Museum of Ancient Ships of Pisa

The experience

The Museum of Ancient Ships in Pisa, after a twenty-year process of research and restoration, exhibits seven boats from the Roman era, dating back to between the third century BC and the seventh century AD, and about 8000 artifacts.

It was 1998 when the remains of the first ship came to light near the San Rossore railway station. Thus was born the great excavation and restoration site carried out thanks to the important and constant commitment of MiBAC and a rich and heterogeneous group of professional archaeologists and restorers.

The excavation and restoration project of the ancient ships of Pisa represents one of the most interesting and rich excavation and research sites of recent years. The particular condition of conservation of the finds enclosed in layers of clay and sand required a considerable economic, organizational and technological effort, making available to research laboratories, deposits, state-of-the-art instrumentation and logistics dedicated to the recovery of the more than thirty identified wrecks and the materials associated with them.
The shipyard of the Ancient Ships has therefore become a center equipped with laboratories, warehouses and instrumentation that has seen the collaboration of dozens of Italian and foreign universities and research institutions.

In the Medici Arsenals on the Pisan Lungarno , the Roman ships and the artifacts related to them found in the shipyard of the Ancient Ships and restored are exhibited.

The museum starts from the story of the history of the
city of Pisa
between archaeology and legend, from the Etruscan phase first and then the Roman, and the arrival of the Lombards. The exhibition reconstructs The city’s relationship with water: floods, the organization of the territory between canals and centuriations, the Port of Pisa, quarries and ceramic workshops, fishing, agriculture, timber and how this intense productive activity has affected the territory, causing its hydrogeological instability already in ancient times.

There is also a section on life on board, which was certainly not very comfortable; Many objects describe the life of sailors: clothing, luggage, lighting, how they cooked and ate, cults and superstitions, games to pass the time on long crossings.