NAPLES, ITALY—The Art Newspaper reports that two marble altars were found among the ruins of the now submerged ancient Roman port city of Puteoli in the Bay of Naples. Dating to the first half of the first century A.D., the altars were part of the Temple of the Nabataeans, whose exact location was unknown until this discovery. The Nabataeans were a Semitic people who established a powerful kingdom at Petra, in the Arabian Desert, in the second century B.C. Some 2,000 years ago, they built a trading outpost at Puteoli that became the largest port in the Mediterranean during the Roman period. Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said that the discovery is a testament to the richness of cultural, religious, and economic exchange in the ancient Mediterranean. Three other altar fragments from the temple have been identified since the eighteenth century. For more on the Nabataeans, go to "Letter from Jordan: Beyond Petra."
Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in Bay of Naples
News April 25, 2023
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2024
Pompeian Politics
Digs & Discoveries November/December 2021
A Trip to Venice
Digs & Discoveries March/April 2021
More Vesuvius Victims
Digs & Discoveries September/October 2020
Missing Mosaics
-
Features March/April 2023
The Shaman's Secrets
9,000 years ago, two people were buried in Germany with hundreds of ritual objects—who were they?
Photographs Juraj Lipták -
Letter from the Faroes March/April 2023
Lost History of the Sheep Islands
New evidence shows that the remote North Atlantic archipelago was settled hundreds of years before the Vikings reached its shores
(Polhansen/Adobe Stock) -
Artifacts March/April 2023
Andean Wind Instruments
(Luis Manuel González La Rosa) -
Digs & Discoveries March/April 2023
Peru’s Lost Temple
(Courtesy Sâm Ghavami)