Divers Are Mapping a Drowned Roman Port in Salento

The Location

Off the coast of the Le Cesine nature reserve near Vernole, on Italy's Salento peninsula, divers have returned to a drowned Roman harbour known as San Giovanni. A new excavation season, led by the University of Salento's cultural heritage department, opened on 7 September 2026 and runs into early October.

A whole Roman port now sleeps beneath sand and seawater.

What's There

The team, directed by archaeologist Rita Auriemma under an Italian Ministry of Culture permit, is tracing a large submerged structure in front of a former pumping station. A long, straight feature runs from the ancient shoreline and ends in a broad platform — an L-shaped layout typical of Roman ports built along low, sandy Mediterranean coasts.

Much of it survives only as foundations, buried under shifting sand. On land, researchers continue studying a large plastered basin that may have served fish-salting or wine production near ancient salt works.

The History

The archaeologists aim to date the harbour to the Augustan period, the late first century BCE into the first century CE. They are also mapping its full plan and probing a second submerged structure to the north — possibly a lighthouse tower that locals call the "Submerged Church."

Partners including the Politecnico di Torino are documenting the site with photogrammetry, while the Coast Guard's underwater unit supports the dives. Recovered finds head to a new facility inside Acaya Castle.

The Mystery

One tantalising question hangs over the site. Researchers suggest the port could be where Octavian — the future emperor Augustus — came ashore in 44 BCE, after Julius Caesar's assassination, before marching on Rome.

That link remains a hypothesis, not a proven fact. But if the dating holds, a stretch of stone now hidden under the shallows may once have felt the footsteps of a man about to reshape an empire.