In Serbia, a group of miners have discovered an ancient Roman ship in a massive opencast coal quarry. Archaeologists have been carefully handling the woodwork of the ancient ship discovered on Wednesday.
When an excavator found some timber at the Drmno mine, experts took immediate action to preserve the remains of the ship. It is the second such discovery in the area near a former Roman settlement known as Viminacium since 2020.
The ship was likely a member of a river fleet that served the well-developed Roman city which was home to around 45,000 people and had a hippodrome, fortifications, a forum, a palace, temples, an amphitheater, aqueducts, baths, and workshops.
Lead archaeologist Miomir Korac stated that the earlier discovery of the ship may be as old as the 3rd or 4th century AD when Viminacium was the capital city of the Roman province of Moesia Superior and had a port nearby a tributary of the Danube River. “We may assume that this ship is Roman, but we are unsure of its exact age,” he told the British news agency Reuters at the site.
He added that the wood of the ancient ship was sprayed with water and then put under a tarpaulin to avoid it from decaying in the heat.
According to the archaeologists, the two ships and three canoes discovered in the region either sank or were abandoned at the river bank. The goal is to display the latest discovery of artifacts uncovered from Viminacium close to Kostolac, a town located 70 km east of Belgrade.
Shifting the 13-metre-long hull without damaging it is a difficult task, said Mladen Jovicic, a member of the team of archaeologists working on the site. Korac said, “Our engineer friends … will prepare a special structure that will be lifted by a crane, and … the entire process of gradual conservation will follow.”
Viminacium has been under excavation since 1882. Archaeologists stated that only 5% of the area is excavated, which they estimated around 450 hectares (bigger than New York’s Central Park) and unusual for not being under a modern city.
Till now, golden tiles, jade sculptures, mosaics and frescos, weapons, and remains of three mammoths have been discovered.
