An Italian archaeological find of immense importance, something dubbed a maritime Pompeii, occurred in 1998 when, while digging the foundations for a new railway control centre in Pisa’s San Rossore area, the unbelievably unspoiled remains of over thirty ancient Roman ships and boats were uncovered. Miraculously preserved by the oxygen-lacking peaty soil of what was in olden times the Pisan shoreline (the sea has since receded a good ten miles) it’s taken twenty years of painstaking research and restoration to conclusively display to the public these glorious witnesses of the Roman Empire’s vast maritime trading empire.

The Museo delle Navy Antiche di Pisa opened earlier this year and is stunningly laid out in the city’s old naval arsenal. Divided into two sections, the museum makes excellent use of such features as the old cavalry stalls and the superb interior arcades.

The first section contains Pisa’s archaeological museum. Here one can wander from early Etruscan settlements, to the glory that was Rome’s major port, to the arrival of the Goths. Note the precursor to the surveyor’s theodolite and the Mithraic reference in the Phrygian cap wearing bas-relief…

The second section houses some of the most spectacular finds of everyday ancient Roman life since the uncovering of Pompeii in the eighteenth century. The ships hidden under the natural protection of the Pisan marshes reveal an all-encompassing typology of classical vessels from fluvial boats, precursors of the Venetian gondola, the canal long-boat and the Cambridge punt, to river cable-hauled ferries and sea-going cargo boats which sailed as far as Colchester, the Black Sea and the straits of Gibraltar. Never before has a glossary of floating craft been revealed in such detail and completeness before. I’m truly glad to be alive to admire this parade of maritime craft dating back to over two thousand years ago.

The museum’s ships display such features as interior handrails, cargo storage methods, double-skin hull construction, gang-planks, massive anchors, variety of sheet (sail) arrangements, seating arrangements (especially for passenger ships), oar propulsion and much, much more.

What are even more fascinating are the intimate insights into the lives of the average Roman sailor and his crew:

On-board games:

Fishing tackle:

Clothes (leather water-proof greased jackets) and footwear:

Maritime navigation aids and the mariner’s personal on-board possessions box (with lock):

Astonishingly well-preserved basketware:

There is even evidence of a ship’s cat!

There’s a wall chart showing the typology of amphorae storage pots extending over four hundred years showing the increase and decrease of trade and reflecting the rise and fall of the Roman empire…so insightful of other empires including the British whose trade is now in danger of emasculation thanks to the cancer of brexitisis.

For me there was a particularly poignant exhibit: the recovery of the skeletons of a  sailor and his dog (a beagle) crushed when a ship’s mast fell on them.

Our vibrant journey through Roman port life was accompanied by one of the archaeologists who assisted in the recovery of this astounding discovery: his knowledge and enthusiasm was clearly conveyed to us and our little group of five who had booked a guided tour.

We emerged from past centuries into the present times which themselves are redolent of a birth which occurred when many of these sailors plied their wares between peoples of different shores but united in a common pursuit of commercial and cultural exchange: a European Union two thousand years before its time, a union whose collapse under barbarian forces took years to rebuild into the present coming together of twenty seven nations once, alas, twenty eight…

Do visit the museum’s web site at https://www.navidipisa.it/en/ì for further information including opening times.