Container Shipping

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A t the beginning of the twentieth century, goods carried in the world’s ships were packed in a variety of types of containers — barrels, boxes, bags, pallets, and cartons — which were loaded into and unloaded from the holds of ships by skilled longshoremen. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the vast majority of goods are packed in standardized steel shipping containers, which are loaded and unloaded by huge cranes directly onto trucks and railcars. In 2005 there were nearly 20 million containers in use around the world, which had made about 200 million trips. Containers radically changed shipping, which moved to ports where giant ships could dock, and dramatically lowered transport costs, contributing to the globalization of production.

The history of standardized shipping containers is actually much longer than a century, however. In the fourth millennium B.C.E. large two-handled pottery jars called amphoras first appeared in the Mediterranean. They had a wide mouth, a round belly, and a base and became the workhorse of maritime shipping because they protected contents from water and rodents. They were easy and cheap to produce, were surprisingly durable, and could easily be reused. Amphoras contained all sorts of goods — wine, olive oil, spices, unguents, dried fish, olives, grapes, and the pine pitch used to caulk ships so that they would not leak. The amphora’s dependability and versatility kept it in use until the seventh century C.E.

In the Hellenistic period amphoras became ubiquitous throughout the Mediterranean and carried goods eastward to the Black Sea, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea. The Ptolemies of Egypt sent amphoras and their contents farther still, to Arabia, eastern Africa, and India. Thus merchants and mariners who had never seen the Mediterranean depended on these containers, just as people today depend on goods sent in shipping containers from places they have never been. Like modern containers, amphoras often had stamps, inscriptions, or other markings indicating where they were made, where they were going, and what their contents were. These markings and the remains of the amphoras’ contents have provided marine archaeologists and historians with much of their information about trade in the Hellenistic world. Amphoras made specifically for wine seem to have been standardized in size and shape so that they could fit on racks in ships, making long-distance shipping of wine cheaper and easier, just as steel containers have made the shipping of breakable wine bottles — and every other commodity — cheaper and easier today.

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