A Roman Cargo Ship Loaded With Wine Jars Sits Off Sicily After 2,100 Years Underwater
Two Italian divers have found a Roman shipwreck packed with hundreds of ancient wine jars resting on the seabed near Sicily — a vessel that likely sank more than 2,100 years ago.
Giacomo De Mola and Igor Bisulli made the discovery in the Strait of Sicily, about three miles off the coast of Mazara del Vallo, a fishing port in far-western Sicily. The wreck lies at a depth of 46 metres and measures 21 metres long by 6 metres wide, according to The Art Newspaper.
Italy's Ministry of Culture announced the find on 8 August 2026. The wreck is believed to date to between the second and first centuries BC — placing it in the final centuries of the Roman Republic. The site carries roughly 500 amphorae, tall two-handled ceramic jars used in antiquity to ship goods such as wine and olive oil, The Guardian reported.
Most of the jars are of a type known to archaeologists as Dressel 1A, a bulbous container that could hold up to around 20 litres of liquid. The class is named after the German scholar Heinrich Dressel, who classified Roman amphora shapes in the late nineteenth century.
The discovery almost did not happen. Writing on Instagram on 9 August, De Mola said he and Bisulli had been using a scanning device that flagged the area as "simple rock." They investigated anyway — and realised they were looking at a ship.
The significance of the site was confirmed by a joint inspection involving heritage authorities and underwater search units. Italy's minister of culture, Alessandro Giuli, called the wreck "one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years" in the ministry's announcement.
The vessel's cargo suggests a Roman merchant ship plying one of the Mediterranean's busiest trade routes. In the second and first centuries BC, Rome's expansion had turned Sicily and the surrounding waters into a commercial crossroads, with grain, wine and oil moving in every direction. A ship carrying hundreds of wine amphorae would have been doing the unglamorous, essential work of keeping the Republic's economy and its armies supplied.
What makes the site stand out is preservation. Wrecks of this age rarely survive with their cargo so intact — currents, trawling nets and looters tend to scatter amphorae across the seabed within decades of a sinking. A wreck still carrying its full load, at a depth that has kept it largely undisturbed, gives archaeologists a rare chance to study a single shipment as it was loaded.
The Ministry of Culture has not announced a timeline for further excavation or recovery of artefacts.
