Caligula's Giant Ship
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Caligula's "Giant Ship", also known as the 'round ship', was a very large barge whose ruins were found during the construction of Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, Italy. This was previously a Roman port a few miles north of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber River.
This Roman barge had a length of about 104 meters (341 feet) and a beam of about 20.3 meters (66 feet). It was 6 decks high, displaced a minimum of 7400 tons, and carried a crew of 700-800. Some speculate that this ship, or a similar ship, was used to transport the obelisk in St. Peter's Square from Egypt on the orders of Roman emperor Caligula.[1]
Pliny the Elder describes the sinking of a ship that had transported the St. Peter's Square obelisk from Egypt to use as the foundation of a large lighthouse in Ostia. This lighthouse was an imitation of the famous lighthouse in Alexandria, the Pharos of Alexandria.[2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ The World's Largest Ship, And a Tale of Two Ports, Alan Lucas, AFLOAT, October 2006
- ^ Gateway to Rome, Simon Keay, British Archaeology, Issue 57, February 2001, ISSN 1357-4442.
[edit] External links
- The Museum of the Roman Ships: The Port of Claudius, Giulia Boetto, translated by Claire Calcagno, Museum of the Roman Ships, Ministry of the Cultural Activities and Heritage Archaeological Superintendency of Ostia
- Wrecks & shipfinds of the Mediterranean 2. Antiquity after 480 BC, Per Åkesson, rev aug '05, Wrecks & shipfinds Worldwide, Nordic Underwater Archaeology.
