how would Italian marble hold up underwater after 100+ years ???

[lobsterman]

I remember reading about a shipwreck that was loaded with fine Italian marble (statuary, art, and columns), and i was just curious if anyone knew how well Italian marble would hold up underwater after 100+ years ,

[ivan salis]

great --marble items thousands of years old have been recovered intact in the med

[divermark]

This is a very famous wreck with very old marble:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_wreck

What I have noticed is the church moved lots of marble around to build new churches all over the world, generally when you find marble you find church bells also.

[lobsterman]

I was wondering because i have seen some old marble headstones here in new england that have weathered soo badly that you can't even read the names anymore.
Thats a good idea about the church bells, i hadn't even thought of that, but i believe the wreck was around 1895 - 1905. Weren't there alot of foundry's in the states at that time that could have handeled casting the bells ?, rather than shipping them ?.