Pianosa, AUV Survey (May 25th-June 5th, 2009)

Between May 25^th and June 5^th, 2009, ProMare collaborated with Dr. Pamela Gambogi of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana, and with Dr. Kim McCoy of the NATO Undersea Research Center of La Spezia (NURC), to conduct an extensive AUV survey of the southern side of Pianosa Island (Fig. 1). Main goal of the project was to create a new, detailed, archaeological map of the Pianosa's seafloor.

Fig. 1. View of the picturesque harbor of Pianosa. The rock called "La Scola" is visible in the background,

along with the shape of the island of Montecristo. (Photo: D. Bartoli, ProMare)

The island, where a high-security penitentiary has been active until the late 1980s, is one of the few areas in Italy that have remained off-limits to divers for the last 50 years, and therefore represents a pristine area where to conduct archaeological research and to locate sites in a pristine state of preservation. A Remus 100 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) NURC had available was used to map the seafloor with a side-scan-sonar up to 50 m of depth (Figs. 2-3). All the data were collected and geo-referenced using Site Recorder 4^® (Fig. 4).

Figs. 2-3. NURC's AUV technician, Federico Cernich, downloading the side-scan-sonar data at the end of a surveying day, and launching the AUV from a small Zodiac. (Photos: D. Bartoli, ProMare)

Fig. 4. Site Recorder 4^® was used to create a GIS of the surveyed areas. On this image are visible the four areas covered by the AUV in 2009 on the southern side of Pianosa, along with two northern areas surveyed during a previous campaign in 2008. All the targets collected, along with the archaeological sites, have been positioned and a visual database has been created.

During the 2009 expedition all the targets collected during remote-sensing work (Fig. 5) were visually inspected by divers (Fig. 6). 

Figs. 5-6. Example of AUV-collected data (the red arrow marks an anonaly on the seafloor), and of how it appears in reality. (Side-scan-sonar image: NURC, Photo: D. Bartoli, ProMare)

The most interesting underwater site in Pianosa is located at 34 m of depth close to the rock called "La Scola". Ca. 100 amphoras of different types are spread in a large area of the seafloor (Figs. 7-8). Following the research that SBAToscana began in 2001, the site was studied and mapped in 2006 by the Venus Project. The amphoras do not seem to be concentrated in that typical "mound" that characterizes most shipwrecks, but they appear to be scattered over a vast area of the seabed. Their types cover also a long chronological time frame, stretching from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D., even if the larger assemblage is represented by Dressel 2/4 types (Figs. 9-11). Further research is needed to understand under what circumstances this underwater site was created. It might be possible that these items represent defective items thrown at sea from the nearby harbor throughout the centuries.

Figs. 9-11. Different amphora types from the La Scola site. From left to right: a Dressel 2/4 amphora, a Dressel 20,

and a Dressel 1A. (Photos: D. Bartoli, ProMare)

Credits and Acknowledgments

ProMare would like to thank Dr. Pamela Gambogi, director of the Tuscany's Underwater Archaeological Operative Unit (Nucleo Operativo Subacqueo), and Kim McCoy, NURC's Scientific Director for the project in Pianosa, along with Alessandro Pareti, SBAToscana's assistant photographer, C.R. Giuseppe Massimo Giudicelli, and V.P. Enrico Bardocci of Comando Provinciale dei Vigili del Fuoco di Livorno.

The Pianosa 2009 expedition participants. From left to right in the upper row: Pamela Gambogi ready to dive, Dante Bartoli gearing up for another day of field work, and Kim McCoy "looking throughout history" of a Dressel 20 amphora neck. In the lower row, from left to right: Alessandro Pareti, Giuseppe Massimo Giudicelli, and Enrico Bertocci.