ITALY LOWERS LAKE 70ft. TO RECOVER ANCIENT TREASURE SHIP

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6806, 9 January 1929, Page 3

ITALY LOWERS LAKE 70ft. TO RECOVER ANCIENT TREASURE SHIP

TIBERIUS' PLEASURE BOATS THAT FOUNDERED NEARLY 2,000 YEARS AGO.

By the simple gesture of throwing in an electric switch, Premier Mussolini recently set in motion huge pumps erected on the shore of Lake Ncmi that arc to lift about one billion cubic feet of water out of that lake. That will lower its level some 70 feet, making possible the recovery of the two famous mythical “ships of Tiberius" (hat for almost 20 centuries have been the subject of popular legends and the object of much learned speculation. Built by the Emperor Tiberius as pleasure ships, they were placed by contemporary authors among the wonders of the world. They were loaded with precious metals, rare marbles, choice woods and art treasures of inestimable value. They foundered from unknown causes near the shore of Lake Ncmi, and have lain for almost 2,000 years under some 70 feet of water, though the story of them always has remained alive in the minds of the inhabitants of the lake region.

Efforts have been made at. various times to salvage .the two ships, but they have been only partly successful, succeeding merely in recovering fragments. When this problem, was reexamined by Premier Mussolini he decided that the only hope of salvaging the ships- was to lower tho level of the lake sufficiently to leave them high and dry on the shore, and then to remove them bodily to a museum that is being built purposely to house them.

Old Roman Tunnel is Used. The enormous proportions of the task that is being attempted may best bo shown by some figures. By pumping out the billion cubic feet of water the. surface of the lake, which now covers some 412 acres, will bo reduced to half that area. Though the pumps discharge water at tho rate of about 4,000,000 cubic feet a day, the work wil lnot be completed for nine months. Lake Nemi is a body of water near Romo, in the crater of an extinct volcano, surrounded on all sides by high hills. The task of emptying the lake is facilitated by an ancient Roman tunnel bored through tho side of a mountain, through which the water can be discharged into the valley below. This tunnel,’which originally was constructed in order to maintain tho water in the lake at a steady level, has been in constant use ever since Imperial Roman days. It has now been suitably enlarged, and is being used as the first link in a chain of canais through which the Water, after having been raised by pumps to its mouth, will be conveyed' to the sea. Tho tunnel, which was bored with chisels through solid rock, is about three feet wide and six feet high and about a mile in length.

Ships May Have no Treasure,

Though many Latin writers referred to the wonders of the ships of Tiberius in the days of their glory, none makes tho slightest reference to their end. Not only is what caused them to sink unknown, but whether they sank with nil their treasures or were previously despoiled. It is. unknown, therefore, whether tho ships when salvaged will yield a rich harvest _ of treasures of Roman Art or only their bare hulls. The fact, however, that they both sank near the shore, though in deep water, with their prows turned towards tho centre of the lake, seems to argue that they Ycero the victim; of some sudden catastrophe. If so, it is almost certain that there was no time to unload their precious cargoes before they sank.

It is expected that it will be four months before one of the ships first becomes visible on the' surface, and nine months before they are both high and dry. Even then, however, the task of salvaging them will hardly have begun. It will then be necessary to lift them bodily and remove them a considerable distance to the museum.

The difficulty of this task when applied to two ships, one 200 feet long by 65 feet wide, and tho other 200 by SO, whose wood has rotted by twenty centuries of immersion in water, can readily be appreciated. Yet experts declare that tho feat is possible and that nil obstacles will bo overcome. Expectation meanwhile of a solution to the mystery that has occupied the minds of archaeologists for centuries is very keen.