Rogues and Renegadoes : A Ceramic Cargo from a Barbary Coast Shipwreck (Site T3D), first half of the 18th century

Résumé En

Site T3D is the wreck of a small ship discovered by Odyssey Marine Exploration at a depth of 835 metres, midway between Morocco and Spain in the westernmost Mediterranean Sea. The ship was a coastal tartane, around 14 metres in length, well equipped with European-style material culture, including two glass wine or liqueur bottles and an early form of spyglass. For its size, the tartane was heavily armed with four 3-pounder Danish cannon and multiple muskets. Ten wrought-iron swivel guns were stowed midships. Its ceramics suggest it originated in the Regency of Algiers, the corsair capital of the Barbary Coast. When lost, this small coaster was seemingly tramping passed the Kingdom of Morocco, selling pottery and possibly a decomposed organic consignment. The sample of 157 ceramic wares examined include bowls, storage jars, water jars, pharmaceutical jars, jugs, cooking-pots, ovens, basins, oil-lamps. The majority share close profiles with pottery excavated in Martyrs Square in Algiers and probably produced there as a recent study shows. This wide variety of pottery wares was the principal cargo. However, Ottoman tobacco pipes and Kütahya coffee cups, in limited numbers, are indicative of domestic assemblage used by the ship’s crew. This shipwreck is the first site that can be associated with the infamous corsair town of Algiers and its cargo of ceramics is the first testimony of the international trade of the Algerian production in the Mediterranean.