A routine police dive off Sardinia turned up 2,000-year-old Roman pottery — still intact

The officers from Olbia were on an ordinary underwater safety check off Porto Rotondo when one of them spotted a broken shard of terracotta. Something about it made them come back for a second dive — and there, on the seabed, lay the vessels it had come from: an amphora and a transport basin made around the time the Roman Republic was giving way to the Roman Empire. Careful dredging brought up three intact pieces, now handed over to Sardinia's Archaeological Superintendent. Specialists are already asking the obvious question: if this much survived, what else is waiting down there?