A team of maritime archaeologists has successfully mapped a previously unknown 15th-century trade route dubbed the 'Malachite and Alum Seaway.' Using deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), researchers identified a string of shipwreck sites containing Venetian glass and Italian alum alongside East African malachite and gold, spanning from the Mediterranean to the Swahili Coast.
This discovery confirms that direct maritime exchange between the Venetian Republic and the merchant cities of East Africa was far more extensive than previously documented in written archives. The findings suggest that the globalized economy of the Renaissance was deeply reliant on these high-risk, high-reward maritime corridors that bypassed traditional overland Silk Road routes.