Thousands of luxury dinner dishes went down with a ship off Turkiye 2,100 years ago

Plates, soup bowls, fish plates and nut dishes in 122 different forms and sizes sat packed in wooden crates on the seabed off Adrasan, in Türkiye’s Antalya Province, when archaeologists began excavating the wreck in 2025. Thousands of the ceramic pieces have been brought up, and coins found with them put the sinking at about 2,100 years ago, in the middle of the first century BC.

The cargo was tableware of a sort that Roman households coveted, and the ship carrying it never reached port. A storm and a shoal ended the voyage, and the clay-packed crates came to rest 42 to 55 metres below the surface, where the cold and the cushioning kept most of the dishes whole. Nothing in the published accounts names the excavation’s director, so the findings are credited to the ministry that runs the project, and its minister is the only named voice on the record.

Thousands of ceramics from Rhosus

Türkiye’s Culture and Tourism Ministry announced the finds in a statement that Hürriyet Daily News reported, saying excavations that began in 2025 at the ceramic-laden wreck in Kumluca district are shedding light on ancient dining culture and Mediterranean trade. The ministry has not published an exact piece count, so “thousands” is the figure the record supports and the only one this article uses.

Most of the tableware came from Rhosus, an ancient settlement near modern Arsuz in Hatay Province, according to HeritageDaily’s account. The recovered forms include serving dishes, soup bowls, fish plates and trays, the full range of a formal Roman table, and Bianet adds nut dishes to the list. The mix of Rhosus tableware with amphorae from several Aegean islands points to a ship that had called at more than one port before the storm caught it, and the ministry reads the combined cargo as a link between Antioch, the Aegean, Greece and Italy. The 122 variations in shape and size suggest a cargo assembled for a market rather than for a single household, since a buyer furnishing one dining room would not need that many patterns.

The count has also grown with the work. When the wreck first drew attention in July 2025, Wanderlust reported a cargo of eastern sigillata, a red-slipped tableware, in roughly 25 distinct designs from the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman period. The later statement lists 122 forms and sizes, which reflects a year of excavation rather than a contradiction, though the two accounts count differently and the ministry has not reconciled them in public.

Antioch coins and the dating of the wreck

The 2,100-year figure rests on coinage. Coins from Antioch dating to the first century BC were found at the site, and Baird Maritime’s summary of the ministry’s findings says they anchor the vessel to the middle of that century, a span historians file under the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods.

Coins give a floor, not an exact year, so the ministry says mid-first century BC rather than naming one. Aegean amphorae lay among the Rhosus ceramics.

Cicero’s order and a route toward Rome

Ancient letters give the Rhosus pottery a reputation. Around 50 BC the Roman orator Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus that he had ordered ceramic vessels for him from Rhosus, a detail Bianet’s report ties directly to the wreck. A letter from a statesman about shopping for dishes is a rare piece of evidence that the ware counted as a prestige purchase.

The ministry suggests the ship left Arsuz bound for Rome, with Antioch, the Aegean, Greece and Italy all linked by the objects aboard. Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the finds reveal the luxury dining culture of the period, and Marine Insight quotes him adding that they show what tableware was used and traded across the Mediterranean.

Packing explains the survival. In the ministry’s description, clay was packed between nested pieces, and the wooden boxes then held the stacks in place as the hull broke up, leaving designs on many vessels clearly visible. Underwater teams are still working the site with robotic equipment, and the ministry expects further results on trade routes and on the ship itself, the part of the story the ceramics cannot tell on their own.

Ersoy has framed the wreck as one of many on this coast. Wanderlust, which dates the discovery to July 8, 2025, says he dived to inspect the site himself and quotes him saying that along the stretch from Patara to Mersin alone, more than 400 shipwrecks have been identified, and the recovered pieces are due to go on display at the Mediterranean Underwater Archaeology Museum now under construction in the Kemer-Idyros area, with conservation work handled for the time being by a regional restoration laboratory.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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