A 2,000-year-old ancient Roman shipwreck may once have had an aquarium capable of carrying live fish onboard, archaeologists say.
The ship, approximately 55 feet long and dating back to the second century, had a cargo of 600 amphoras, or large vases, that contained salted mackerel, sardines and other fish products.
A hole was pierced in the bottom of the ship, and a lead pipe was found near its keel, suggesting that the pipe was connected to a hand-operated pump that sucked up water to keep a constant supply of oxygenated water flowing into a fish tank.
Carlo Beltrame, researcher and archaeologist at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, told LiveScience, “Historians think that before the invention of the freezer, the only possibility to trade fish was to salt or dry it, but now we know that it was possible to move it alive also for quite a long distance…This simple apparatus implies that, as attested by some ancient authors, the trade of live fish in antiquity was possible.”
According to LiveScience, researchers say they plan to reconstruct the aquarium to see how well it might have worked.
