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Grado, Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Published on 27/05/2020 (last modified 24/06/2020)

Ships and ports of the Northern Adriatic in the Roman age

The wrecks cargoes, the landing places and the different modes of ancient navigation are precious “markers”: thanks to them we are able to draw, for the ancient age, a dense, segmented and criss-crossed network of links and traffic. This network included direct crossings and cabotage routes that made use of a myriad of berths and landings at the cape, islands and harbours acting as nodes for the passage and sorting of goods. Various kinds of trading cycles characterised the network: direct routes from the areas of manufacture to the main ports with warehousing facilities, using fully laden ships carrying a single product type; re-export trade from one region’s terminal to that of another, with heterogeneous second formation cargo, composed of goods in transit ; finally,  the redistribution trade (like a modern Amazon warehouse) from the main to the secondary ports, with mixed cargoes. This latter was a particularly widespread model that reflected busy trade and much internal cabotage traffic in the Adriatic.

An example of a transport ship that sailed the Adriatic, destined for a trade network hub, is the boat known as the Grado 1 wreck. The ship was engaged in a redistribution trade, as well as in the transport of both recycled and to be recycled materials, inserted in short and medium haul routes, functional for trade within the North Adriatic basin.

The ship most likely came from Aquileia, a center that in ancient times had gained the reputation of a great port, even if it was inland and not directly overlooking the sea; the rivers and canals that totally surrounded it made it a floating island in the eastern Po Valley, a link between continental Europe and the Mediterranean. The connections with the lagoon and the sea were guaranteed by an extraordinary hydraulic engineering work, more than 6 km long: the Anfora Canal, which had its outlet in the Marano lagoon. Built by the Romans, for the purpose of reclamation, shortly after the foundation of the colony of Aquileia (181 BC), it was an access route to the city for ships loaded with goods.