A sensational discovery of an ancient Roman shipwreck off the coast of Sicily promises to provide new information about ancient Mediterranean trade routes. Image courtesy of the Italian Ministry of CultureThe divers contacted the authorities and the significance of the site was initially confirmed by a joint inspection of heritage authorities and underwater search units, says the Ministry of Culture. The innovation of scuba diving in the 1940s allowed for the exploration of this type of offshore Mediterranean shipwreck, Gibbins says. Southwest Sicily was “fairly off the main trade route” that connected ancient Rome’s big wine estates, which ran from what is now Tuscany down to the area around present-day Naples. At the time of the shipwreck, he says, large quantities of Italian wine were regularly going to the Celtic chieftains of Gaul, even before it was finally conquered by Julius Caesar around 50 BC.