Today, technology puts flesh and blood on an
ancient race. The University of Houston's College
of Engineering presents this series about the
machines that make our civilization run, and the
people whose ingenuity created them.
In 600 BC, the dominant
people in the Italian boot were the Etruscans. Two
hundred years later, they'd be absorbed into the
new Roman empire, but for now they formed the
cultural and political center of the region. Then
one day -- around 600 BC -- a small Estruscan
merchant vessel sank off the island of Giglio --
just west of central Italy. It was carrying olives
and olive oil -- it was trading Corinthian
perfumes.
No doubt the Etruscans lost other ships during
three cent- uries of dominance, but this one came
to rest in just 150 feet of water. And there it lay
until 1961. Then Reg Vallintine, an English diving
instructor on Giglio, found it while he was lead-
ing a group on a dive. After 2600 years, only
scattered merchan- dise, stone anchors, and most of
a keel remained. For some time after that, divers
picked up random souvenirs. They stole an amphora
here and a set of Pan-pipes there. It was, after
all, just another old hulk, wasn't it?
Vallintine tried to get the Italians to protect the
site; but he had no luck. An Oxford don finally
spotted a pottery fragment among the pieces
Vallintine had brought back to England. The man
realized it was Etruscan and very old. So he and
Vallin- tine organized an expedition to sift
through the site.
By the time their team went to work, more damage
had been done. In 1983, a renegade group went in
with a huge vacuum cleaner. They sucked up rocks
and pots -- flutes and fishes. They smashed
priceless relics in the process. Now, after 25
years, careful salvage finally began -- not only on
the wreck, but on tracking down previous souvenir
hunters, as well.
And the full import of the site began to come
clear. This was the oldest shipwreck site in the
world. In its details were woven the fabric of a
high technology that'd flourished well before the
glory of Athens. We see the odd way the Etruscans
sewed the planks of their ships together to keep
them watertight. We find a perfectly beautiful
tooled helmet -- as much a work of art, as of
armor. Everything seems to be illustrated with
ornate patterns and larger-than-life animals.
The Etruscans didn't write much. What we know of
them, we read far more from their works than from
their words. But their technology speaks to us with
great eloquence. It tells their love of beauty. It
tells of order and balance in their lives.
The sea at Giglio finally yielded its greatest
treasure. It filled in our picture of the
Etruscans. Their works help us see them, no longer
alien, but as people we'd like to have known.
I'm John Lienhard at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
