Excavations of the Grabo wreck, off the coast of Italy, have revealed that the ship possessed an ingenious system for keeping live fish on board in tanks. A section of lead pipe found onboard belonged to a pumping mechanism that kept oxygenated water circulating through the tanks – key to sustaining live fish.

The wreck was discovered in 1986 but not excavated until 1999. Archaeologists and scholars are still learning by analyzing the remains. You can read about this finding and more about the Grabo wreck in this month’s Nature Magazine or at Scientific American.

For an update, read my post “More on the Roman Grado Shipwreck.”