline of Sicily. The chronology of the wrecks, all
imperial in date except for the sixth-century Marzamemi II Wreck,
confirms the concentration of this type of shipment in the first three
centuries of the empire. Purpura describes the location and
characteristics of each ship, along with the origin and possible
destination of the cargo. She concludes that the pattern of shipping
routes once again highlights the role of the waters east and west of
Sicily as crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean.

Eric Rieth (pp. 45-68) provides a stimulating discussion of a possible
new approach to the analysis and classification of frame-first
construction of hulls between the fifth and twelfth centuries A.D.
Instead of approaching a ship from the point of view of the principles
and methods of shipbuilding, he proposes examination of the geometrical
form of the cross-section of the hull. He isolates a group of boxy
hulls, with a sharp turn to of the bilge, associated with frame-first
construction. The author feels that this approach will help free
various research questions from exclusive focus on the Greco-Roman
tradition of marine shipbuilding and perhaps lead to new results. A
short article by Lucien Basch (pp. 69-81) follows up on Rieth's
classification of the Dor Wreck of 500 A.D. as a riverboat rather than
a proper sea-going craft. He sees parallels in Egypt for the flat
bottom and sharp angled turn of the bilge, particularly in the Nile
riverboats and the harbour craft of Alexandria.

Ehud Galili, Zaraza Friedman, and Baruch Rosen (pp. 83-90) present a
second-century terra sigillata plate and a Roman period grey slipped
bowl from a wreck in the harbour of Akko destroyed by dredging in
1992-93. The bowl carries four (originally probably five) graffiti on
its exterior, all showing the same kind of Roman iron anchor. The base
of the plate carries three graffiti depicting a boat with projecting
cutwater, high stern, and high bow, the monogram <greek>*P*R</greek>,
and what might be a tree. The authors suggest that these graffiti
represent a ship moored with an anchor off the bow and a stern line to
a tree on the shore, that the site cannot be on the Israeli coast, that
the monogram consequently may refer to Patara or Paphos, and that all
of this may possibly refer to St. Paul's stopover in Patara recounted
in Acts 21:1-2. While careful examination of personal property
recovered from ancient shipwrecks can yield important data, these
conclusions seem very far-fetched.

Umberto Crupi (pp.91-137) provides a detailed summation of documentary,
geological, photographic, and archaeological evidence for the design of
the ancient harbour of Otranto. The author makes use of archival
documents, historical cartography from the sixteenth to the twentieth
century, and aerial photographs from the last century. After
identifying possible remains of an ancient concrete mole just seaward
of the main modern mole, the site was examined by survey divers. The
remains resemble those of Roman concrete moles elsewhere, and it seems
likely that the Roman and Medieval moles were built more or less at the
same location as the modern one.

Eduardo Scognamiglio (pp. 139-50) presents the results of a recent
survey of a concrete breakwater or mole associated with a large first
to third-century Roman villa located in Sapri, near Salerno. The
structure (L 60 m, W 8 m) is composed of large, regular blocks of
concrete, laid on projections of the limestone bedrock. The marks of
the lost wooden formwork can be seen in the concrete, which is said to
consist of pozzolanic mortar and tuff aggregate more or less below
modern sea level, and lime and silica sand mortar above it, as at the
ancient harbour of Cosa. The author observed traces of a large arched
opening between two of the masses (perhaps to allow currents to carry
away silt), a mooring ring, and a sloped surface interpreted as a
boarding ramp.

The character of the Acta Diurna varies significantly from volume to
volume of the journal. The longest contribution in this volume is a
memoir by Alessandro Olschki, a well-known publisher and journalist, of
the early years of archaeology underwater in Italy: Rimembranze
archeologiche sottomarine (pp. 153-78). In it, he recounts his work
surveying harbours and shipwrecks along the Italian coastline in the
1950s and 1960s, at sites such as the Golfo di Baratti, Giannutri,
Spargi, and Giglio. Some of the personalities include Nino Lamboglia,
Gianni Roghi, and Maurizio Sarra. The author recounts early problems
with equipment, techniques, funding, and legislation and comments on
the difficulties that continue to plague archaeology underwater in
Italy today. In combination with the four articles by and about Nino
Lamboglia in volume 4 (2007), this memoir constitutes a valuable
contribution to the early history of the discipline in Italy.

Three final notes in this section concern the theoretical and legal
framework for instituting new underwater archaeological parks in Italy,
a somewhat far-fetched technical solution to the problem of the looting
of isolated wreck sites, involving remote monitoring, and some
conservation issues involving submerged cultural remains. The book
review section contains three short reviews: a volume of Atti of a
conference concerning the lateen sail, an Italian edition of a letter
by Synesius recounting a sea voyage, and a French book about pinisi, a
traditional Indonesian boat design. The journal concludes with a list
of the postal and e-mail addresses of the authors who contributed to
it, and editorial instructions from the publisher.

The editor has accomplished a great deal in the first five years of
Archaeologia Maritima Mediterranea. He has published a significant
number of articles concerning a wide variety of topics relevant to
maritime culture and underwater archaeology. The Acta Diurna section
serves as a useful forum for less formal presentations, and for the
discussion of pressing issues. Now that Venetian journal Archeologia
delle acque: semstrale di antropologia, archeologia, enografia, storia
dell'acque (ABACO, Forli) seems to have vanished (after issue 5,
2001?), the only Italian competitor to the journal is L'Archeologio
subacqueo (3 issues a year, Edipuglia, Bari), and this is a newsletter
rather than a journal. The selection of books for review, in contrast,
seems more quixotic. Given the small number of pages devoted to
reviews, it might make more sense to attempt a summary list of recent
Italian publications relevant to the journal's focus, with
single-paragraph abstracts. A list of the published acts of scholarly
congresses that have taken place in Italy, along with the catalogues of
museum exhibitions, and archaeological reports published by local
archaeological associations and museums would be particularly useful,
since these bibliographical ephemera often escape the notice of foreign
scholars and librarians, despite the important information they often
contain.

As noted above, the journal is beautifully produced on stiff paper,
with sewn signatures, a heavy dust jacket over the attractive cardboard
covers, nice type and layout, and numerous line drawings and crisp
black and white photographs. Unfortunately, the price is astronomical:
[euro  ]145 for an individual subscription in Italy, [euro  ]195 for an
individual abroad, and [euro  ]395 for an institutional subscription
with "online edition". For merely an extra [euro  ]395, institutions
can order a hardbound copy. These prices are not justifiable for a
journal of more or less 200 relatively small pages (ca. 17 x 24 cm),
and the individual subscription rate, particularly for foreigners, will
guarantee continued low sales and thus continued prohibitive rates. The
International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, for example, provides
around 450 large pages annually with numerous glossy photos, some in
colour, for L67 (ca. [euro  ]86) per year for individuals in Europe,
US$103 (ca. [euro  ]77) for individuals in North America. These prices
are reduced further for members of the Nautical Archaeology Society or
the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, membership in which is open to
the public. Italian scholars and archaeologists concerned with maritime
archaeology and history deserve an Italian language journal with an
international circulation, but a complete rethinking is needed if the
Archaeologia Maritima Mediterranea is to fill that void. Given the
price per page, it is irritating to find between 14 and 20 pages in
each issue given over to blank space, very lengthy instructions on copy
preparation by the publisher (better put on a website), and even 10-12
pages of advertisements for other breathtakingly expensive journals and
books published by Fabrizio Serra.