Pisa | Museum of the Ancient Ships

In 1998 during works near the Pisa San Rossore train station, an impressive series of shipwrecks emerged in an exceptional state of preservation, with their cargoes of commercial products and evidence of life on board.

The Roman Shipyard

From that discovery was born the Cantiere delle Navi romane di Pisa, concluded in 2016, one of the most interesting and rich excavation and research sites of recent years.

From June 2019 at the Arsenali Medicei on the lungarni are exposed the Pisan hips of the Roman age and the findings found in that yard and finally restored.

The exhibition at the Arsenali Medicei

The Museum is divided into eight sections that illustrate the history of the city between archaeology and legend from the Etruscans to the Romans to the Middle Ages. The exhibition reconstructs the relationship of the city with water: the floods, the territory divided between canals and centuriations, the Port of Pisa, the ceramic workshops, fishing, agriculture, timber and how this intense productive activity has affected the territory causing already in ancient times its hydrogeological instability.

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 during long crossings.