to invest in ships that could
cross oceans. However, they
did sail as far as India. Per-
haps some untrained naviga-
tor lost his way in a storm. Or
maybe mutineers steered the
ship westward?
We may never know, nor are we
likely to uncover more evidence.
Brazil closed the Bay of Jars to fur-
ther research in 1983 in an effort to
deter looters, it said. Marx claims
the government didn’t want the area
explored because finding Roman-
era artifacts there would mean that,
contrary to Brazil’s official history,
the Portuguese were not the first
Europeans to reach the country. And
the truth? It’s resting 100 feet under
the sea.tennis courts located 15 miles from
shore lay the remains of some 200 Ro-
man ceramic jars, a few fully intact.
According to Marx, a professional
treasure hunter, the jars appeared to
be twin-handled amphorae that were
used to transport goods such as grains
and wine in the third century. But
how did they get there? The first Euro-
peans didn’t reach Brazil until 1500.
The Romans, who traded primar-
ily in Mediterranean port cities and
the Middle East, had little incentiveAfter hearing rumors of a
sort of sunken treasure in
Brazil’s Guanabara Bay (1),
Robert Marx, using a
sonargraph (2), made
an unusual find: a cache
of ancient pottery (3).
Actually, they were Roman
amphorae, or pots (4), from
the third century. That
raised a thorny question:
Did the Romans cross the
Atlantic (5) 1,000 years
before the Portuguese
landed in Brazil?The Bay of Jars
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