Let's Put to Bed the Issue Of Malays and the Myth of Roman Shipwrights
14 Nov 2025 • 11:30 AM MYT
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Mihar Dias
A behaviourist by training, a consultant and executive coach by profession
Image credit: Britannica
By Mihar Dias November 2025
Every now and then, someone decides to rewrite history with the imagination of a Netflix scriptwriter — claiming, with chest-thumping pride, that ancient Malays once taught the Romans how to build ships.
Yes, those same Romans whose empire stretched from Britain to North Africa, whose galleys ruled the Mediterranean for centuries — apparently got their maritime wisdom from people who hadn’t even heard of them.
Let’s put that myth to bed once and for all.
According to Victor Labate’s well-researched study, Roman Shipbuilding & Navigation (World History Encyclopedia, 2017), the Romans were not born sailors at all. They were land-loving soldiers and farmers who learned shipbuilding from the people they conquered — namely the Carthaginians, Greeks, Egyptians, and their Phoenician forebears (Labate, 2017).
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
None of these, the last time we checked, were found anywhere near the Straits of Malacca.
By the 6th century BCE — that’s roughly two thousand years before Hang Tuah — Mediterranean shipwrights were already joining planks with the locked mortise-and-tenon technique, a hallmark of classical naval craftsmanship.
The Romans later evolved this into the more efficient “frame-first” method, which became the foundation for modern shipbuilding (Labate, 2017).
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
In short, their technology was the product of millennia of Mediterranean innovation, not imported from some distant tropical archipelago.
Roman warships like the trireme and quinquereme weren’t humble fishing boats either. They were lightweight, fast, and armed with bronze rams designed to smash enemy hulls. These were machines of war — not the handiwork of island craftsmen experimenting with outrigger canoes.
Their merchant ships, some capable of carrying up to 600 tons of cargo, traversed the Mediterranean centuries before the first Malay seafarers ventured beyond the South China Sea (Labate, 2017).
None of these, the last time we checked, were found anywhere near the Straits of Malacca.
By the 6th century BCE — that’s roughly two thousand years before Hang Tuah — Mediterranean shipwrights were already joining planks with the locked mortise-and-tenon technique, a hallmark of classical naval craftsmanship.
The Romans later evolved this into the more efficient “frame-first” method, which became the foundation for modern shipbuilding (Labate, 2017).
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
In short, their technology was the product of millennia of Mediterranean innovation, not imported from some distant tropical archipelago.
Roman warships like the trireme and quinquereme weren’t humble fishing boats either. They were lightweight, fast, and armed with bronze rams designed to smash enemy hulls. These were machines of war — not the handiwork of island craftsmen experimenting with outrigger canoes.
Their merchant ships, some capable of carrying up to 600 tons of cargo, traversed the Mediterranean centuries before the first Malay seafarers ventured beyond the South China Sea (Labate, 2017).
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
And let’s not forget navigation. Roman sailors used the stars, winds, and coastlines to find their way — techniques inherited from the Phoenicians who charted by the constellations long before any compass made it to Europe (Labate, 2017).
And let’s not forget navigation. Roman sailors used the stars, winds, and coastlines to find their way — techniques inherited from the Phoenicians who charted by the constellations long before any compass made it to Europe (Labate, 2017).
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
They recorded detailed periploi — written sailing directions — by the 4th century BCE, effectively creating the ancient world’s first maritime manuals.
By the height of the Empire, Rome’s fleets dominated what they proudly called Mare Nostrum — “our sea.”
Thousands of ships sailed regular trade routes between Egypt, Greece, and Italy, feeding a city of over a million people through ports like Ostia and Pozzuoli. That was the logistics backbone of an empire — not the handiwork of some forgotten Malay maritime apprenticeship programmes.
So, let’s give credit where it’s due. Roman naval power came from centuries of Mediterranean innovation and conquest, not from a transoceanic collaboration that never happened.
The Romans built their empire on land and sea, while our ancestors — brilliant navigators in their own right — mastered the island trade routes of the Malay Archipelago. Both are achievements worth celebrating, but let’s not mix the curry with the carbonara.
Because, frankly, the idea that Romans learned shipbuilding from Malays isn’t history — it’s historical fan fiction.
References:
Victor Labate, Roman Shipbuilding & Navigation, World History Encyclopedia, published 6 March 2017. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
They recorded detailed periploi — written sailing directions — by the 4th century BCE, effectively creating the ancient world’s first maritime manuals.
By the height of the Empire, Rome’s fleets dominated what they proudly called Mare Nostrum — “our sea.”
Thousands of ships sailed regular trade routes between Egypt, Greece, and Italy, feeding a city of over a million people through ports like Ostia and Pozzuoli. That was the logistics backbone of an empire — not the handiwork of some forgotten Malay maritime apprenticeship programmes.
So, let’s give credit where it’s due. Roman naval power came from centuries of Mediterranean innovation and conquest, not from a transoceanic collaboration that never happened.
The Romans built their empire on land and sea, while our ancestors — brilliant navigators in their own right — mastered the island trade routes of the Malay Archipelago. Both are achievements worth celebrating, but let’s not mix the curry with the carbonara.
Because, frankly, the idea that Romans learned shipbuilding from Malays isn’t history — it’s historical fan fiction.
References:
Victor Labate, Roman Shipbuilding & Navigation, World History Encyclopedia, published 6 March 2017. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/
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