Secrets from the bottom of the sea. The Glyptotek will be exhibiting a large hoard of coins from the Mediterranean and some of the shipwreck’s other cargo recovered by divers off the Sicilian coast.
During a violent storm in 1991 coins and many other artefacts dating from the Roman Empire, such as pottery vessels and bronze weights, were whirled up from the seabed a short distance from the ancient city of Camarina on the most south-easterly point of Sicily. The coin hoard will now be exhibited for the first time outside Italy. This important discovery occurred by a stroke of pure luck. The sandy seabed shifts constantly with the result that shipwrecks can be quickly exposed and covered up again. The archaeologists involved were, quite literally, in the right place at the right time.