Back in time
Open the live mapAncient shipwrecks
The wrecks in the Oxford Roman Economy Project’s Shipwrecks Database: ships lost in the Mediterranean and nearby seas from the Bronze Age to 1500, half of them before 1 CE.
What you see
- Each wreck as a hollow teal disaster mark near where it lies.
- Click one for how the database dates it, its period, its cargo and the region where it was found, where recorded.
- Opened from this page, the map plays 300 BCE to 300 CE.
Where the data comes from
- OxREPThe Shipwrecks Database, version 2.1 (Strauss, Wilson and Flohr 2017), building on A. J. Parker’s catalogue of ancient wrecks.
A published database; it changes only with a new version.
Good to know
- Positions are blurred on purpose, to keep looters from the wrecks.
- A wreck is dated by its finds, often only to a span of a century or more, and the map shows it throughout that span.
- Italy and France hold nearly six in ten.
- The database’s licence is not stated.
The first recorded here in each century
- Shipwreck — Aci Trezza 11 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Acquaviva100 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Ain El Gazala200 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Acque Chiare300 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Agios Andreas400 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Arwad B500 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Cape Andreas B600 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Caucana700 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Scoglio della Formica B800 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Dhia B900 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Anataş Adacik (Palapetra)1000 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Brindisi1100 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Camirus1200 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Capo Vite1300 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Ajaccio1400 · Shipwreck
- Shipwreck — Calvi1500 · Shipwreck
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