A storm presumably drove the ship onto the north African coast en route from
Piraeus, the port of Athens, to Italy, as it was carrying Greek works of art intended for Roman purchasers, marble and bronze sculptures, high-quality furniture fittings, decorative items, and architectural elements. These were later restored by researchers from the
Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn in Germany. There were also several dozen heavy marble columns and parts of catapults. It has been generally thought that the marble columns were removed and shipped by order of
Lucius Cornelius Sulla after his
sacking of Athens in 86 BC. None of the epic-scaled Homeric figures that gained popularity in the 1st century BC were to be found, nor any copies of Classical works of the 5th century, as Nikolaus Himmelmann pointed out, contrasting the Mahdia cargo with the similar cargo of the somewhat later
Antikythera ship. Recovered was a marble bust probably of
Ariadne, two large-scale bronzes, a
herm figure of a turbaned
Dionysus, inscribed with the name of its maker, Boëthos of
Chalcedon, and a lithe, winged olive-wreathed boy, identified by scholars as Agon or
Eros Enagonios, Eros as lord of contests, a bronze bust of Ariadne, and two bronze figurines of dancing dwarfs. Among five smaller bronzes, found at the site in 1910, was the
satyr illustrated at right. The site also contained
lead objects, including anchors, tubes, and plates, and ingots that, according to their
isotope-composition, seem to come from the
Sierra de Cartagena in
Spain. ==See also==