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05-14-2003, 01:28 PM

I've been trying to find out without much success how merchandise was transported from the Mediterranean to Britain. 
I was wondering if ships sailing all around Hispania and up the Atlantic coast as it appears to be a very long, tedious, and possibly difficult route for ships with primitive rigging. Looking at a map it seems it would be much easier to ship goods to ports in Gaul and move them overland from there. 
I have also been searching the web in vain for diagrams of Roman merchant ships which show details of the inner layout i.e section drawings. 
Any imfo and directions to links would be appreciated. 
Thanks 
Jackie.

JRSCline · 05-14-2003, 10:51 PM

I know of nothing online. Jasper and Martin might be able to help as naval matters are their interest. 
 
If you have a university library nearby, try hunting for this softcover reference: 
 
Council for British Archaeology Research Report No 24, Roman Shipping and Trade: Britain and the Rhine Provinces, edited by Joan du Plat Taylor and Henry Cleere, 1978. ISBN 0900312629. 
 
You might also be able to borrow it through Inter-Library Loan at your local municipal library. 
 
A great deal of trade was done by river, and river shipping was a much more efficient way to move goods in bulk than by wagon freight. I imagine it depends upon the goods to be moved. 
 
I suspect, although I am not the expert on this topic by any means, that you are right about the overland route being preferred to the Gibraltar sea route. 
 
Cheers 
Jenny

**richsc** · 05-15-2003, 03:22 AM

The first book I pulled out is "The Archaeology of the Roman Economy" by Kevin Greene, who talks about long distance shipping, such as the corn fleet from Egypt to Rome, but not much about sailing into the Atlantic. He mentions that Pliny says the trip from Ostia to Gibralter took nine days, so it was a destination, but he does not say much else. Gaul has a lot of rivers in it, so it was possible to ship much across Gaul by boat, apparently. Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=richsc>Richsc</A> at: 5/15/03 8:55:06 pm

rekirts · 05-15-2003, 09:19 AM

Hi 
I have a couple of books that have maps of Roman trade routes and one shows a route around Spain and Gaul to Britain and one doesn't. So perhaps there was such a route but it was not frequently used. 
 
The book without the Atlantic route pictured is "The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome" by Chris Scarre and the one with it pictured is "The Lost Wreck of the Isis" by Robert D. Ballard. The Isis book is a young people's book. 
 
I have a couple of pictures of a Roman Merchant ship, but no cross sections or anything. I can't post them because I don't have an internet site to put them on. If you want me to try to email them to you send me an email and I see what I can do. I will put my email address in my profile. 
 
Wendy

05-16-2003, 05:54 AM

Thanks everyone for the ideas. 
I must admit I do have a problem as far as books are concerned i.e the libraries here are only stocked with books in a language I'm still struggling to get to grips with...and it's not English! 
The universities might be a better proposition but as I have no connections to any universities, I'm not sure I could gain access the libraries. However, the Council for British archaeology does have a website so I will certainly check there. 
Jasper explained about the use of rivers for transport in answer to a question I asked on Rat a while back. He also mentioned ships' primitive rigging which basically is what caused me to wonder about the practicalities of long haul shipping in the Atlantic. I know nothing about sailing but it seems to me that the Atlantic ocean is a completely-excuse the pun-different kettle of fish from the Meditterranean. 
I did wonder about the trade route you mentioned Wendy. Was it clearly indicated as a direct route all the way around? It occured to me it might represent a network of ships plying local more localized trade along the coast all the way up to Brittannia. i.e not one ship going all the way. 
I'm glad you mentioned the Ostia to Gibralter run though Rich, as I did want to ask how much distance these ships could cover in a certain time. That at least gives me some indication. 
Hopefully Jasper or Martin will stop by this forum some time soon. If not I'll post an S.O.S. in RAT! 
 
Jackie.

**richsc** · 05-16-2003, 04:39 PM

I was looking at a book about amphora in Britain. If they didn't use the Atlantic route, the cargo would have to be shipped by river boat to a certain point, off loaded and sent by land, then reloaded on boat and down to the Channel; at that point, if the river boat wasn't good enough, the cargo would have to be off loaded and loaded again onto a more seaworth ship. Quite a lot of labor and chances for breakage. I have read though, that an amphora of wine was worth a slave in exchange, so the amphora had to be very valuable.

05-18-2003, 01:34 PM

If an amphora was worth a slave in exchange, it makes you wonder what punishment a slave got for breaking one!! 
I do see what you mean about the chances of breakage, but then again if you lose a ship you lose the whole cargo, and I believe there are enough amphorae littering the Meditterranean seabed to show that wasn't a rare occurrance! 
I did try to do some calculations on that Alexandria Ostia example you gave Rich. They are most probably grossly inaccurate but it would seem a ship might be able to get the goods to Britain faster than the overland route. 
But this led me to wonder what goods were actually coming from Italy and beyond. It would seem a lot of imports to Britain could have come from Hispania and Gallia anyway e.g various types of pottery, olive oil, garum, olives etc.

JRSCline · 05-18-2003, 10:47 PM

On river traffic... a more recent example which might shed some light: 
 
For the recent deployments to the Middle East, rather than trucking units' heavy equipment to ports in the low countries, all the equipment was uploaded onto barges at various German river ports. 
 
Barges in Roman times would have been pulled by animal teams along well established routes, smaller routes/rivers joining larger ones. Barges are very safe and surprisingly fast, as well as capacious. I have no idea how large Roman barges were but there is evidence for them. Going downstream, perhaps hauling was not needed and they used cargo boats instead, which are well attested for liquid cargo (barrels) from carvings. 
 
I would imagine river transport was the best way to get heavy bulk cargo to Britain. 
 
Cheers 
Jenny

venicone · 05-19-2003, 01:34 AM

There is evidence of Roman dated craft being excavated in Britain : 
 
The Guys Hospital vessel 
 
details at [url=http://cma.soton.ac.uk/HistShip/rep114.htm" target="top]Guys Hospital ship[/url] 
 
 
The following was excavated at London at Blackfriars : 
 
This was found in 1962 and dated to C2Ad and comes closest to the purely Celtic type within this group. It uses non edge carvel planking clench nailed to risers and has a virtually flat bottom held together by clench nailing to floors, one of which doubles as a mast step. The method of clench nailing, however, uses the technique familiar from the Mediterranean of nailing through a dowel of treenail to minimise damage to the planking and frames. Whether this technique was borrowed from the Romans or is merely evidence of good building practice is not easy to establish. 
 
Another cargo vessel was also found in the Channel islands - thispage has some diagrams on it 
 
 
[url=http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/ships/ship030/Guernsey_ship.htm" target="top]channel islands[/url] 
 
more questions than answers I think! 
<img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/> 
 
[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]

05-19-2003, 02:37 PM

Thanks for the links Venicone. I notice both these craft are the flat bottomed variety more suited to rivers than long distance seafaring which gives more weight to what Jenny was saying about the importance of river transport. Actually I just found a piece in a book concurring with this. 
It does state it was quicker and more conveniant to transport heavy goods by sea. (Apparently 5000 amphorae could be carried on some ships.) Significantly however, it mentions that whilst over 500 wrecks of seafaring ships are known in the Meditterranean, virtually none are known outside of this area, although river craft like Venicones' examples have been found. 
I think you are right Jenny. And if ships were sailing right round it was as Wendy suggested, infrequently.

05-19-2003, 07:49 PM

To reinforce Jenny's point: 
Guess how rockets bound for the moon, Mars and points beyond get to Cape Canaveral. They are floated there on barges down the Inland Waterway that runs along the eastern American coast. After 2000 years, barging is still the most cost-efficient way of moving really big, heavy cargoes.

JRSCline · 05-19-2003, 11:19 PM

Yes, definitely -- our big modern barges are capable of transporting an ENTIRE train load of containers, a lot of freight. Of course the Romans' equivalents were smaller by far and pulled rather than powered, but I think the parallel is a reasonable one. 
 
Cheers 
Jenny

***Praefectusclassis*** · 05-20-2003, 01:03 AM

Hi all, 
Most relevant points have already been mentioned in this discussion. Cost effective transport of bulk goods over long distances could only be done over water. 
Determining routes however is difficult, the start and endpoints are usually known, but indeed as mentioned, unless ancient shipwrecks are found in the Atlantic, proving they used that route is going to be difficult. 
The most probable, and well known route, for goods from the Med to Britain was across France: ship to the Rhone estuary, up the Rhone and via various other rivers to the Scheldt, Meuse or Rhine estuary from where it would be shipped to Britain. 
It is sometimes stated that trade took place across the Atlantic, but the entire voyage Med-Atlantic-Britain seems a bit unlikely. There certainly was trade to Cadiz (southern Spain, west of the Straits of Gibraltar) and quite probably coastal trade as well. Ancient shipping was mostly coastal, unless the direction of the wind was stable, landmarks were visible and/or the route well known as in the case of the outgoing voyage from Italy to Egypt. Those conditions were unavailable in the Atlantic. Coupled with treacherous currents in the Straits, the stormy nature of the Bay of Biscay and the conservative nature of ancient shipping that makes this route unlikely. But, as said, trade over shorter distances was certainly an option (for instance Brittany-Britain). Greets 
 
Jasper

Muzzaguchi · 07-11-2003, 05:13 PM

Hi, 
 
I haven't been able to get hold of a copy but there is also Arnolds Spekke 'Ancient Amber Routes and the Discovery of the Eastern Baltic' which I think is 1948 but reissued by Ares in 1976. 
 
From memory it goes into some detail on the trade routes through Europe and around. 
 
You might also try the fragments of Pytheas in Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean: Text, Translation and Commentary 
collected by Christina Horst Roseman in 1994 (also Ares) or, as a very readable introduction Prof Barry Cunliffe's 'The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek' 2002. 
 
Cheers 
 
Muzzaguchi It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay Antiquity its due reverence - Erasmus of Rotterdam 
 
'Modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one asks' - Tolstoy War and Peace Ep. ii.1

07-16-2003, 01:35 PM

Muzzaguchi, 
I have put an order in for the Barry Cunliffe book as it does look to be a very interesting read and is very reasonably priced. 
Thanks for the suggestions!

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