Off the coast of Adrasan in Antalya Province, underwater archaeologists have raised thousands of ceramic vessels from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, where they had lain for more than two thousand years. The find includes 122 different shapes of plates, bowls and trays — all of it was part of a cargo that, judging by everything, was bound for Rome.
The ship sank around the middle of the first century BCE. The main cargo was tableware from Rhosus, an ancient settlement on the territory of the modern-day province of Hatay. Such wares were considered prestigious in the Roman world and were prized for their quality and design. Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, noted that the variety of shapes reveals the culture of luxurious feasting of that era.
The vessels were packed in wooden crates, and the gaps between them were filled with clay. This simple protective measure worked: many objects have survived almost intact. Coins from Antioch found on board help date the voyage and confirm that the ship belonged to the network of maritime trade that linked the eastern Mediterranean with the Aegean Sea, Greece and Italy.
As early as 50 BCE, Rhosus was mentioned by Cicero in a letter to Atticus — he ordered tableware there. Now archaeology provides material confirmation that these wares were indeed transported across the sea over great distances. Amphorae from the Aegean islands in the same cargo show how complex and multilayered the commerce of that time was.
The depth at which they lie — from 42 to 55 meters — and the use of robots make it possible to continue the research without haste. Each new fragment adds details to the picture of the ancient economy, in which even seemingly ordinary tableware became an object of prestige and a commodity of long-distance transport.
Such finds remind us that behind every sunken ship lies not merely a tragedy, but an entire system of human connections: craftsmen, traders, consumers who valued beautiful things and were prepared to pay for them. Modern technology merely helps us hear the voices of those who sailed these routes two thousand years ago.
