A Brief Western History of Warehousing (Part 1)

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How old are distribution centers anyway? This two-parter will delve into the origins the modern warehouse.

If you need 225,000 square feet for your next distribution center project, you could lease that space outside of Rome at the Horrea Galba complex. While technically this property was a series of smaller buildings, it stands as a reminder that  humans have been warehousing product for a long time. The next time you walk through a gorgeous, highly integrated distribution center with automated sorting, robotic picking, and miles & miles of conveyors; remember this ancient facility is estimated to contain the remains of at least 53 million olive oil jars, in which some 6 billion liters (1.58 billion gallons) of oil were imported to Rome from Spain.

Is this the next 3PL company lease location? It’s the Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana, built in Ostia, Italy c. 145-150 AD.

Is this the next 3PL company lease location? It’s the Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana, built in Ostia, Italy c. 145-150 AD.

Humans have been storing their excess trade goods and trade goods in transit since the second century before Christ. One of the best-preserved warehouses is in Ostia, Italy. There you can see the Horrea Epagathiana. It was used to store a diverse lot of goods from paper, clothes, wax, peppers and oil to hides, rope and sun-dried tomatoes.

The Roman design spread all over Europe. It wasn’t until the medieval period that we began to see a new kind of structure come into fashion, the agricultural tithe barn. These were often larger than the previous horreas and were built to store the church’s required 10% tithe from farmers.

In Part 2 we’ll continue to explore the fascinating evolution of warehouse design: from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century.

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