MADRID, SPAIN—The Guardian reports that more than 130 shipwrecks have been found in the Bay of Gibraltar by Project Herakles, a team of researchers from the University of Cádiz and the University of Granada. “It’s one of those bottlenecks through which ships have always had to pass, whether on commercial shipping routes, voyages of discovery, or due to armed conflicts,” said Felipe Cerezo Andreo of the University of Cádiz. The wrecks range in date from the fifth century B.C. to World War II, and include 23 Roman ships, four medieval ships, and the engine and propeller of a plane from the 1930s. Ships from Venice, Spain, and England have been identified among the 34 wrecks that have been documented so far. One of the vessels is the Puente Mayorga IV, an eighteenth-century Spanish gunboat that could be disguised as a fishing boat while attacking British ships of the line around Gibraltar. “What we have here is a very small space that allows us to analyze the evolution of maritime history throughout practically the whole of the Iberian Peninsula and north Africa,” Cerezo explained. To read about the first excavated Phoenician shipwreck that was discovered off the coast of Cartagena, go to "History's 10 Greatest Wrecks: Bajo de la Campana."
