Nouvelles données sur les découvertes subaquatiques du littoral roumain
New data about the underwater discoveries made on the Romanian coastline

Summary/Abstract: Starting with the ’60 of the last century, we can talk about the first underwater archeological researches in Romania, due to a small group of enthusiasts, such as Constantin Scarlat and Vasile Cosma. While doing research on the coast between Constanța and Mangalia, and other areas, they discovered, beneath the major changes of the coastal relief, traces of monuments, enclosure walls, buildings, street pavements, indoor pavements, architectonic debris, pottery kilns, and objects of various periods and shipwrecks, which would provide the first submerged artifacts. Therefore, across about two decades, the ancient shore was traced, areas of archaeological interest along the continental plateau were identified and mapped, as an attempt to outline of the ancient harbors and harbor basins from Tomis and Callatis, respectively numerous archaeological artifacts were recovered. From the underwater areas, we can add to the published findings an amphora discovered in the Black Sea and 14 in the Sinoe Lake. They are the result of some fortuity discoveries. The amphora from the Black Sea finds its closest analogy in type Berenice 298‐299/San Lorenzo 7. It’s an oriental amphora, which dates to 2nd ‐ 4th century A.D. The amphorae from Sinoe Lake date from 10th beginning of 14th century A.D. By form, they can be classified into five typological groups: I – conical elongated amphorae; II ‐ spheroidal amphorae; III ‐ pyriform with collar amphorae (with two subtypes); IV – pyriform amphorae with raised handles (with subtype I‐III); V ‐ spheroidal short‐necked amphora with raised handles. The groups II‐V are the equivalent of the I‐IV Günsenìn groups. Sinoe Lake is today part of the lagoonal system Razim‐Sinoe, which was a Black Sea gulf from Antiquity until the medieval period. The new findings document the existence on the Sinoe Lake bottom of three shipwrecks (according to the discovery areas of the amphorae), probably two from 10th‐11th century A.D. and a later one. Probably, we can talk about another shipwreck, or Roman period when we refer to the amphora discovered in the Black Sea. The new data comes to complete the information known for these periods, especially those related to commerce, and those regarding the submerse discoveries made along the Romanian continental plateau. The tables from the end of this study indicate similar findings made in the last half of this century in the mentioned area.

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