Archaeology of a nautical battle: the investigation of the Italian-French brig Mercurio

Author(s): Carlo Beltrame

Year: 2013

Summary

The Mercurio was a brig of the Italian-French fleet that was sunk by an English brig in the north Adriatic Sea in 1812. Underwater investigation of the site has allowed the research team to document a part of the prow and the stern and to recover about 900 finds.

What are the goals of the investigation of a military ship from the beginning of the 19th century? Can it add new information to our knowledge of ship construction; of the equipment, crew, and everyday life aboard a military ship of this period? Can it provide information about the nautical battle that led to, and the dynamics of, its sinking? We will demonstrate that archaeological research can provide original insights on our knowledge of military ships in the Napoleonic era, and life aboard those ships, and that the quality of the data that the archaeologists can collect is indeed much higher than that provided by the historical data.

Cite this Record

Archaeology of a nautical battle: the investigation of the Italian-French brig Mercurio. Carlo Beltrame. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, U.K. 2013 ( tDAR id: 428479)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

General
Adriatic Brig nautical battle

Geographic Keywords
ITALY Western Europe

Temporal Keywords
1812

Spatial Coverage

min long: 6.624; min lat: 36.649 ; max long: 18.513; max lat: 47.095 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 138