Archaeologists discover trade secrets between Romans and barbarians in ancient shipwreck

Sometime in the third or fourth century A.D., a Roman merchant ship carrying tin and pottery sank in the Bay of Morlaix, on the northern coast of France. Recently rediscovered by a local diver, archaeologists are now eager to learn the secrets of the shipment of tin the Roman ship was carrying, Spero News reports.

Because the Mediterranean is devoid of major tin lodes, ancient Greeks and Romans who wanted to produce bronze, used in coins and tools, had to search abroad for tin to add to their copper, which was readily available in Cyprus. Since Julius Caesar's time, Romans had exploited the deposits of northern Europe, but the Roman shipwreck indicates tin could have been an integral part of early pan-European trade between Rome and what was then considered "barbarian lands."

The Brittany wreck turned up tin ingots in different sizes, some that were masses of metal while others were shaped like squat cones. Several bore the letter M, which researchers believe might indicate either where the metal was mined, or who it was being shipped to. Researchers plan to study key isotopes to discover the exact origins of the metal, which could possibly reveal a large-scale production and transportation operation in France's Brittany region. Five hundred ingots worth of tin were recovered by divers from under the sea.

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