Provenance of the Roman Sarcophagi of the San Pietro in Bevagna Wreck

In the sea off San Pietro in Bevagna, located 50km SE of Taranto (Southern Italy), was found a Roman cargo of marble sarcophagi, wrecked in the III century A.D. It lays on the bottom, in 3 to 6 m of water, 70 m off the beach and Chidro river mouth. The twenty white marble sarcophagi are unfinished artefacts. There are two different groups: ten sarcophagi are of rectangular form; the others are of the type called lenos, with round ends and projecting bosses, that could be carved as busts or lion heads. The sarcophagi are of large and small size. Both types of sarcophagi were attested in Roman imperial age. On the samples taken from lenoi and rectangular sarcophagi a mineralogical-petrographical study and determination of ?C13 and ?O18 isotopes were performed. The analytical data established that both types of sarcophagi are in dolomitic marble from Thasian quarries of Cape Vathy-Saliara.