An archaeological campaign carried out in Lagos Bay in the Algarve has brought to the surface two bronze pulleys that are around 300 years old, but there are other “treasures” waiting to be recovered from the seabed.
After nearly five hours at sea, a team of divers from the National Center for Marine and Underwater Archeology (CNANS), together with partners from the Norwegian Maritime Museum, managed to collect two items despite adverse conditions.
The pulleys likely belonged to an 18th-century vessel and were used for propulsion during rope maneuvers, archaeologist Gonçalo Lopez, who is coordinating the latest naval campaign for the Water World project, explained to Lusa.
What remains to be salvaged is a lead block of a Roman anchor dating from the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD, which may not be related to the shipwreck but was not recovered due to bad weather.
According to José António Gonçalves, conservationist and CNANS coordinator, these stumps are relatively common in sheltered areas of the Portuguese coast and often belong to anchors that may have been “sacrificed for the sake of maneuvers or to speed up navigation.” .
Since they are “easy targets” for thefts listed for sale on the parallel market (especially in this case, when the stump is in a recreational diving area), the goal is to try to recover it as quickly as possible, which could happen next week .
In this area, three more stumps of different types have already been discovered, but also from the Roman period, which indicates that this will be a parking lot or parking area, says Gonçalo Lopez.
As for the pulleys, they will be taken to the CNANS laboratory where they will be processed, conserved and restored so that they can later become part of the exhibition program of the Lagos Museum.
Many of these finds were discovered by Christiane Koelkel, a German diving instructor who has lived between Germany and Lagos since 1994 and has since completed 3,500 dives in these waters.
Over the years, divers have identified artifacts on the seabed and reported their location to authorities so that they can then be examined, recorded, and, if possible, recovered from the seabed.
The campaign, in which Lagos City Council also collaborated, mapped areas where there had already been recorded shipwrecks, this time “scanned” by the Norwegian Maritime Museum’s sonar, archaeologist Morten Reitan explained to Luse.
Interestingly, one of the shipwrecks here had a Norwegian flag and was torpedoed by a German submarine during World War I, causing a stir among Norwegian archaeologists.
“It’s amazing to see the ship appear on the screen as we pass by. [o sonar], knowing that it has more than 100 years of history. It’s one thing to read about it, but seeing the remains gives you goosebumps,” Reitan said.
However, the sinking of this ship had a happy ending: “We lost many ships in the First World War, but it was a gentleman’s sinking. It was not violent, the crew managed to reach Lagos, and everyone survived,” he said.
The team involved in the campaign consisted of eight people, including archaeologists and conservationists from CNANS and the Norwegian Maritime Museum, with the participation of the Institute of Archeology and Paleosciences of the University of Nova de Lisboa.
CNANS, owned by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, is the organization responsible in Portugal for determining the scientific and historical value of archaeological properties found in aquatic environments.
The archaeological work in Lagos Bay is part of the fourth and final campaign of the Water World project, which will end in March 2024.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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