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Benthic Community Formation Processes of the Antikythera Shipwreck Statues Preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (Greece)

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Abstract

This article takes into account the biological colonisation of the marble statues of the famous shipwreck of Antikythera, a merchant ship dated to the first century BC and discovered in the 1900 off Point Glyphadia of the Greek Island of Antikythera. In particular, the study of the epilithic bioencrustations and the environmental interpretation of the benthic community were carried out to understand the underwater life of the statues. Bryozoans, serpulids, brachiopods, calcareous demosponges and red algae were the most abundant components of the community. Most of the identified species were sciaphilic and/or indicative of coralligenous and cave habitats, well suited to the dim light environment of the site (depth of 50–64 m, arrangement of the statues in piles or inside crevices or under boulders). The obtained data were useful to hypothesize the relationship of the artefacts with the marine environment. In particular, the state of preservation of the bioencrustations found on the statues and the presence of superimpositions indicated that colonisation episodes had happened in different time lapses, possibly very distant from each other, but within the same benthic environment.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Maria Lagogianni-Georgakarakos, Director, and Dr. Elena Vlachogianni, archaeologist, of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (Greece) for giving us the opportunity to study the Antikythera statues. We thank Dr. Barbara Davidde, archaeologist of the ISCR, for her precious support, Mr. Edoardo Loliva, photographer of ISCR, for the accurate photographic documentation of the artefacts, and Dr. Giuseppe Guida, chemist of the ISCR, for his help in SEM analyses. A special thank you goes to Dr. Brendan P. Foley for his valuable advice and suggestions and for the archaeological information provided. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. This contribution is n.435 of the Catania Palaeontological Research Group.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biology Laboratory, Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, Via di San Michele, 25, 00153, Rome, Italy

    Sandra Ricci & Carlotta Sacco Perasso

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Sezione di Scienze della Terra, Università di Catania, Corso Italia, 57, 95129, Catania, Italy

    Rossana Sanfilippo & Antonietta Rosso

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Ambiente e della Terra, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza, 4, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Daniela Basso

  4. Dipartimento per la Innovazione nei sistemi biologici, agroalimentari e forestali (DIBAF), Università degli Studi della Tuscia, S. Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy

    Federica Antonelli

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  1. Sandra Ricci
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Correspondence to Federica Antonelli.

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Ricci, S., Sanfilippo, R., Basso, D. et al. Benthic Community Formation Processes of the Antikythera Shipwreck Statues Preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (Greece). J Mari Arch 14, 81–106 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-018-9205-3

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