Our first site of the day was located in a restaurant named the Ta Rikardu. We lowered the ROV through a large opening on the side of the wall. The cistern had plenty of room to maneuver in, with more than six feet of water. Our sonar scans revealed that this cistern had an overall rectangular shape, which is characteristic of Roman cisterns built around 200 or 300 BC. A short video of what the robot saw during the 2009 expedition can be found here.
Shown below is the sonar data image, a top view of the mapped image (0.20m grid cell resolution) and a 3D view of the mapped image (0.05m grid cell resolution).
California Polytechnic State University
Marine Resources Development Foundation