For nineteen centuries, Aenaria had been only a legend. In the bay dominated by the Aragonese Castle, no one had never found traces of the mythical Roman city which had transmitted its name to the entire island.
Until the summer of 1973, when two friends, during a dive in the Rocks of Sant’Anna, they fished out a galena block. Other researches brought back to light finds able to testify of a submerged city, precipitously abandoned by the inhabitants between 130 and 150 A.D., before being inexorably engulfed by the sea.
Below the tall aquatic plants and the layer of sand, about seven meters deep, many terracotta objects of daily use were recovered, attributable to a period between the 3rd century BC and the 1st AD. Many of local workmanship, others of the most varied proveniences. Including many metal finds returned from the sea, among which a large lead ingot weighing over 36 kilos. With a signature: Gneo Atellio of the “gens” of Atelli, of Campania origins, dedicated to metalworking. Aenaria from “aenum”, thefore metal. The discovery of an intense metallurgical activity explained finally in a convincing way the origin of the name of the city found. On which, however, silence fell, for another forty years, during which only the finds of Aenaria were visible. Today they are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae, in Lacco Ameno. The path blocked in 1973 has been relaunched by a project of research and enhancement of the archaeological site by a group of young islanders. Since then, every year, in spring and autumn, the invisible city has been unveiled. Which revealed artifacts today partly submerged. Such as the nymphaeum carved into a grotto inside a rock or the long corridor in the rock which crosses another one, probably communicating with a seaside villa.
Also on the coast of Aenaria, the villae maritimae must not be missing. This is testified by the stone columns, bases, fragments of statues and wall paintings, many white and glass paste mosaic tiles, building materials and precious tableware ceramic objects. And still under the sea wall sections and the beginning of the road that climbed the hills were found.
But the port dominated the bay, and it was the heart of the commercial exchanges that Aenaria had in the Mediterranean. What remains is a dock in opus cementicium, built between the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD., of which so far about twenty meters have been rediscovered and which still continues, under the sand. And an expansion was being worked on, testified by a wooden formwork, perfectly preserved after two thousand years, destined to contain the cement mortar for the construction of the new section. Interrupted by the sudden event that depopulated the city.
Aenaria can be visited with expert guides and thanks to the glass-bottomed boat of “Marina di Sant’Anna”
