Every Then & Theory plate comes from a true story, and this card tells the one behind yours.

The Then & Theory team

The resort that sank

Fallen columns and a statue lie on the seabed, far below a small boat. The plate names no place. In Roman times Baia, on the Bay of Naples, was the area’s most famous place to live. The ground there slowly rises and sinks with the volcanic Campi Flegrei, a movement called bradyseism, and the old shoreline sank under the sea. In 1980 archaeologists excavated underwater and found the nymphaeum of the emperor Claudius with its statues. Since 2002 the drowned town has been a protected underwater park that divers can visit.

Sources

1. Submerged Archaeological Park of Baia, “History”