Revisiting Roman and Late Antique Shipwreck Cargos off the Southwest Anatolian Coast

This contribution analyzes 12 poorly known Roman and Late Antique shipwrecks surveyed off the southwest coast of Türkiye between the 1970s and 2000s. It focuses on seabed contexts and detailed documentation of limited materials raised from the sites, primarily transport amphoras that marked their cargos. Dating between the 1st and 7th centuries A.D., the wreck cargos offer a fine-grained regional view of one coast’s maritime activities and shifting place within the history of Rome’s rise and transformation in the east. The sites’ chronological distribution against the backdrop of Mediterranean shipwreck numbers reveals the regional ebb and flow of shipping, while the cargo compositions offer insights into the changing connections that underlie these patterns: early Roman cargos that are largely local or intraregional in scope, in comparison with more interregional profiles and a strong orientation toward imperial supply during Late Antiquity. The study also underscores the utility of bringing new questions to legacy data, particularly given persistent threats to the preservation of such heritage, and the maximization of insights that can be gleaned from even brief surface survey underwater.