Last July I spent my holiday in Calabria in the south of Italy, and I must say I was quite successful. Five gold rings was my record from the sea, which will be hard to beat...
A Bronze Age axe was discovered on the seabed off Arendal in south-eastern Norway at a depth of 12 metres. According to the specific hollow shape, it is specifically from the Middle Bronze Age and dates back to approximately 1100 BC. This is the first prehistoric metal artefact discovered in Norwegian waters and possibly the first evidence of a shipwreck from this period...
Off the north-eastern coast of Sardinia, a huge collection of tens of thousands of coins dating from around 340 AD was found on the seabed near the town of Arzachena. Nearly all of them are in very good condition, and even the worse ones are all still legible today.
In the city of Thonis-Herakleion in the Abukir Bay near Alexandria, about 10 metres below sea level and 2.5 km from the coast, the remains of two temples were discovered - one dedicated to the Egyptian god Amon and the other to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. In the ruins of the Temple of Amon, gold and silver treasures from the time of the pharaohs were recently discovered.
A cannon from the 14th century was discovered in the sea off the west coast of Sweden. According to an international research team led by maritime archaeologist Staffan von Arbin from the University of Gothenburg, it is probably the oldest ship's cannon in Europe. It provides an insight into the early period of naval weaponry and takes the history of this type of gun forward by at least a century.
Searching in the water is a seasonal thing for me, when it's hot why not try the water. Last year I used the XP DEUS 2 detector to vacuum the sea in Krk, Croatia and this year I'm going to test the beaches and water in southern Italy with the new Manta from Minelab.
Archaeologists have discovered a set of well-preserved glassware and raw blocks from a Roman wreck between the Italian island of Capraia and French Corsica. This is only the second wreck with glassware found. Thousands of glass and other objects from the late 1st or early 2nd century AD lie on the bottom of this ship alone.
In 1656, the Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas (Our Lady of Wonders) was wrecked on the west side of Little Bahama Bank about 70 km off the coast. It was literally stuffed with treasure, which is why it was repeatedly plundered by various societies and wild expeditions over the following centuries. When another expedition went to the site recently, few imagined there was anything left on the seabed...
Twenty thousand twenty-dollar coins were carried by the paddle-wheel steamer Republic, which left New York on October 18, 1865. Two days later, however, a storm hit the ship and its cargo went down. The treasure was not recovered by underwater archaeologists until 2003.