Wreck Map
Shipwrecks of the ancient Mediterranean
A browsable edition of the Oxford Roman Economy Project’s shipwreck database: 1,818 wrecks from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, most of them Roman, with their dates, positions, cargoes and amphora types. The count includes Roman-period wrecks that are not in that database, added from Harvard’s Mapping Past Societies geodatabase.
数据库简介
本平台为牛津罗马经济项目（Oxford Roman Economy Project，简称 OXREP）沉船数据库的可交互浏览版本，共收录沉船记录 条，年代上起青铜时代，下迄中世纪，以罗马时期沉船为核心主体。每条记录可查看沉船断代、地理位置、船货类型、双耳瓶型式等详细信息。
除 OXREP 原始数据外，本库额外补入 艘罗马时期沉船记录，数据源自哈佛大学「Mapping Past Societies（过往社会制图）」项目地理数据库。
Wreck Map
Every located wreck on a terrain map of the Mediterranean world, with its ancient coastline.
Open the map 1,818wrecksRegister of Wrecks
Sort and page through every record, or copy your selection as a table.
Browse the registerWrecks by Date
How the number of wrecks rises to the first century AD and falls away again.
See the timelineHow to use this site
- Search. Type a wreck name, an amphora type such as Dressel 20, or a place into the box at the top of any page.
- Filter. On the map, register and timeline, narrow the wrecks by sea area, country, period, date range and cargo. The three pages share one selection.
- Read a record. Click a dot on the map or a row in the register for the wreck’s own page: dating, depth, cargo, amphora types, objects and references.
- Go full screen. The map opens full screen with the search and filters beside it.
- 全局检索所有页面顶部均设有搜索框，可输入沉船名称、双耳瓶型式（如 Dressel 20）或地名进行全局搜索。
- 多维度筛选地图、沉船名录、年代时序三个页面共享同一套筛选条件，支持按海域、所属国家、历史时期、年代区间、船货类型缩小范围，筛选结果三页同步生效。
- 详情查看点击地图上的沉船标记，或名录中的对应条目，即可进入单艘沉船详情页，查看其断代结论、水深数据、船货构成、双耳瓶型式、出土器物及参考文献。
- 全屏浏览地图支持全屏显示，全屏模式下搜索与筛选面板保留在侧边，兼顾大视野与操作便利性。
Layers
Wrecks
Polities by date
Reference: the Roman period
Wrecks in view
| Amphora types |
|---|
Each wreck is spread evenly across its date range, so a wreck dated 100 BC – AD 100 adds a quarter of a wreck to each of four 50-year bars. Click a bar to keep only the wrecks whose range overlaps those 50 years, or drag across the chart for a longer span. The window that appears has a handle on each side: drag a handle to widen or narrow it, or drag the window itself to slide it along.
本图采用年代均摊计数法（aoristic sum）：单艘沉船的总计数为 1 艘，会按其完整年代范围，平均拆分到对应时段中。例如一艘断代为公元前 100 年 — 公元 100 年的沉船，会均摊到 4 个 50 年时段内，每个时段计入 0.25 艘。
交互操作说明：
- 点击单个 50 年柱条，可筛选出所有年代范围与该时段有重叠的沉船；
- 在图上拖拽可框选更长的年代区间；
- 选中的时段两侧设有滑块：拖动滑块可放宽或收窄年代区间，拖动区间主体可整体平移时段。
The strip above the chart marks conventional periods as a reading aid. Click a period to use it as the date window; click it again to clear.
By century
| Century | All wrecks | Matching | Share of matching |
|---|
Counts are fractional because of the even spread. Click a century to use it as the date window.
What this is
A browsing interface for the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP) Shipwrecks Database, version 2.1 of March 2017: 1,818 ancient and medieval wrecks from the Mediterranean and neighbouring waters, most of them dated between 600 BC and AD 1500. The database extends A. J. Parker’s catalogue, Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces (Oxford, 1992); the “Parker” number on a record refers to that catalogue.
Wrecks added from Harvard’s geodatabase
A further wrecks come from a second published source: the Summary Geodatabase of Shipwrecks 1500 BCE–1500 CE, Status 2020 (MAPS Scholarly Data Series 2021-1, Mapping Past Societies, Harvard University; last updated July 2021, listed at darmc.harvard.edu/data-availability). That file merges Harvard’s own records with OXREP’s. A row was taken from it only if it has no counterpart in OXREP version 2.1, its date range touches 200 BC to AD 700, and it lies in the Mediterranean or the Black Sea; it includes a few river boats, such as those of Lyon and Aquileia. A row counted as having a counterpart if Harvard records an OXREP identifier for it, if it shares a Parker number or an exact name with an OXREP wreck, if an OXREP wreck with overlapping dates lies within two kilometres, or if the two databases plainly write one name two ways (“Bou-Ferrer” and “Bou Ferrer (Alicante)”, “Levanzo 1” and “Levanzo I”). The last two tests are deliberately cautious, so a few wrecks that really are new may have been left out; equally, a few of those added may be OXREP wrecks under a name too different to recognise.
These records are marked “Harvard MAPS” in the register and on their own pages, and the Source filter separates them. They are thinner than OXREP’s in some ways and fuller in others: Harvard records no sea area, country or period; it does record the year of discovery and describes the cargo in words. So that the filters work for these wrecks too, four things were assigned to them for this explorer, and none of them is Harvard’s own classification. The sea area and the country are those of the five nearest OXREP wrecks, checked one by one on the map and corrected for about twenty (the Turkish shore opposite Chios, for instance, where the nearest OXREP wrecks are Greek; river boats at Lyon, on the Ljubljanica and on the Danube count as “Non-Mediterranean”, as OXREP’s own river finds do). The sea areas follow OXREP’s usage, which is not always a geographer’s: it files eastern Corsica under the Western Mediterranean. The period is read from the date range: before 30 BC Roman Republic, to AD 300 Roman Imperial, to AD 500 Late Roman, later Byzantine, by the midpoint, with “Roman” for ranges of more than four centuries; these are the points at which OXREP’s own dated wrecks change name. The cargo types (amphorae, marble and so on) were read from Harvard’s cargo wording. A record’s own page marks each assigned value. Harvard’s file is not a newer edition of OXREP: it lacks several hundred of OXREP’s wrecks, which is why it supplements the database here instead of replacing it.
This explorer is an independent presentation of that published data.
The three tables
- Shipwrecks: one row per wreck, with position, date range, depth, cargo flags and free-text notes on cargo, hull and equipment.
- Amphorae: 887 rows of amphora types per wreck, with quantities where known. They appear on each wreck’s page and are covered by the search box.
- Shipwreck objects: 2,547 catalogued objects (anchors, columns, blocks, dolia and more), also shown on the wreck pages.
Dates and the timeline
Every dated wreck has an earliest and a latest year; negative years are BC. The date filter keeps a wreck when its range overlaps the chosen window, and drops undated wrecks while a window is set. The timeline uses an aoristic sum: each wreck counts as one in total, divided evenly across the years of its range.
Corrections made for this view
- Two rows (Acquaviva and Acque Chiare) had every value from “Wreck ID” onward shifted two columns to the right; they were realigned.
- “West Mediterranean” was merged into “Western Mediterranean”.
- A garbled apostrophe in two cells was repaired.
- Period names came in 69 spellings. For filtering, variants that differ only in spelling, capitals, abbreviation or plainly synonymous wording were merged (for example “Roman Republican”, “Roman Repbulic” and “Republican” into “Roman Republic”), leaving 39 names. Distinct terms such as “Late Roman” and “Late Roman Imperial” were kept apart, and each wreck’s page still shows the wording as recorded. The date range remains the more consistent way to filter by time.
Base map
The map’s base is physical: an ancient coastline, terrain, rivers and names. Two further layers, off by default, give a political frame for the Roman period only. They and the coastline, the Roman Empire at its extent in AD 117 and the province borders of AD 200, come from the Ancient World Mapping Center (AWMC/geodata), made available under the Open Database License (ODbL). The coastline is the ancient shoreline from the same AWMC data set, as reconstructed for the Roman period: it differs from today’s coast where rivers have since silted up bays and harbours, for example around the Po and Nile deltas, the Maeander valley and Carthage. The file stores the coast as about ten thousand separate line pieces; they were joined into land areas for this map, and where a stretch exists only under another period’s label (nine places) that version was used. The result was checked against modern land and agrees on 99.6% of sample points; the differences are where the coast really has moved. Hill shading and rivers come from Natural Earth (public domain). Once the map is zoomed in over the Mediterranean, the shading is instead computed from elevation data in Terrain Tiles on AWS Open Data, at about 230 metres per pixel; that data set combines SRTM, GMTED, EU-DEM and other sources (attribution). The shading shows today’s terrain, and the rivers follow their modern courses. Coast, outlines and rivers were simplified to between 400 and 800 metres, and borders are approximate. The province file has borders only, without names.
Place names on the map were added by hand for orientation: seas in modern English, land under broad geographic names (Iberia, Anatolia, the Levant), and about fifty ports and cities under their Latin names. Pointing at a port gives the place’s name today. With a date range set, eleven of them take the name of that time (Byzantion, then Byzantium, then Constantinopolis from AD 330; Gadir, Gades, Qādis), and 24 are left off the map before the year they were founded; the years are conventional ones. While a Roman layer is shown, the provinces of about AD 117 are named instead. Their positions are approximate label anchors, not surveyed points.
Reading the map
- The base map can be peeled back layer by layer from the Layers menu above it: ancient coastline, terrain shading, rivers and place names.
- The wrecks span some three thousand years, and no single political map fits them. The Roman Empire of AD 117 and the provinces of AD 200 are therefore reference layers you switch on, not part of the base map. They describe roughly 100 BC to AD 300; when the date range you choose lies wholly outside that, the map leaves them out.
- Set a date range, or tick a period, and the land is tinted by the polities of the nearest of twenty dates between 1250 BC and AD 1450. They are closest together where the wrecks are: 200, 130 and 60 BC for the Roman Republic, AD 14 for the empire Augustus left, AD 117 for its widest extent, AD 300, and AD 400 with the western and eastern empires apart; then AD 565, 750, 900, 1050, 1200, 1350 and 1450. With only a period ticked, the map follows the dates of the middle half of that period’s wrecks. A snapshot is shown only if its date lies within the range or within a century of it; the Layers menu can also hold one date or switch the tints off. The shapes come from Cliopatria (Seshat Global History Databank, version 0.2.1, CC BY 4.0; described in Scientific Data), simplified to about five kilometres for this map. They are one reading of borders that were often vague, contested or seasonal, so they are drawn as soft tints without outlines, and each state is named. Polities covering less than about four square degrees of the map are left out, and where Cliopatria gives both a grouping and its members, the grouping is shown. The tint says only that two neighbours differ; a colour does not follow a state from one date to the next. Expect disagreements with other atlases: in 200 BC, for instance, Cliopatria has no separate Numidia and gives that coast to Rome.
- While the map is zoomed out, wrecks that lie close together are drawn as one disc with their number, so that crowded coasts can be read; the disc sits at their centre and takes the colour most of them have. Click a disc to zoom in on its wrecks; from a scale of about 70 pixels to a degree every wreck is drawn by itself. “Group nearby wrecks” in the Layers menu switches this off and shows every dot at any scale.
- Wrecks recorded at exactly the same position are drawn as one larger dot with their number. Many positions in the database are approximate, so a stack often means “off this site” rather than one spot on the seabed.
- “Colour by” shades the matching wrecks by date (midpoint of the date range), by greatest recorded depth, or by flagged cargo type. Wrecks without that information are open circles drawn underneath the coloured ones, and are counted in the legend. While wrecks are grouped, the ring of a group shows what share of its wrecks falls in each class; the pale part of the ring is the wrecks without the information.
- “Filter to this view” keeps only the wrecks inside the area the map is showing, and applies to the register and the timeline as well.
What the dots do and do not show
A dot is a wreck that has been found, studied and published, so the map shows where and what archaeologists have been able to record as much as where ships sank. The database itself warns that it “should not be viewed as the definitive guide” and has omissions. Students of this material list its known slants: wrecks with amphorae or stone cargoes survive and are recognised far more easily than ships that carried grain, textiles or other perishable goods; North Africa and much of the eastern Mediterranean are thinly represented compared with what is known of their economies; southern France and central Tyrrhenian Italy are the best documented coasts; and many dates rest on amphora types with long or uncertain ranges (D. Robinson, C. M. Rice and K. Schörle, “Ship Losses and the Growth of Roman Harbour Infrastructure”, author’s manuscript in the Oxford University Research Archive). The fall in the number of wrecks after the first century AD is debated for the same reason: it may reflect barrels replacing amphorae, larger and safer ships, or changes in trade, and not simply fewer voyages (the same paper, citing A. Wilson 2011 and M. McCormick 2012).
Citing the data
Cite the underlying database rather than this page. Its own suggested form is: J. Strauss, A. I. Wilson, M. Flohr (2017). OxREP Shipwrecks Database. Version 2.1. Accessed (date): oxrep.web.ox.ac.uk/shipwrecks-database. Version 2.1 is the current release there; an earlier Version 1.0 (Strauss 2013), with 1,784 records, remains online as an archive. Source file used here: .
For a wreck marked “Harvard MAPS”, cite Harvard’s geodatabase instead: The file itself asks users to cite the original publication of each wreck as well; those are given under References on the record’s page.
关于本站
本平台为牛津罗马经济项目（Oxford Roman Economy Project，简称 OXREP）沉船数据库 2.1 版（2017 年 3 月）的可视化浏览界面，收录地中海及邻近水域的古代与中世纪沉船共 艘，年代跨度以公元前 600 年至公元 1500 年为主。
该数据库以 A. J. 帕克所著《地中海与罗马行省古代沉船目录》（Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces, Oxford, 1992）为基础增补修订而成；记录中的「Parker 编号」即对应该目录中的条目编号。
哈佛 MAPS 项目补录沉船说明
除 OXREP 原始数据外，本平台额外补录了 艘沉船记录，数据源自已发表的《公元前 1500 年 — 公元 1500 年沉船综合地理数据库（2020 年版）》（Summary Geodatabase of Shipwrecks 1500 BCE–1500 CE, Status 2020，MAPS Scholarly Data Series 2021-1，哈佛大学「Mapping Past Societies（过往社会制图）」项目，2021 年 7 月更新，数据主页：https://darmc.harvard.edu/data-availability）。
该原始数据集整合了哈佛团队自主采集的记录与 OXREP 数据，本平台仅选取同时满足以下三项条件的条目作为补录内容：
- 在 OXREP 2.1 版数据库中无对应记录；
- 年代范围与公元前 200 年 — 公元 700 年存在交集；
- 沉船位于地中海或黑海海域。
补录条目包含少量内河沉船，例如里昂、阿奎莱亚出土的内河船只。
去重匹配规则
判断「是否为 OXREP 已有重复记录」的标准如下：
- 哈佛数据中已标注对应 OXREP 编号；
- 与 OXREP 沉船的 Parker 编号、船名完全一致；
- 沉船点位相距 2 公里以内，且年代范围存在重叠；
- 仅为同一名称的不同书写形式（如 “Bou-Ferrer” 与 “Bou Ferrer (Alicante)”、“Levanzo 1” 与 “Levanzo I”）。
本匹配规则设定偏严格，可能会遗漏少量确属新增的沉船记录；反之，补录条目中也可能存在少量实际已收录于 OXREP、但因名称差异过大未被识别的条目。
数据标注与补全说明
所有补录记录在沉船名录及详情页中均标注「Harvard MAPS」来源标识，也可通过「来源」筛选项单独筛选查看。
与 OXREP 原始记录相比，补录数据的信息详略各有不同：哈佛数据库不记录海域、所属国家与历史时期划分，但包含发现年份，并以文字形式描述船货信息。为保证全站筛选功能统一适用，本平台为补录记录补充了四项非哈佛原生的分类信息，详情页中会明确标注哪些内容为平台推定：
- 海域与国家：参考距离最近的 5 艘 OXREP 沉船的归属划分，再逐一对照地图人工核对修正（共调整约 20 条记录，例如希俄斯岛对岸的土耳其沿岸沉船，原就近匹配为希腊，已予以修正；里昂、卢布尔雅尼察河、多瑙河的内河沉船归入「地中海以外」，与 OXREP 对内河遗存的处理规则一致）。海域划分沿用 OXREP 标准，与自然地理划分略有差异，例如科西嘉岛东岸被归入西地中海。
- 历史时期：按沉船年代范围的中点推定：公元前 30 年以前为罗马共和国时期，公元 300 年以前为罗马帝国时期，公元 500 年以前为罗马晚期，此后为拜占庭时期；年代跨度超过 400 年的统一标注为「罗马时期」。上述分界点取自 OXREP 自身有年代的沉船改换时期名称之处。
- 船货类型：根据哈佛数据库中的船货文字描述，提取归类为双耳瓶、大理石等类型。
需要说明的是，哈佛该数据集并非 OXREP 的更新版本，其未收录 OXREP 中的数百条沉船记录，因此本平台仅将其作为补充数据，而非替换原始数据库。
本平台为上述已公开学术数据的独立可视化呈现。
核心数据表
本平台包含三类核心数据表：
- 沉船主表：每条记录对应一艘沉船，包含地理位置、年代范围、水深、船货类型标识，以及船货、船体结构、船具的文字描述。
- 双耳瓶明细表：共 条记录，逐艘列明沉船出土的双耳瓶型式，已知数量的同时标注。该数据同步展示于对应沉船详情页，且纳入全局搜索范围。
- 沉船器物表：共收录 件器物（含锚、石柱、石料、大型陶瓮等），同样展示于对应沉船详情页。
所有沉船的备注信息、船货说明、船体遗存与器物描述，均保留数据库编者的英文原文，中文界面下标注「原文」标识；船名、双耳瓶型式与参考文献也均保留原文。检索上述内容时请使用英文关键词。
年代规则补充
所有标注了断代的沉船均包含最早年代与最晚年代两个节点；数据字段及年份输入框中，公元前年份以负数表示。年代筛选规则为：保留所有年代范围与所选时段存在重叠的沉船；设定年代区间后，年代不详的沉船将不再显示。年代分布图采用均摊计数（aoristic sum）：每艘沉船合计算作一艘，平均分摊到其年代范围内的各年。
本站所作的更正
- 有两行（Acquaviva 和 Acque Chiare）从「Wreck ID」一栏起，所有数值都向右错了两列，已予对齐。
- 「West Mediterranean」并入「Western Mediterranean」。
- 修复了两个单元格中的一处乱码撇号。
- 时期名称原有 69 种写法。为便于筛选，仅在拼写、大小写、缩写或明显同义的措辞上有差别的写法已予合并（例如「Roman Republican」「Roman Repbulic」和「Republican」并入「Roman Republic」），合并后为 39 个名称。含义不同的名称（如「Late Roman」与「Late Roman Imperial」）仍然分开，各沉船页面上也保留了原始写法。要按时间筛选，年代范围仍是更一致的办法。
底图
地图的底图是自然地理图：古代海岸线、地形、河流和地名。另有两个默认关闭的图层，只为罗马时期提供政区参照。这两个图层（公元 117 年罗马帝国的疆域和公元 200 年的行省边界）和海岸线都来自古代世界制图中心（Ancient World Mapping Center，AWMC/geodata），依开放数据库许可（ODbL）发布。海岸线取自同一数据集中为罗马时期复原的古代岸线：在河流后来淤塞了海湾和港口的地方，它与今天的海岸不同，例如波河与尼罗河三角洲、迈安德河谷和迦太基一带。原文件把海岸存成大约一万条互不相连的线段，本站把它们拼接成了陆地面；有九处岸段只在其他时期的标签下才有，就采用了那个版本。拼接结果与现代陆地作过比对，99.6% 的抽样点一致，不一致之处正是海岸确实发生了移动的地方。地形晕渲和河流来自 Natural Earth（公有领域）。地图在地中海范围内放大之后，晕渲改由 AWS Open Data 上 Terrain Tiles 的高程数据计算，分辨率约为每像素 230 米；该数据集综合了 SRTM、GMTED、EU-DEM 等来源（署名说明）。晕渲表现的是今天的地形，河流也按现代河道绘制。海岸、轮廓和河流都简化到 400 至 800 米的精度，边界只是大致位置。行省文件只有边界，没有名称。
地图上的地名是为方便辨认而手工添加的：海域用现代名称，陆地用宽泛的地理名称（伊比利亚、安纳托利亚、黎凡特），约五十个港口和城市用拉丁名称。中文界面下，有通行译名的显示译名，其余保留拉丁文。将鼠标移到港口上，可以看到它的拉丁名称和今天的名称。设定年代区间后，其中十一处会改用当时的名称（如拜占庭在公元 330 年以后称君士坦丁堡；加的斯先后称 Gadir、Gades、Qādis），另有 24 处在其建城年份之前不显示；这些年份都取通行的说法。显示罗马图层时，改为标注约公元 117 年的各行省。这些名称的位置只是大致的标注点，并非实测位置。
怎样读这张地图
- 底图可以在地图上方的「图层」菜单里逐层关闭：古代海岸线、地形晕渲、河流和地名。
- 这些沉船前后跨越约三千年，没有哪一张政区图能适用于全部。因此，公元 117 年的罗马帝国和公元 200 年的行省是需要手动打开的参考图层，不属于底图。它们大致适用于公元前 100 年至公元 300 年；所选年代区间完全在此之外时，地图不再绘制它们。
- 设定年代区间或勾选某个时期之后，陆地会按最接近的年份着上各政权的颜色；可用的年份共二十个，从公元前 1250 年到公元 1450 年。沉船最集中的时段年份最密：罗马共和国时期有公元前 200 年、前 130 年和前 60 年，公元 14 年是奥古斯都留下的帝国，公元 117 年是帝国疆域最广之时，此后是公元 300 年，以及东西两个帝国分立的公元 400 年；再往后是公元 565、750、900、1050、1200、1350 和 1450 年。只勾选时期而不设年代区间时，地图取该时期沉船年代居中一半的范围。只有当某幅政区图的年份落在所选范围之内，或相距不超过一个世纪时才会显示；也可以在「图层」菜单里固定某一年份，或关闭着色。政区轮廓来自 Cliopatria（Seshat 全球历史数据库，0.2.1 版，CC BY 4.0；介绍见 Scientific Data），本站简化到约五公里的精度。历史上的边界往往模糊、有争议或随季节变动，这些轮廓只是其中一种解读，所以只用不带轮廓线的淡色表示，并标出各政权的名称。在图上面积不足约四平方度的政权不显示；Cliopatria 同时给出某个集团及其成员时，显示集团。颜色只表示相邻两个政权不同，同一政权在不同年份的颜色并不固定。与其他历史地图集相比会有出入：例如公元前 200 年，Cliopatria 没有单列努米底亚，而把那段海岸划给了罗马。
- 地图缩小时，相距很近的沉船会聚合成一个带数字的标记，这样沉船密集的海岸才看得清；聚合标记位于这些沉船的中心，取其中多数沉船的颜色。点击聚合标记可放大查看明细；比例尺达到每度约 70 像素之后，每艘沉船都单独绘制。在「图层」菜单里关闭「缩小视图时聚合邻近的沉船」，则在任何比例下都逐点显示。
- 记录位置完全相同的沉船画成一个带数字的放大圆点，表示该点位记录有对应数量的沉船。数据库中许多位置只是大致位置，所以叠在一起往往表示「在这处遗址附近的海域」，而不是海底的同一个点。
- 「着色依据」可以按年代（年代范围的中点）、记录的最大水深或标注的船货类型给符合筛选条件的沉船着色。没有这项信息的沉船画成空心圆，压在有颜色的圆点下面，图例中也计入其数量。沉船聚合显示时，聚合标记的外环表示其中各类所占的比例，浅色部分是没有这项信息的沉船。
- 「只看当前视野」只保留地图当前显示范围内的沉船，对名录和年代页面同样生效。
这些圆点说明了什么，没有说明什么
一个圆点代表一艘已被发现、研究并发表的沉船。因此这张图反映的既是船只沉没的地点，也是考古学家得以记录的地点和内容。数据库本身就提醒读者，它「不应被视为定论」，并且有遗漏。研究这批材料的学者列举过它已知的偏向：载有双耳瓶或石材的沉船，远比载运谷物、纺织品等易腐货物的船只容易保存下来，也容易被辨认；与已知的经济规模相比，北非和东地中海大部分地区的沉船数量偏少；法国南部和意大利中部第勒尼安海沿岸是记录最充分的海岸；许多沉船的年代依据的是双耳瓶型式，而这些型式的使用年代很长或并不确定（D. Robinson、C. M. Rice、K. Schörle，“Ship Losses and the Growth of Roman Harbour Infrastructure”，牛津大学研究文档库所存作者稿）。公元 1 世纪以后沉船数量的下降同样存在争议：它可能反映的是木桶取代了双耳瓶、船只更大更安全，或贸易格局的变化，而不单是航行次数减少（同一篇文章，引 A. Wilson 2011 和 M. McCormick 2012）。
如何引用
请引用原数据库，而不是本页面。数据库建议的引用格式是：J. Strauss, A. I. Wilson, M. Flohr (2017). OxREP Shipwrecks Database. Version 2.1. Accessed (date): oxrep.web.ox.ac.uk/shipwrecks-database。2.1 版是该网站目前的版本；较早的 1.0 版（Strauss 2013，1,784 条记录）仍作为存档保留在线。本站使用的源文件：。
标有「Harvard MAPS」的沉船，请改引哈佛的地理数据库： 该文件还要求使用者同时引用每艘沉船的原始出版物，这些出版物列在各记录页面的「参考文献」一栏。