The Site of the Battle of the Aegates Islands at the End of the First Punic War: Fieldwork, Analyses and Perspectives, 2005-2015

The final battle of the First Punic war between the Romans and Carthaginians, the Battle of the Aegates Islands, took place in 241 B.C. Under the Egadi Islands Survey Project led by the Soprintendenza del Mare, Sicily, intensive survey resulted in unique discoveries from an ancient battlefield. This publication includes the field seasons from 2010-15. Finds of bronze warship rams, armor, amphoras, inscriptions, and evidence of shipwreck sites confirm the discovery of this ancient naval battle landscape. Moreover, these artifacts provide new lines of inquiry into Latin epigraphy and the role of officials, the formation of battle landscapes, the dimensions of warships and their rams, types of personal armor, cultural change during the 3rd century B.C., and the economics of fleet construction during the First Punic War.