Boccalama A, before 1328

Country: Italy

Place: San Marco in Boccalama, a now-submerged island in the Venetian lagoon

Coordinates (approximate): 45.3886, 12.2809

Type: Rascona, a barge-like vessel used within the lagoon and local riverways

Identified: No

Dated: Before 1328; the hull was reused as landfill in a reclamation project before the monastery on the island was abandoned in 1328

 

Beam: 6 m (width)

Keel Length: Not applicable (plank keel).

Length Overall: Unknown.

Number of Masts: Unknown.

 

History of the wreck

Throughout the Venetian lagoon, evidence of earlier human occupation can be found not only on the central islands that make up the modern city, but also on the surrounding isolated archipelagoes. On the now-submerged island of San Marco in Boccalama an oratory was founded in AD 1013, and by the fourteenth century a monastery housed a small community of monks. Concerned that subsidence and erosion were slowly destroying their home, the prior obtained permission for a reclamation project (Romanelli 2003: 90-93).

The hulls of a rascona (Boccalama A) and of a thin galley (Boccalama B) were brought to the island as part of this project. Wooden piles were driven into the seabed around both ships and their interiors were filled with soil, extending the island into the lagoon (Romanelli 2003: 22). The attempt failed: the monastery was abandoned after 1328, and in 1348 the island was used as a burial ground for victims of the Black Death. Sixteenth-century documents still mention the island, but it seems to have been submerged for some time by then (D’Agostino and Medas 2001: 13-14).

See also the fiche of Boccalama B (Med280), found on the same site.

 

Description of the site

Archaeological work on the site began in 1966, aimed at the remains of the former monastery (Canal 1978: 168-172). Concern for the island’s archaeological sites during large construction projects in the lagoon led to a monitoring project that revisited San Marco in Boccalama in 1996 and found the first of the two wrecks (D’Agostino and Medas 2001: 3).

Piles were driven around the well-preserved wreck to protect it from the clam fishery, but fishing continued inside them, and the discovery of the second wreck while relocating the first raised further concerns. Additional piles and boards did not prevent damage from unauthorized visits (Romanelli 2003: 25-28), and a full excavation was launched in 2001. The piles were replaced with metal sheeting locked into the seabed, forming a coffer dam. Both wrecks were first excavated under water; once the artefacts and most of the sediment had been removed, the coffer dam was drained and a photogrammetric survey was made (McManamon et al. 2003: 23-24). Only a summary report has been published; a full report on the hull is still awaited.

 

Cargo

Not applicable; the hull was reused as landfill and was not lost with a cargo.

 

Ballast

Not applicable; the hull was filled with soil as landfill.

 

Anchors

Not reported.

 

Guns

Not applicable.

 

Iron concretions

Not reported.

 

Hull Remains

Boccalama A was assembled following a bottom-based method, with a plank keel of the same thickness as the rest of the planking (Romanelli 2003: 44-47).

 

Keel, keelson and mast step

The keel is a plank keel. The ship’s width (6 m) required both the garboards and the adjoining strakes to lie flat. The surviving ends suggest that the keel plank ended in a point, complemented by the curved ends of the garboards and other bottom strakes (Romanelli 2003: 44-47).

A recessed keelson is indicated by impressions left over the central section of the floor timbers, together with two pairs of buttresses, treenailed and iron-fastened to the hull near the bow (Romanelli 2003: 45).

 

Frames

The frames are made of square floor timbers overlapping short-armed futtocks, creating a hard chine at the turn of the bilge. There is no scarf between the frame elements, and they were not fastened together. The inner faces of the short arms of the futtocks show two treenails driven from inside the hull, perhaps for missing bilge stringers (D’Agostino and Medas 2001: 10-11).

 

Planking

The planking is of the same thickness as the plank keel; the bottom was flat (Romanelli 2003: 44-47).

 

Ceiling, thick stuff, and wales

Not reported; the treenails on the futtocks may relate to now-missing bilge stringers.

 

Caulking

Not reported.

 

Size and scantlings

Width 6 m; freeboard only 74 cm, accentuated by the flat bottom and hard chine, as expected in a river or lagoon vessel (Romanelli 2003: 45).

 

Wood

Not reported.

 

Bibliography

Canal, E. 1978. [Full reference to be completed.]

D’Agostino, M., and Medas, S. 2001. [Full reference to be completed.]

McManamon, F., et al. 2003. [Full reference to be completed.]

Romanelli, G. 2003. [Full reference to be completed.]

Bendig, C. 2021. [Full reference to be completed.]