Italian culture Carolina style.

October 10th and 11th will celebrate what has become known as one of the largest and possibly the longest running annual heritage festivals in the Myrtle Beach area, the 16th Annual Sons of Italy Italian Festival.

This years’ festival again features Italian food, continuous music, Italian themed souvenirs, a free children’s activity table, Italian desserts, arts and crafts vendors, beer and wine, and more. The entertainment this year includes two fantastic headliners: classical and contemporary Italian tenor Aaron Caruso, and international performing artist Natalie Pinto. Also performing during the two day event will be keyboard and vocalists Tony Posillico and Frank Gigli, and Larry Tanelli with The Tony Torre Orchestra, just to name a few.

This year the food tent is adding raviolis to their ever popular offerings of sausage and pepper heros and Italian meatball subs. The souvenir booth has also been greatly expanded, and includes “La Cucina”, a full line of kitchen items including espresso sets, decorated oil bottles and spoon rests, aprons, Italian themed coasters and mugs, aprons and beaded wine bottle ornaments. The expanded Raggazzi Children’s Souvenirs area has added more wearables in infant, toddler and youth sizes, coloring books, stickers, temporary tattoos and paper doll book with Italian themes, as well as Italian word books for youngsters, beach balls and Italian Teddy Bears. The desserts include Italian ices, Cannollis, and Zeppolis along with many types of cookies and biscotti.

The Sons of Italy are dedicated to preserving and promoting Italian heritage and culture, and offer regular membership to Americans of Italian descent, as well as social memberships to non-Italians.

Ancient Roman shipwrecks found

Underwater archaeologists in Italy have discovered the wrecks of five ancient Roman ships in the Mediterranean, with their cargo still largely intact.

The ships are lying in up to 150 metres (500 feet) of water off the tiny island of Ventotene, between Rome and Naples. They are between 1,600 and 1,900 years old, and were laden with - among other things - jars for carrying wine, olive oil and fish sauce.

Also on board were kitchen tools, and certain metal and glass objects which have not yet been identified. The discovery of wrecked ships is not unusual - there are said to be thousands dotted around the Mediterranean.

But Annalisa Zarattini, from the Italian Culture Ministry, said the latest to be found are much better preserved than usual because they sank in deeper water, which protected them from destructive currents.

The ships also sank without capsizing, she said, allowing examination of the cargo in almost the form it had been loaded.

Officials say the latest finds are the result of a new drive by archaeologists to scan deeper waters, organised by the Italian culture ministry and the Aurora Trust, a maritime research group.