About

The wreck Bou Ferrer is a Roman merchant ship wrecked in mid-1st C AD off the coast of Villajoyosa, Alicante. Its length is about 30 meters and about 230 tons burden. It was a great trade sailboat carrying a major load of about 2500 amphorae, the type Dr. 7-11, produced pottery like Villanueva de Puerto Real Cadiz. Each amphora containing about forty liters of fish sauce produced from anchovy, mackerel and horse mackerel.

Today, the wreck Bou Ferrer is the only major merchant from the Roman period, around the Mediterranean, combining a unique condition, along with a depth below sea affordable underwater archaeologists. These two factors motivated from the time of its discovery, and Antoine Bou by Jose Ferrer in the year 2001, several actions were undertaken for study and preservation.

In 2012, the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage, in collaboration with the town of Villajoyosa, Vilamuseu and the General Foundation of the University of Alicante, launched a pioneering research project and dissemination of the Underwater Cultural Heritage with the completion of a archaeological excavation campaign focused more data on lead ingots aboard the ship. The results of investigations in matters involving international experts, have given this site an equity value that is now difficult to quantify. A series of marks stamped (Imp GER. AVG) allow specialists to ensure that lead ingots from the wreck Bou Ferrer have an anonymous owner, but belonged to the emperor of Rome itself. The next excavation campaigns let you know what emperor was the owner of this commercial freight: Caligula, Claudius and Nero.