Remains of second century ship show Romans carried live fish in tanks

Washington, June 4 (ANI): An ancient hydraulic system designed to suck seawater into a tank was found on an ancient wreck, leading to the belief that Romans traded live fish across the Mediterranean.

Consisting of a pumping system designed to suck the sea water into a fish tank, the apparatus has been reconstructed by a team of Italian researchers who analysed a unique feature of the wreck: a lead pipe inserted in the hull near the keel.

Recovered in pieces from the Adriatic Sea in 1999, the ship was carrying a cargo of processed fish when it sank six miles off the coast of Grado in northeastern Italy.

The small trade vessel, which was 55 feet long and 19 feet wide, was packed with some 600 vases called amphoras. They were filled with sardines, salted mackerel, and garum, a fish sauce much loved by the Romans.

Archaeologists suspect that some 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of live fish, placed in a tank on the deck in the aft area, might have also been carried by the ship.

"The apparatus shows how a simple small cargo vessel could have been turned into one able to carry live fish," Discovery News quoted Carlo Beltrame, a marine archaeologist at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice in Italy, as saying.

"This potentiality, if confirmed by future studies, shows that trading live fish was actually possible in the Roman world," he said.

Measuring 51 inches in length and featuring a diameter of at least 2.7 inches, the unique lead pipe was located in a sort of "small bilge-well" and would have been connected to a hand operated piston pump.

Ending with a hole right in the hull, the pipe intrigued the researchers.

"No seaman would have drilled a hole in the keel, creating a potential way for water to enter the hull, unless there was a very powerful reason to do so," Beltrame and colleagues said.

According to Beltrame and colleagues, the ship was too small to justify the presence of the pump to wash the decks or extinguish fires.

"Given the ship's involvement in the fish trade, the most logical hypothesis is that the piston pump worked to supply a fish tank with oxygenated water," Beltrame said.

The findings have been reported in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. (ANI)