Emperor Caligula’s 2,000-year-old pleasure ship

[Viggen]

For nearly 2,000 years, the sunken remains of Caligula's pleasure ships tantalized divers, who launched expeditions to recover them, with little success.

It wasn't until 1927, when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered Lake Nemi drained, that two of the ships began to be fully revealed. Measuring 230 and 240 feet long, the “Nemi ships” recovered over the next several years astounded researchers with their advanced technology.

At the time, however, Lake Nemi was only partly drained — and in the decades since, rumors have persisted that the remains of a third, 400-foot-long pleasure ship lurk in the deepest part of the lake.

...via Washington Post

p.s. that Video is amazing!

 

[sonic]

Well worth a watch - if only for the English commentator's accent!  Seriously, researching what the Romans knew and used - like ball-bearings - leaves you with some idea of what was lost with the 'Dark Ages'.

[indianasmith]

I think that Rome, in its glory, surpassed every civilization before the 1600's, and many others afterward.  And to think . . . they came within a hair of inventing the steam turbine in the 2nd Century AD.  Rome with locomotives - we might still be speaking Latin today!

[dale]

Sadly, much was lost during WWII.

[sonic]

7 hours ago, dale said:

Sadly, much was lost during WWII.

Didn't Mussolini cause some damage?

[dale]

12 hours ago, sonic said:

Didn't Mussolini cause some damage?

They were destroyed May 31,1944 during a battle. Exactly how, or even by whom they were destroyed remains in dispute. I've read histories telling they were destroyed in an air raid, by the German occupiers etc. It seems likely that they were simply destroyed by allied shellfire that fell upon the museum. 

 

I suppose we could blame Eris and Mars.