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Ancient Roman ship laden with wine jars discovered off Sicily

126 points| pepys | 4 years ago |theguardian.com

56 comments

order
[+] pelasaco|4 years ago|reply
Linked to this article, we find this one: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/italy-recovers..... funny that "stolen" became "illegally gathered" and then the "wealthy Belgian collector", just gave it back and everything is fine. No consequences.
[+] HeckFeck|4 years ago|reply
Well no wonder. Just because it's late doesn't mean that Aulus Didius Gallus doesn't want his fruit of the vine.
[+] m1ckey|4 years ago|reply
> The collector is awaiting trial.
[+] bpodgursky|4 years ago|reply
"Stolen" implies he stole it from someone in particular. Salvage laws are pretty complicated, I think some fuzziness is warranted.
[+] wdb|4 years ago|reply
Could write whole stories about some auction houses
[+] aetherspawn|4 years ago|reply
Can't figure out from the article if the wine inside is consumable (or has leaked out). If not, that would make it maybe the oldest wine in existence, and although disgustingly old and perhaps mildly toxic, it would probably make it very valuable.
[+] dkdbejwi383|4 years ago|reply
> ...though they’re still far from the oldest unopened bottles of wine in the world. That honor goes to the Speyer wine bottle, a jug of wine that, before its disinterment in contemporary Germany, sat in a Roman tomb for more than 1500 years. The Speyer wine is probably still safe to drink, though scientists say it likely wouldn’t taste good.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/can-wine-survive-shipw...

[+] fogihujy|4 years ago|reply
I suspect the amphoras won't have kept the wine intact for that long; after all, the ship is 2200 years old.

If the wine miraculously remains intact, I suspect the taste wouldn't even be close to what it was back in the day. I wouldn't mind trying a glass of actual Roman wine though.

[+] cnity|4 years ago|reply
Genuine question: why might it be toxic?
[+] mrfusion|4 years ago|reply
Could there be any dna left in the wine? Could we recreate ancient Roman grape and yeast and then reproduce the wine?
[+] jdavis703|4 years ago|reply
Doubtful. Even DNA in wooly mammoths entombed in arctic ice has degraded to the point where rewilding would have to involve a breeding program with a closely related animal like elephants.
[+] tastyfreeze|4 years ago|reply
Very cool. I love seeing the treasures of our past the Mediterranean preserved. I did think that it was odd for the title to state "wine jars" instead of amphorae. I thought that amphorae was a commonly known word. Amphora also were a common container for many trade goods not just wine. They were the shipping container of the day.