The Shipwreck of Gnalić Irena Radić Rossi; Mariangela Nicolardi; Mauro Bondioli ...
12/2021
eBook
Unlike official history, which takes long and impersonal strides
through the past, The Shipwreck at Gnalić describes
individual human destinies that convey the story of the late
Renaissance period ...throughout Europe and the Mediterranean as
uncovered at the site of the shipwreck. Transiting the permanent
route between Venice and Constantinople, the ship Gagliana
grossa , formerly known as Lezza, Moceniga e
Basadonna , symbolically connected two apparently opposing, yet
tightly interwoven worlds. The stunning objects that spent four
centuries at the bottom of the sea briefly made the Gnalić
shipwreck famous in the 1960s and 1970s, but only in recent years
has the scholarly community finally started collecting all the
available information hidden in museum collections, at the
shipwreck site, and in the archives. After many years of effort by
the authors of this publication, the University of Zadar restarted
the research in 2012 thanks to the support of many domestic and
foreign institutions and organisations that, through their
participation, continue to contribute to the successful realisation
of project activities. The reconstruction of ancient events was
successfully started by Astone Gasparetto in the 1970s. After a
long pause, the painstaking work was undertaken by Mauro Bondioli,
who, through dedicated archival work at the State Archives in
Venice, discovered hundreds of documents and pieced them together
into a multi-layered historical story, which is summarised in the
second part of the book.
Footprints of human activities identified in the sedimentary sequence of submerged historical saltpans can reveal the history of the site and can indicate the relative sea level during its ...operational period. Saltpans are man-made constructions used continuously for salt production in the Mediterranean at least for the last 2000 years. The east Adriatic coast contains many such submerged remains, preserved and well-dated by historical archives. Sedimentological, microfossil and geochemical analyses of the sediments from cores drilled in the saltwork area at Brbinj, Dugi Otok, Croatia, enable the reconstruction of various past environmental conditions. The current study aims to: a) identify the anthropogenic unit in the sedimentary sequence deposited over time, b) determine its age, and c) use it as past sea-level limiting points. Basal units made of terra rossa soil materials were identified in the sedimentary records. These layers are located -120 ±7 cm below mean sea level next to the separation wall and -125 ±7 cm and -135 ±7 cm, respectively, in the inner pools, most likely representing a man-made pavement. The terra rossa layer is overlaid by a unit rich in faunal remains dominated by euryhaline foraminifera and ostracod species such as Ammonia veneta and Cyprideis torosa, representing the saltworks unit. The flooding of the saltpans by the rising sea is manifested by the deposition of an upper sedimentary unit dominated by remains of marine species. The base and the top of the saltwork unit are dated by Optically Stimulated Luminescence to 1040±50 CE and to 1390±30 CE, respectively. The study presents a new approach for obtaining footprints of human activities in ancient, submerged saltpans, by identifying and dating the indicative anthropogenic layers and using these for the reconstruction of paleo sea-level. The described method can be applied all around the Mediterranean.
The remains of ancient ships from various time periods are commonly found on land and under the sea in conditions that make it difficult to reconstruct their original form and structure. For this ...reason, the reconstruction should be supported by other data, such as data on similar ships, but also by certain assumptions. The results of the reconstruction are significant not only in a historical sense but are of exceptional importance when building floating replicas. Two ships, Nin 1 and Nin 2, today for promotional purposes known as Condurae Croaticae, were found in Nin (Croatia) at the end of the 1960s. They are about 8 to 10 m long, and tentatively dated to the 11th century AD, although there are indications that they could be dated two centuries later. Based on archaeological finds exhibited in the Museum of Nin Antiquities, hull line drawings were created, according to which two floating replicas were made at the end of the 1990s. Considering the problem of hogging that appeared in both ships, a new proposal for the reconstruction of the original hull lines was performed based on the available documentation. The aim of this paper is a systematic analysis of its calm water resistance. Based on the established credibility of experimental testing, a scale model (1:4 ratio) of the Nin 1 vessel is constructed and evaluated through towing tank experiments. The second approach, the CFD method, is a reliable numerical method for calm resistance estimation, but it is rarely used in the analysis of ancient ships. Finally, the widely used empirical Holtrop method is also applied, but it was developed for ships of larger dimensions and with large parts of flat bottoms and, therefore, the more appropriate Delft Hull Yacht Series method is also tested. The results obtained by applying the four mentioned methods are compared and discussed.
The Bay of Caska, on the Island of Pag, preserves the remains of a stratified settlement, with an important phase linked to a Roman maritime villa, the property of the senatorial family Calpurnii ...Pisones. After presenting the geographical and historical context of the site of Caska, the article summarizes the achievements of past archaeological research, and presents the results of the recent research carried out on land and under water. In particular, it focuses on the harbour structures, where the remains of four scuttled vessels were discovered. These vessels, three sewn boats and one mortise-and-tenon built ship, all filled with rocks, formed pier-like coastal structures. The architecture of these vessels is also discussed.
This book explores the origins of two types of ancient ship connected with the protohistoric eastern Adriatic area: the 'Liburnian' and the southern Adriatic 'lemb'. An extensive overview of written, ...iconographic and archaeological evidence questions the existing scholarly assumption that the liburna and lemb were closely related.
Numerical reconstruction is the process of modeling, analyzing, and evaluating the performance of structures or a sequence of events using the finite element method and other numerical engineering ...methods. Although numerical analysis is used extensively in contemporary engineering problems, it can be equally useful in the study of ancient structures and events of the past. The materials and design of structures are different, e.g., when comparing a modern containership with an old galleon, but the main problem to be solved is essentially the same—will the ship sail efficiently and safely for many years? This paper aims to provide an overview of recent achievements in numerical reconstruction in maritime archaeology. Since it is clearly an interdisciplinary activity, research is often carried out within a specific project by project team members or interested groups of researchers. While the paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of such efforts, special attention is paid to activities related to the AdriaS (Archaeology of Adriatic Shipbuilding and Seafaring) and NEREAS (Numerical Reconstruction in the Archaeology of Seafaring) projects supported by the Croatian Science Foundation, to which the authors actively contribute.
Proteklog desetljeća uvriježila se praksa fotogrametrijskog snimanja i izrade virtualnih 3D modela pri dokumentiranju nalazišta brodoloma. Tim tehnikama moguće je prikupiti podatke koji omogućuju ...rekonstrukciju dinamike havarije koja je dovela do nastanka arheološkog nalazišta. Primjenjujući suvremene tehničke alate, kojima je moguće simulirati fiziku brodoloma, moguće je analizirati ponašanje plovila na moru, pojavu oštećenja na trupu broda ili prodora vode u brod, njegovo prevrtanja i/ili potonuće. Moguće je izraditi realistične modele brodske konstrukcije, kao i pripadajućeg tereta, te analizirati različite pretpostavljene tijekove nesreće koja je snašla drevne trgovce, poput snage i smjera vjetra, valova i morskih struja, težine tereta, pomorstvenosti broda i drugog. U konačnici, moguće je utvrditi suodnos i podudaranje karakteristika postojećeg nalazišta brodoloma i ishoda numeričke simulacije pretpostavljenog tijeka nesreće.
The presence of a regional-wide notch (45 to 115cm below present biological mean sea level BMSL) along the Adriatic coast of Croatia, at a string of sites between Zadar and Rijeka, provides evidence ...for a rapid but poorly constrained subsidence event(s) after Roman times. For more than a century, this geomorphological tidal level indicator has attracted rich scientific debate but many unresolved questions remain. In this paper, we present new results from Caska Bay (Pag Island) looking at notch morphology and Holocene salt-marsh stratigraphy to constrain the chronology of this crustal deformation on Pag Island. The typical salt-marsh stratigraphy comprises low to high salt-marsh muds interjected by an unconformable marine layer (which lies between −50 and −100cm BMSL) consistent with an abrupt transgression. The palaeoecological record shows an abrupt shift in assemblages across the salt-marsh mud–sand sediment contact translating abrupt coastal changes. Geochronological data constrain this event to around 1000 to 1200cal. AD. The altitude of the layer is coeval with the submerged notch attested on limestone cliffs around the bay. The U-shape of the notch profile, coupled with the sharp palaecological contacts and submerged Roman pier, implies that sea-level rise was episodic and not gradual as suggested by regional numerical models. Together, our findings shed new light on the chronology of the “enigmatic” Croatian notch on the island of Pag, and highlight the need to couple geomorphological studies of rocky coasts with high-resolution sediment records.
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•Croatian coastal notch provides evidence for subsidence event(s) after Roman times.•Here we probe notch morphology and Holocene salt-marsh stratigraphy on Pag Island.•Low to high salt-marsh muds are interjected by an unconformable marine layer.•A marine event is constrained to around 1000 to 1200AD.
Modern interdisciplinary projects are connecting researchers from seemingly unrelated fields, like naval engineering and archaeology. However, archaeological remnants of the present days, such as ...ancient ships and ceramic transport containers, were created by engineers and artisans of the past. It is therefore meaningful to consider their function and construction from an engineering point of view, complementing the archaeological research. One track of the interdisciplinary project Archaeology of Adriatic Shipbuilding and Seafaring (AdriaS), founded by the Croatian Science Foundation, aims at better understanding of structural behaviour of the ancient seaborne structures, made of wood and ceramics. In addition, a reverse engineering method is considered in the analysis of underwater archaeological sites, by the simulation of capsizing of ancient ship. This paper presents the possibilities and limitation of the application of the state-of-the-art engineering methods in nautical archaeology. It focuses on the analysis of wooden and ceramics structures, particularly through the identification of open questions, and exploitation of proper material models. Moreover, it presents the complex fluid-structure interaction analysis of a ship capsizing event as a possible engineering tool for testing hypothesis.
Roman age fishponds along the Istrian and Dalmatian coast were studied with the aim of using the data as sea-level markers. Although the Adriatic fishponds do not display the architectural features ...(crepidines, channels, etc.) that can be observed in the Tyrrhenian ones and serve as precise sea-level markers, their structural elements can be used to define the sea-level rise. Fishponds at S. Bartolomeo and Fisine in Slovenja, Kupanja, near Parenzo, and at Katoro, near Umago, in Croatia, were studied and measured. The pool investigated in the island of Svršata Vela, on the Kornati Islands, represents a different feature. Located on the northwest coast of the island, adjacent to the southern part of the gulf, it is a single square pool, with dimensions clearly less than the Istrian fishtanks, similar to those associated with the Tyrrhenian
villae maritimae. These data (the altitude of archaeological markers below sea level) were corrected for tide and pressure and compared with predictions derived from the SELEN glacio-hydro-isostatic model. Comparison with the predicted sea level allows calculation of tectonic rates that range between −0.63 and −0.89 mm/year since Roman times.
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