A scuba diver exploring the seabed off the Italian island of Sicily has found two centuries-old artefacts linked to an historic early-18th-century naval battle.
His discoveries, a rudder and a naval cannon, are reckoned to be relics of the day-long Battle of Capo Passero, which took place when the British and Spanish navies clashed on 11 August, 1718.
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Sicily was under Spanish control and the two countries were not at war at the time, but the bigger British fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Byng, sank a large number of Spanish warships during the engagement.
Diver Fabio Portella, who made the discoveries, has long worked in conjunction with maritime archaeologists and holds the title of honorary inspector for submerged cultural assets for the province of Syracuse.
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Portella had been surveying the seabed near Fontane Bianche on the island’s south-east coast, according to Sicily’s Superintendence of the Sea (SopMare). The rudder had been lying in shallow waters and had possibly been uncovered by recent seabed changes. Almost 5m long, it featured sheet metal nailed onto the timbers.
Weighing an estimated 800kg, the rudder would have come from a large ship. Because SopMare deemed it vulnerable to interference, damage or removal, it requested that a team should recover the item, which is now being treated by conservators.
Cautiously dated
Portella found the 2.5m iron gun-barrel at the considerably greater depth of 49m, where it remains, and for now it has been cautiously dated only as being from between the 1500s and 1700s.
Previous discoveries made a little further south along the Avola coast at Gallina and Cicirata have also related to the Battle of Capo Passero. According to military records, a number of Spanish galleons had broken away from the main action and approached the Avola coast in a bid to evade the fast British ships.
Some 25 Spanish vessels were reckoned to have been lost both there and at the primary battle-site.
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