Swiss Underwater Researchers Find 2,000-Year-Old ‘Shipwreck’ Cargo of Roman Swords, Ceramics

Swiss divers explore 2,000-year-old cargo from Roman times in Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The ship that carried it has yet to be discovered. Courtesy of Octopus Foundation

At the bottom of a lake in Switzerland, Julien Pfyffer and his team of underwater archeologists have been studying the mystery of a Roman-era shipwreck cargo that was found—with no accompanying ship.

In March, Pfyffer and his organization, the Octopus Foundation, spent a month diving alongside partnering researchers in Lake Neuchâtel, in Western Switzerland. They measured and marked 19 new square-shaped sections four meters in size at an excavation site with an estimated 1,000 ancient objects strewn across the lakebed.