A ROMAN SHIP SCUTTLED NEAR SALONA IN THE GULF OF KAŠTELA, CROATIA: EXCAVATION, RECONSTRUCTION AND ANALYSIS A Dissertation by DAVID GRADY RUFF Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Cemal M. Pulak Committee Members, Deborah N. Carlson Irena Radić Rossi Daniel L. Schwartz Head of Department, Darryl de Ruiter May 2020 Major Subject: Anthropology Copyright 2020 David Grady Ruff ABSTRACT Salona (near present-day Split, Croatia), originally an Illyrian city with Greek presence along the eastern Adriatic coast, was conquered by Republican Rome in 76 BCE. Based on its central location in Roman Dalmatia, coupled with a protected harbor in the eastern Gulf of Kaštela and a connection to the hinterlands through the mountain pass of Klis, Salona was the natural choice for the location of the provincial capital. In 2002, the recovery of a 1000-liter perforated dolium in the Trstenik section of Kaštel Sućurac, only three kilometres from the ancient city walls of Salona, attracted the attention of archaeologists to significant Roman remains submerged near shore. In 2006 the outline of a wooden ship was identified, scuttled alongside a submerged wooden wall. In 2015, the ship was uncovered, labelled, recorded using photogrammetry, extensively sampled, then reburied for preservation in situ. Without completely excavating the wreck, obtaining detailed measurements of all its timbers and conserving the wood remains, the analysis of the wreck and the reconstruction of the hull would depend on its investigation using various computer methods. First, a 3-D model of the ship’s remains was generated using Agisoft PhotoScan. Based on this archaeological data, site plans were generated in ArcGIS to document the wreck. Analysis of the hull remains determined the ship to be a flat- floored, mortise-and-tenon constructed ship, dated to approximately the late 1st century CE and suitable for transport of heavy cargo, reflecting the apex of Imperial Rome’s influence on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. ii A reconstruction of the ship’s hull was undertaken in the Rhinoceros 3D modelling program by combining preserved hull curvatures, the full extent of wooden remains exposed on the seabed, and hypothetical hull height based on a review of contemporaneous ships. The Rhinoceros plug-in modules utilized to perform this reconstruction include an iterative draft and displacement calculator, which estimates the Trstenik ship displaced approximately 25 tons. This technique is suitable for extrapolation to other ancient wrecks recorded only by photogrammetry. iii DEDICATION To George Bass. Without him…nothing. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Cemal Pulak, and my committee members, Dr. Deborah Carlson, Dr. Irena Radić Rossi, and Dr. Daniel Schwartz, for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research. Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues, and the department faculty and staff for making my time at Texas A&M University a great experience. As a ‘non- traditional’ (i.e. ‘old’) student, I required a bit of extra attention to get over the tall hurdles—thanks to all the heavy lifters who boosted me up over the years. I also want to extend my gratitude to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), which funded this excavation with the 2015 Claude Duthuit Archaeology Grant. Finally, thanks to my mother for her encouragement to quit working and attend Texas A&M, and MOST importantly to my wife Marla for sticking with me even though I quit working to attend Texas A&M, with the unintended consequence of making us both quasi-Texan. v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors All Ph.D. projects are team efforts, and there is no way to highlight every contributor whose experience, knowledge, and patience enhanced this project. It is particularly important to me to recognize the Texas A&M Nautical Archaeology professors who accepted me into their program despite woeful preparation and readiness to succeed on my part. Thank you for your blind faith in me and your support during my time in College Station; all of you were important to my academic success. A special recognition must go to Dr. Irena Radić Rossi of the University of Zadar, who graciously allowed me to co-direct the Trstenik excavation near Split, Croatia. She is the only person on the planet who could have allowed me to excavate a Roman-era ship while still a student; I will be grateful for that opportunity for the rest of my life. I also must recognize all of the hard work that went into the excavation and subsequent reconstruction. No matter how many names I list, some will be slighted, so let me recognize five Croatian contributors in Katarina Batur, Suzana Čule, Matko Čvrljak, Vedran Dorušić, and Ines Šelendić, and five Texas A&M classmates in Nick Budsberg, Jose Casaban, Arianna DiMucci, Chris Dostal, and Kotaro Yamafune. These ten individuals stand for all the local and international assistance I have received during my studies at Texas A&M. Their support and friendship, both now and in the future, are the best rewards I could receive. Photographic credit for underwater images used in computer modeling belongs to Sebastian Govorčin. Drone video and photography were vi taken by Ervin Šilić of Novena Ltd. Multimedia. Artifact image photography credit is shared by many individuals, most notably Arianna DiMucci and Katarina Batur. Extensive laboratory determination of wood sample species was performed by Nili Liphschitz. With respect to manuscript preparation, I would like to recognize the graphic contributions of Andrew Fleming and Valerija Butorac, the Agisoft PhotoScan assistance from Kotaro Yamafune, the 3-D modeling contributions of Jose Casaban and Andrew Harrell, the historical research assistance of Ivan Radman Livaja, and the editing contributions of Rives Duncan. Funding Sources The majority of my academic funding at Texas A&M University came from the US Department of Veterans Affairs Post-9/11 GI Bill, which paid tuition and a stipend for 36 months of study. Without that support, I would not have been able to attempt this degree program. With respect to this dissertation, the excavation at Trstenik would not have happened without the support of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) and its Claude Duthuit Archaeology Grant in 2015. I am honored by my designation as an INA Research Associate, a relationship which I hope to maintain for the rest of my life. During my studies, I received financial assistance from the Anthropology Department of Texas A&M University through both travel funding and the paid opportunity to teach a course for one semester. I have also received travel support from Texas A&M University’s Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation (CMAC) and from the AdriaS Project (Croatian Science Foundation project #IP-2014-09-8211). I am grateful for everyone’s investment in my academic program. vii NOMENCLATURE ACSC Air Command and Staff College BCE Before the Common Era CAD Computer Aided Design CE Common Era CMAC Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation GIS Geographic Information Systems INA Institute of Nautical Archaeology NURBS Non-Uniform Rational Basis Spline RAM Random Access Memory TAMU Texas A&M University viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...............................................................................................v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES ............................................................ .vi NOMENCLATURE ........................................................................................................viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. .ix LIST OF FIGURES ..........................................................................................................xii LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................xv 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 2. BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT ...................................................... 5 2.1 The Geography of the Roman Province of Dalmatia ....................................... 5 2.2 Summary of the History of Dalmatia ............................................................. 15 2.2.1 Prehistory ........................................................................................ 15 2.2.2 Greek Contact .................................................................................. 19 2.2.3 Contact with Republican Rome ....................................................... 22 2.2.4 Transition from Republic to Empire ............................................... 30 2.3 Roman Maritime Trade in Dalmatia .............................................................. 36 2.3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 36 2.3.2 Shipwrecks and Trade ..................................................................... 43 2.3.3 Stone Trade ....................................................................................
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