Caligula's ships of Lake Nemi
Two huge ships built for the emperor Caligula on the small volcanic Lake Nemi lay on its bed for nearly 1,900 years; Mussolini's government drained the lake and recovered them from 1929, and they burned in 1944.
1929 CE · 41.72, 12.70 · status: official
The account
The larger was a floating palace about 73 m long, with marble, mosaics, heated baths and plumbing, and fittings once thought to be later inventions. Fishermen had long snagged timbers, and from the Renaissance divers and engineers tried to raise them. The lake was sacred to Diana, whose grove and priest-king made it famous through Frazer's 'The Golden Bough'. A fire during the German retreat destroyed the hulls in their museum.
The sceptical view
Documented Roman ships; the cause of the 1944 fire is disputed between the armies, not the ships' history.