Off the Coast of Sicily, Divers Discovered a Roman-Era Shipwreck With Hundreds of Amphorae, Ancient Jars Frequently Used to Hold Wine

The site could offer fresh insights into Mediterranean trade routes more than 2,000 years ago

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

August 10, 2026 5:53 p.m.

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Fisherman and free-diver Giacomo De Mola was using sonar technology to scan the seafloor off the southwest coast of Sicily when he spotted something unusual beneath the waves. De Mola, who was out exploring with his friend Igor Bisulli, decided to dive in for a closer look.

At first, he thought the sonar might have picked up a large rock. “I say, ‘Ah, OK, a rock, but this is a strange rock—what is this?’” De Mola tells the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Megan Williams. “And then I see [all this] geometrical stuff and I say, ‘No, no this is definitely not a rock.”

As he dove closer to the seafloor, De Mola finally understood what he was looking at: a huge pile of ceramic jugs with slender necks and handles.

De Mola and Bisulli alerted Italian authorities, who have now identified the discovery as a Roman-era shipwreck that sank sometime during the first or second century B.C.E. It’s submerged roughly 150 feet deep about three miles from the modern-day city of Mazara del Vallo.

“It is hard to describe the feeling of being among the first humans in nearly 20 centuries to see that place again,” De Mola wrote in a social media post, as translated by USA Today’s Christopher Cann. “This is, without a doubt, the most incredible discovery of my life.”

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A post shared by Giacomo De Mola (@giacomodemola)

The ceramic jugs are amphorae, which historians believe were used primarily for transporting wine. Most appear to be Dressel 1A amphorae, a type associated with the late Roman period, while others are North African in style. Still others appear to be older Neo-Punic jugs.

They’re piled atop each other nearly 7 feet high, forming a mound that measures roughly 66 feet long by 20 feet wide. Two large lead anchor stocks and a lead pipe were also discovered nearby.

Alessandro Giuli, Italy’s culture minister, described the find as “one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years,” according to a statement, reports CNN’s Barbie Latza Nadeau.

“The sea continues to bring us precious fragments of our history, and the Mazara del Vallo shipwreck tells us about the people, the routes and the exchanges that made the Mediterranean a crossroads of civilizations,” Giuli added. “Research will continue to unravel its history and deliver it to the community.”

Initial investigations were carried out by members of the Carabinieri, an Italian law enforcement agency, in partnership with Sicily’s Superintendency of the Sea. According to the Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo, experts will return to the wreck site in the coming months to continue their explorations. They’ll work to pin down a more precise sinking date, where the cargo came from and where the ship was headed, while also assessing the condition of the surviving artifacts and determining how best to protect the site.

For now, Italian officials do not plan to raise the entire shipwreck. However, they might recover some of the artifacts for additional study.

“There is more to study in terms of the fragility of the wreck site, etc. and they need to determine if there had been previous pillages,” a spokesperson for the Italian culture ministry tells CNN. “So it will stay put for now, protected, studied and valued.”

In the meantime, its location will “need to be kept secret until a decision is made as to whether excavation is practical and whether it can be properly resourced,” Simon Stoddart, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the discovery, tells NBC News’ Isabella Colletta and Matteo Moschella.

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.