26/05/22

After our long walk yesterday we did a short walk of 30 minutes to visit Aperlae a sunken city on the coast below Apollonia famed for making the Tyrian colour purple from the Murex Trunculus snail. It is documented that it took 12,000 snails to produce 1.4g of the colour from the snails hypobroncial gland, tons of shells have been found in vats that would have been the holding tanks for the snails, it is presumed  that they were probably collected by nets.

The city probably survived for about 1,300 years, it collapsed politically at the end of the Byzantine Empire and was then deserted. The coast was subsequently submerged due to subsidence, along with it parts of the city that you can now swim over from the shore and see some streets, pottery, and the harbour if you know where to look. We did a short swim to try to see some of the ruins but it was difficult to know where to look and how far out to go. On the shore there are numerous sarcophagus and the ruins of the buildings of Aperlae that have been left unexcavated. 

Aperlae sunken city