Unpopular opinion: The week they found the Roman shipwreck in Mallorca was the best thing to happen in years

That was back in 2019, and it was the most exciting week I can remember in this field. They pulled up over 100 amphorae from a 1,700-year-old wreck just off the coast. The local news was showing it live, and you could see the jars coming up intact. It felt like a real win, not just some broken pottery in a trench. What other recent finds have actually made you stop and pay attention?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivera.susan1mo ago

Look, I get the appeal of a big survey finding a bunch of new sites. But saying the Mallorca wreck was "just more amphorae" misses the point. For maritime archaeology, a shipwreck that intact, with its cargo still stacked, is a time capsule. It's not about adding jars to a shelf. It's about the story of that single ship, its last trip, and why it went down. The LiDAR stuff is great for scale, but that wreck gave us a complete snapshot you just don't get from foundations in a jungle.

oscarwright1mo ago

Totally disagree, that find was overhyped. It was just more amphorae, we have thousands of those already. The real game changer was the new LiDAR survey in Guatemala last year that mapped hundreds of unknown Maya structures. That rewrote whole chapters overnight, not just added to a collection.