The Marzamemi Church Wreck (6th century AD)
The Marzamemi church wreck (6th century AD)
This page contains additional material and images for Chapter 5 of my book A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks.
I was fortunate early in my career to be associated with Gerhard Kapitän, a pioneering maritime archaeologist based in Sicily who first dived on the Marzamemi ‘Church Wreck’ in the late 1950s and carried on investigating the site for more than a decade. He provided much practical assistance in the expeditions that I led to Sicily in 1983-7 during the Plemmirio wreck project, and in return I helped him to edit several of the papers that he had written on traditional boats in Sri Lanka - a passion of his that eventually led to his 2009 monograph Records of Traditional Watercraft from South and West Sri Lanka. I first went to Marzamemi in 1981 with Dr Toby Parker and the University of Bristol Expedition to Sicily that year, and I dived there again after Gerhard showed us his plans of the wrecks off the coast and took us to the Archaeological Park in Siracusa to see the columns and fragments of marble that he and his team had raised in the 1960s.
The black and white photos included here are all from his collection and provide a vivid picture of the work that he and his divers carried out on the site and the remarkable finds that they made, including the prefabricated elements of an ‘ambo’, a Byzantine church pulpit. Since 2012 the site has been under renewed investigation by Dr Justin Leidwanger of Stanford University and Dr Elizabeth Greene of Brock University, who have overseen extensive survey and excavation and the recovery of more marble fragments and other artefacts. Several of their excellent publications are available to read for free online, including an article in the Fall/Winter 2016 issue of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology Quarterly and a detailed scholarly report in the 2021 volume of the American Journal of Archaeology. Those publications contain many photos and further appraisals of the wreck and its place in early Byzantine history.
In researching my book I became fascinated with the geographical extent of the Emperor Justinian’s building programme and the most distant locations where decorative elements similar to those from Marzamemi had been found. I’d travelled in the Republic of Georgia in 2001 and was amazed to discover that a church near the Black Sea coast contained reused elements of a Byzantine ambo - the monastery of Khobi, shown below. My realisation that similar remains had been found at Adulis in present-day Eritrea came about through family history research; my great great grandfather had been an officer in the Madras Sappers and Miners in the 1870s, and I saw that they had sent a contingent to Abyssinia as part of the British campaign in 1867-8 to force King Theodore to release hostages. (I became so rivetted by this story that I made it part of my novel Testament). My interest was spurred by the involvement of Richard Holmes of the British Museum, who supervised the excavations at Adulis - carried out by one of the Sapper officers - that produced the marble fragments, several of which are in the museum collection and can be shown here under their Creative Commons license. A detailed account of these excavations was published by Stuart Munro-Hay in 1989 in the Antiquaries Journal.
Click on the images to enlarge:
An early photo at the site in 1961, showing slabs of marble as they were first seen lying at the bottom of a gully. This degree of exposure helps to explain the worn condition of many of the marble fragments, as marble does not survive well in seawater and the surface details erode (Gerhard Kapitän).
Divers using a water dredge to excavate sand from part of the site. The diver on the right has a J-valve on his cylinder to show when air was low - when closed, the valve stopped the flow of air at about 500 psi as a warning to surface, but it could then be opened by pulling on the metal rod on the side of the cylinder. All of my early diving until 1979 was carried out using J-valves as we did not commonly have contents (pressure) gauges (Gerhard Kapitän).
A diver attaches rope to a column base in preparation for lifting (Gerhard Kapitän).
Divers work to free a marble fragment from the seabed (Gerhard Kapitän).
Divers prepare to life a fragment of marble using an air-filled lifting bag (Gerhard Kapitän).
An elevation drawing of the reconstructed ambo from the Church Wreck, showing the position of a number of the fragments with crosses and decorative surrounds. These elements were all of Thessalian verde antico, ‘ancient green’, a mottled serpentine breccia (and therefore strictly speaking not marble, though the term ‘marmor’ was used by the Romans for all decorative stone and this usage continues today among archaeologists in referring to ancient stone). The columns and chancel screen elements were of grey-streaked white marble from the island of Proconessus in the Sea of Marmara. Length across base approx. 5.5 m (my rendering after original by Gerhard Kapitän).
A reconstructed ambo in the garden of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. I first saw this in 1984 soon after I had dived at Marzamemi, and I have revisited it several times since. The marble is a red-veined stone from Asia Minor, and therefore different from the Thessalian verde antico of the Church Wreck ambo, but in other respects the two ambos are very similar. This came from the nearby church of Beyazit A and also dates to the early-mid 6th century AD.
Part of a red-slip pottery bowl from the Church Wreck with a stamp showing a saint wearing a beaded ‘dalmatica’ robe, with one arm raised in salute and the other carrying a cross. Dr John Hayes, a leading expert on Roman Mediterranean pottery who helped me with pottery from the Plemmirio wreck, identified this as stamp type 232b in his book Late Roman Pottery (a more complete example from his book is shown here as an inset) and suggested an early 6th century AD date.
Verde antico fragments from the upper part of the Church Wreck ambo (Gerhard Kapitän).
Verde antico fragments from the lower sides of the ambo (Gerhard Kapitän).
A column base in Proconnesian marble (Gerhard Kapitän).
A column capital in Corinthian style with the maker’s mark PO (Pi Omicron) at the top. Proconnesian marble (Gerhard Kapitän).
A large verde antico slab from the floor of the upper ambo, with a cross decoration on the lower side. The brecciated nature of the stone can clearly be seen (Gerhard Kapitän).
A verde antico fragment with a cross from the ambo (Gerhard Kapitän).
A Proconnesian marble fragment with a cross from the chancel screen (Gerhard Kapitän).
Another part of the decoration on the chancel screen (Gerhard Kapitän).
The interior of Justinian’s great church of Hagia Sophia, ‘Holy Wisdom’, in Constantinople, showing the nave and chancel that would once have held the ambo, chancel screen and other liturgical furniture. In my chapter I quote from the famous account of Hagia Sophia by Paul the Silentiary - how the ambo rose like an island, providing a beacon for mariners navigating the ‘troubles of the sea.’ The sea was represented by streaked Proconessian marble on the floor, and Thessalian verde antico was extensively used for columns and panels on the walls.
The 6th century AD Church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna, in which the sense of being at sea is also rendered by the marble but in a different way to Hagia Sophia - the columns have been quarried to show horizontal streaking, giving the effect of waves on either side of the nave as the worshipper looks towards salvation in the chancel and above that a vista of paradise with the bishop tending his flock and the cross inside an orb representing heaven and earth. The church is in the standard 'basilican’ form derived from the lawcourts, or basilicas, of Rome - the buildings of the pre-Christian period most suited to large congregations.
Mosaic of the Emperor Justinian and his entourage in the 6th century church of San Vitale in Ravenna, showing Christian symbols such as the Chi-Rho on the shield to the left and liturgical equipment carried by the emperor and his bishops.
Mosaic of the empress Theodora and her entourage in the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, matching the one on the opposite wall showing Justinian and reflecting their shared role in shaping the Byzantine world of the early 6th century AD.
Drawing of the Byzantine church at Adulis by Richard Rivington Holmes, the British Museum representative on the 1868 Abyssinian expedition who oversaw the excavation carried out by Captain William West Goodfellow of the Royal Engineers with Indian sappers. Holmes portrays himself looking over the church towards the British fleet in Annesley Bay, in the southern Red Sea in present-day Eritrea. The church has the same basilican layout as the Church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna pictured above, but is of a smaller size that was probably common among churches to which prefabricated elements were sent. British Museum 1972,U.566 (© The Trustees of the British Museum).
Fragment of relief sculpture in Proconnesian marble with a wreath and one arm of a cross above. Excavated by Captain W.W. Goodfellow, R.E. from the Byzantine church at Adulis. British Museum 1868,1005.15 (© The Trustees of the British Museum).
Another fragment of marble with a cross from the church at Adulis. British Museum OA.11008 (© The Trustees of the British Museum).
The monastery of Khobi in western Georgia, showing the well-preserved elements of a Byzantine ambo that were brought here in the 14th century by a local warlord from a church near the Black Sea.
In this photo I’m holding a gold coin of the Emperor Justinian, ‘architect’ of the church building programme in the 6th century AD reflected by the Marzamemi wreck.