We know many things about the Romans, because they left extensive documentation that mainly recounts their exploits, the intrigues of emperors, and the daily lives of ordinary mortals. A vast amount of archaeological evidence, both on land and at sea, has also uncovered everything they built and the technical advances they achieved. With bioarchaeology, it is even possible to know with precision what materials they used to make vessels as waterproof as possible and where they built and repaired them. And to delve into very specific details like those revealed by a new study published in Frontiers in Materials, with researchers from France and Croatia, which analyzes the coating of a Roman vessel (called Ilovik–Parzine 1), which sank approximately 2,200 years ago off the coast of what is now Croatia.