BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Adriatic Shipwreck Reveals Details of Roman Trade

Merchant ship facilitated trade between Roman ports

The Adriatic shipwreck. Courtesy R. Scholz.

Excavators with Croatia’s International Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar have spent years carefully excavating a well-preserved Roman merchant ship that sank in Barbir Bay, off the country’s coast. Dating to the first or second century CE, the vessel is approximately 40 feet long and still retains elements of the ship’s upper works, a rare find for such an ancient craft.

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Sailing the Adriatic

Early excavations of the shipwreck revealed hundreds of olive pits. Meanwhile, excavations of a nearby port dating to the same period uncovered the remains of grapes, peaches, and walnuts. Taken together, this evidence suggests the port was used primarily for agricultural trade between nearby Roman estates, with the ship likely having been a merchant vessel that sank shortly after leaving port.

Taking photogrammetric images of the shipwreck. Courtesy A. Divić.

Most recently, the archaeological team carried out photogrammetric imaging of the ship’s cleaned remains. Utilizing 3D modeling, they aim to reconstruct the ancient ship to gain new insight into its navigational capabilities, which will in turn reveal details of regional trade and sailing during the period. “This is a very precise and stable type of ship construction, capable of carrying heavy loads and sailing medium to long distances. Such vessels were essential for life along our coast and islands 2,000 years ago,” explained Anton Divić, owner of the Croatian underwater archaeology company NavArchos, in a press release.

By the first century, the region of the modern state of Croatia had been incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Dalmatia, named after one of the main Illyrian tribes of the region. Dalmatia remained under Roman, and then Italian, control for more than half a millennium before it was conquered by the Croat Slavs, who gave the country its modern name, in the sixth and seventh centuries.

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