ANCIENT SHIPS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND RED SEAS.
It is not difficult to imagine how mankind first conceived the idea of
making use of floating structures to enable him to traverse stretches of
water. The trunk of a tree floating down a river may have given him his
first notions. He would not be long in discovering that the tree could
support more than its own weight without sinking. From the single trunk
to a raft, formed of several stems lashed together, the step would not
be a long one. Similarly, once it was noticed that a trunk, or log,
could carry more than its own weight and float, the idea would naturally
soon occur to any one to diminish the inherent weight of the log by
hollowing it out and thus increase its carrying capacity; the subsequent
improvements of shaping the underwater portion so as to make the
elementary boat handy, and to diminish its resistance in the water, and
of fitting up the interior so as to give facilities for navigating the
vessel and for accommodating in it human beings and goods, would all
come by degrees with experience. Even to the present day beautiful
specimens exist of such boats, or canoes, admirably formed out of
hollowed tree-trunks. They are made by many uncivilized peoples, such as
the islanders of the Pacific and some of the tribes of Central Africa.
Probably the earliest type of _built-up_ boat was made by stretching
skins on a frame. To this class belonged the coracle of the Ancient
Britons, which is even now in common use on the Atlantic seaboard of
Ireland. The transition from a raft to a flat-bottomed boat was a very
obvious improvement, and such vessels were probably the immediate
forerunners of ships.
It is usual to refer to Noah's ark as the oldest ship of which there is
any authentic record. Since, however, Egypt has been systematically
explored, pictures of vessels have been discovered immensely older than
the ark--that is to say, if the date usually assigned to the latter
(2840 B.C.) can be accepted as approximately correct; and, as we shall
see hereafter (p. 25), there are vessels _now in existence in Egypt
which were built_ about this very period. The ark was a vessel of such
enormous size that the mere fact that it was constructed argues a very
advanced knowledge and experience on the part of the contemporaries of
Noah. Its dimensions were, according to the biblical version, reckoning
the cubit at eighteen inches; length, 450 feet; breadth, 75 feet; and
depth, 45 feet. If very full in form its "registered tonnage" would have
been nearly 15,000. According to the earlier Babylonian version, the
depth was equal to the breadth, but, unfortunately, the figures of the
measurements are not legible.
It has been sometimes suggested that the ark was a huge raft with a
superstructure, or house, built on it, of the dimensions given above.
There does not, however, appear to be the slightest reason for
concurring with this suggestion. On the contrary, the biblical account
of the structure of the ark is so detailed, that we have no right to
suppose that the description of the most important part of it, the
supposed raft, to which its power of floating would have been due, would
have been omitted. Moreover, the whole account reads like the
description of a ship-shaped structure.
SHIPBUILDING IN EGYPT.
The earliest information on the building of ships is found, as might be
expected, on the Egyptian tombs and monuments. It is probable that the
valley of the Nile was also the first land bordering on the
Mediterranean in which ships, as distinguished from more elementary
craft, were constructed. Everything is in favour of such a supposition.
In the first place, the country was admirably situated, geographically,
for the encouragement of the art of navigation, having seaboards on two
important inland seas which commanded the commerce of Europe and Asia.
In the next place, the habitable portion of Egypt consisted of a long
narrow strip of densely peopled, fertile territory, bordering a great
navigable river, which formed a magnificent highway throughout the whole
extent of the country. It is impossible to conceive of physical
circumstances more conducive to the discovery and development of the
arts of building and navigating floating structures. The experience
gained on the safe waters of the Nile would be the best preparation for
taking the bolder step of venturing on the open seas. The character of
the two inland seas which form the northern and eastern frontiers of
Egypt was such as to favour, to the greatest extent, the spirit of
adventure. As a rule, their waters are relatively calm, and the
distances to be traversed to reach other lands are inconsiderable. We
know that the ancient Egyptians, at a period which the most modern
authorities place at about 7,000 years ago, had already attained to a
very remarkable degree of civilisation and to a knowledge of the arts of
construction on land which has never since been excelled. What is more
natural than to suppose that the genius and science which enabled them
to build the Pyramids and their vast temples and palaces, to construct
huge works for the regulation of the Nile, and to quarry, work into
shape, and move into place blocks of granite weighing in some cases
several hundreds of tons, should also lead them to excel in the art of
building ships? Not only the physical circumstances, but the habits and
the religion of the people created a demand, even a necessity, for the
existence of navigable floating structures. At the head of the delta of
the Nile was the ancient capital, the famous city of Memphis, near to
which were built the Pyramids, as tombs in which might be preserved
inviolate until the day of resurrection, the embalmed bodies of their
kings. The roofs of the burial chambers in the heart of the Pyramids
were prevented from falling in, under the great weight of the
superincumbent mass, by huge blocks, or beams, of the hardest granite,
meeting at an angle above the chambers. The long galleries by which the
chambers were approached were closed after the burial by enormous gates,
consisting of blocks of granite, which were let down from above, sliding
in grooves like the portcullis of a feudal castle. In this way it was
hoped to preserve the corpse contained in the chamber absolutely
inviolate. The huge blocks of granite, which weighed from 50 to 60 tons
each, were supposed to be too heavy ever to be moved again after they
had been once lowered into position, and they were so hard that it was
believed they could never be pierced. Now, even if we had no other
evidence to guide us, the existence of these blocks of granite in the
Pyramids would afford the strongest presumption that the Egyptians of
that remote time were perfectly familiar with the arts of inland
navigation, for the stone was quarried at Assouan, close to the first
cataract, 583 miles above Cairo, and could only have been conveyed from
the quarry to the building site by water.
In the neighbourhood of Memphis are hundreds of other blocks of granite
from Assouan, many of them of enormous size. The Pyramid of Men-kau-Ra,
or Mycerinus, built about 3633 B.C., was once entirely encased with
blocks from Assouan. The Temple of the Sphinx, built at a still earlier
date, was formed, to a large extent, of huge pieces of the same
material, each measuring 15 x 5 x 3.2 feet, and weighing about 18 tons.
The mausoleum of the sacred bulls at Sakara contains numbers of Assouan
granite sarcophagi, some of which measure 13 x 8 x 11 feet. These are
but a few instances, out of the many existing, from which we may infer
that, even so far back as the fourth dynasty, the Egyptians made use of
the arts of inland navigation. We are, however, fortunately not obliged
to rely on inference, for we have direct evidence from the sculptures
and records on the ancient tombs. Thanks to these, we now know what the
ancient Nile boats were like, and how they were propelled, and what
means were adopted for transporting the huge masses of building material
which were used in the construction of the temples and monuments.
The art of reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions was first discovered
about the year 1820, and the exploration of the tombs and monuments has
only been prosecuted systematically during the last five-and-twenty
years. Most of the knowledge of ancient Egyptian ships has, therefore,
been acquired in quite recent times, and much of it only during the last
year or two. This is the reason why, in the old works on shipbuilding,
no information is given on this most interesting subject. Knowledge is,
however, now being increased every day, and, thanks to the practice of
the ancient Egyptians of recording their achievements in sculpture in a
material which is imperishable in a dry climate, we possess at the
present day, probably, a more accurate knowledge of their ships than we
do of those of any other ancient or mediaeval people.
By far the oldest boats of which anything is now known were built in
Egypt by the people who inhabited that country before the advent of the
Pyramid-builders. It is only within the last few years that these tombs
have been explored and critically examined. They are now supposed to be
of Libyan origin and to date from between 5000 and 6000 B.C. In many of
these tombs vases of pottery have been discovered, on which are painted
rude representations of ships. Some of the latter were of remarkable
size and character. Fig. 2 is taken from one of these vases. It is a
river scene, showing two boats in procession. The pyramid-shaped mounds
in the background represent a row of hills. These boats are evidently of
very large size. One of them has 58 oars, or more probably paddles, on
each side, and two large cabins amidships, connected by a flying bridge,
and with spaces fenced off from the body of the vessel. The steering
was, apparently, effected by means of three large paddles on each side,
and from the prow of one of the boats hangs a weight, which was probably
intended for an anchor. It will be noticed that the two ends of these
vessels, like the Nile boats of the Egyptians proper, were not
waterborne. A great many representations of these boats have now been
discovered. They all have the same leading characteristics, though they
differ very much in size. Amongst other peculiarities they invariably
have an object at the prow resembling two branches of palm issuing from
a stalk, and also a mast carrying an ensign at the after-cabin.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--The oldest known ships. Between 5000 and 6000
B.C.]
Some explorers are of opinion that these illustrations do not represent
boats, but fortifications, or stockades of some sort. If we relied only
on the rude representations painted on the vases, the question might be
a moot one. It has, however, been definitely set at rest by Professor
Flinders Petrie, who, in the year 1899, brought back from Egypt very
large drawings of the same character, taken, not from vases, but from
the tombs themselves. The drawings clearly show that the objects are
boats, and that they were apparently very shallow and flat-bottomed. It
is considered probable that they were employed in over-sea trade as well
as for Nile traffic; for, in the same tombs were found specimens of
pottery of foreign manufacture, some of which have been traced to
Bosnia.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Egyptian boat of the time of the third dynasty.]
The most ancient mention of a ship in the world's history is to be found
in the name of the eighth king of Egypt after Mena, the founder of the
royal race. This king, who was at the head of the second dynasty, was
called Betou (Boethos in Greek), which word signifies the "prow of a
ship." Nineteen kings intervened between him and Khufu (Cheops), the
builder of the Great Pyramid at Ghizeh. The date of this pyramid is
given by various authorities as from about 4235 to 3500 B.C. As the
knowledge of Egyptology increases the date is set further and further
back, and the late Mariette Pasha, who was one of the greatest
authorities on the subject, fixed it at 4235 B.C. About five centuries
intervened between the reign of Betou and the date of the Great Pyramid.
Hence we can infer that ships were known to the Egyptians of the
dynasties sixty-seven centuries ago.
Fortunately, however, we are not obliged to rely on inferences drawn
from the name of an individual; we actually possess pictures of vessels
which, there is every reason to believe, were built before the date of
the Great Pyramid.
The boat represented by Fig. 3 is of great interest, as it is by far the
oldest specimen of a true Egyptian boat that has yet been discovered. It
was copied by the late Mr. Villiers Stuart from the tomb of Ka Khont
Khut, situated in the side of a mountain near Kau-el-Kebir, on the right
bank of the Nile, about 279 miles above Cairo.[1] The tomb belongs to a
very remote period. From a study of the hieroglyphs, the names of the
persons, the forms of the pottery found, and the shape, arrangement, and
decoration of the tomb, Mr. Villiers Stuart came to the conclusion that
it dates from the third dynasty, and that, consequently, it is older
than the Great Pyramid at Ghizeh. If these conclusions are correct, and
if Mariette's date for the Great Pyramid be accepted, Fig. 3 represents
a Nile boat as used about 6,300 years ago--that is to say, about fifteen
centuries before the date commonly accepted for the ark. Mr. Villiers
Stuart supposes that it was a dug-out canoe, but from the dimensions of
the boat this theory is hardly tenable. It will be noted that there are
seven paddlers on each side, in addition to a man using a sounding, or
else a punt, pole at the prow, and three men steering with paddles in
the stern, while amidships there is a considerable free space, occupied
only by the owner, who is armed with a whip, or courbash. The paddlers
occupy almost exactly one-half of the total length, and from the space
required for each of them the boat must have been quite 56 feet long. It
could hardly have been less than seven feet wide, as it contained a
central cabin, with sufficient space on either side of the latter for
paddlers to sit. If it were a "dug-out," the tree from which it was made
must have been brought down the river from tropical Africa. There is no
reason, however, to suppose anything of the sort; for, if the epoch
produced workmen skilful enough to excavate and decorate the tomb, and
to carve the statues and make the pottery which it contained, it must
also have produced men quite capable of building up a boat from planks.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Egyptian boat of the time of the fourth
dynasty.]
The use of sails was also understood at this remote epoch, for it will
be noticed that, on the roof of the cabin is lying a mast which has been
unshipped. The mast is triangular in shape, consisting of two spars,
joined together at the top at an acute angle, and braced together lower
down. This form was probably adopted in order to dispense with stays,
and thus facilitate shipping and unshipping. It is also worthy of note
that this boat appears to have been decked over, as the feet of all
those on board are visible above the gunwale. A representation of a very
similar boat was found in the tomb of Merab, a son of Khufu, of the
fourth dynasty.
The tombs of Egypt abound in pictures of boats and larger vessels, and
many wooden models of them have also been found in the sarcophagi. There
is in the Berlin Museum a model of a boat similar in general
arrangement to the one just described. It is decked over and provided
with a cabin amidships, which does not occupy the full width of the
vessel. Fig. 4 is a vessel of later date and larger size than that found
in the tomb of Ka Khont Khut, but its general characteristics are
similar. From the number of paddlers it must have been at least 100 feet
in length. In this case we see the mast is erected and a square sail
set. The bow and stern also come much higher out of the water. The roof
of the cabin is prolonged aft, so as to form a shelter for the steersman
and a seat for the man holding the ropes. Similarly it is prolonged
forward, so as to provide a shelter for the captain, or owner. The
method of steering with oars continued in use for centuries; but in
later and larger vessels the steering-oars, which were of great size,
were worked by a mechanical arrangement. The illustration was taken
originally from a fourth-dynasty tomb at Kom-el-Ahmars.
There are also extant pictures of Egyptian cattle-boats, formed of two
ordinary barges lashed together, with a temporary house, or cattle-shed,
constructed across them. The history of Egypt, as inscribed in
hieroglyphs on the ancient monuments, relates many instances of huge
sarcophagi, statues, and obelisks having been brought down the Nile on
ships. The tombs and monuments of the sixth dynasty are particularly
rich in such records. In the tomb of Una, who was a high officer under
the three kings, Ati, Pepi I., and Mer-en-Ra, are inscriptions which
shed a flood of light on Egyptian shipbuilding of this period, and on
the uses to which ships were put. In one of them we learn how Una was
sent by Pepi to quarry a sarcophagus in a single piece of limestone, in
the mountain of Jurra, opposite to Memphis, and to transport it,
together with other stones, in one of the king's ships. In another it is
related how he headed a military expedition against the land of
Zerehbah, "to the north of the land of the Hirusha," and how the army
was embarked in ships.
In the reign of Pepi's successor, Mer-en-Ra, Una appears to have been
charged with the quarrying and transport of the stones destined for the
king's pyramid, his sarcophagus, statue, and other purposes. The
following passage from the inscriptions on his tomb gives even the
number of the ships and rafts which he employed on this work:[2]--
"His Holiness, the King Mer-en-Ra, sent me to the country of Abhat to
bring back a sarcophagus with its cover, also a small pyramid, and a
statue of the King Mer-en-Ra, whose pyramid is called Kha-nofer ('the
beautiful rising'). And his Holiness sent me to the city of
Elephantine to bring back a holy shrine, with its base of hard
granite, and the doorposts and cornices of the same granite, and also
to bring back the granite posts and thresholds for the temple opposite
to the pyramid Kha-nofer, of King Mer-en-Ra. The number of ships
destined for the complete transport of all these stones consisted of
six broad vessels, three tow-boats, three rafts, and one ship manned
with warriors."
Further on, the inscriptions relate how stone for the Pyramid was hewn
in the granite quarries at Assouan, and how rafts were constructed, 60
cubits in length and 30 cubits in breadth, to transport the material.
The Royal Egyptian cubit was 20.67 inches in length, and the common
cubit 18.24 inches. The river had fallen to such an extent that it was
not possible to make use of these rafts, and others of a smaller size
had to be constructed. For this purpose Una was despatched up the river
to the country of Wawa-t, which Brugsch considered to be the modern
Korosko. The inscription states--
"His Holiness sent me to cut down four forests in the South, in order
to build three large vessels and four towing-vessels out of the acacia
wood in the country of Wawa-t. And behold the officials of Araret,
Aam, and Mata caused the wood to be cut down for this purpose.
I executed all this in the space of a year. As soon as the waters rose
I loaded the rafts with immense pieces of granite for the Pyramid
Kha-nofer, of the King Mer-en-Ra."
Mr. Villiers Stuart found several pictures of large ships of this remote
period at Kasr-el-Syad on the Nile, about 70 miles below Thebes, in the
tomb of Ta-Hotep, who lived in the reigns of Pepi I. and his two
successors. These boats were manned with twenty-four rowers, and had two
cabins, one amidships and the other astern.[3] The same explorer
describes the contents of a tomb of the sixth dynasty at Gebel Abu
Faida, on the walls of which he observed the painting of a boat with a
triple mast (presumably made of three spars arranged like the edges of a
triangular pyramid), and a stern projecting beneath the water.
Between the sixth and the eleventh dynasties Egyptian history is almost
an utter blank. The monuments contain no records for a period of about
600 years. We are, therefore, in complete ignorance of the progress of
shipbuilding during this epoch. It was, however, probably considerable;
for, when next the monuments speak it is to give an account of a
mercantile expedition on the high seas. In the Valley of Hamamat, near
Coptos, about 420 miles above Cairo, is an inscription on the rocks,
dating from the reign of Sankh-ka-Ra, the last king of the eleventh
dynasty (about 2800 B.C.), describing an expedition by sea to the famous
land of Punt, on the coast of the Red Sea. This expedition is not to be
confounded with another, a much more famous one, to the same land,
carried out by direction of Queen Hatshepsu of the eighteenth dynasty,
about eleven centuries later. Sankh-ka-Ra's enterprise is, however,
remarkable as being the first over-sea maritime expedition recorded in
the world's history. It may be noted that it took place at about the
date usually assigned to Noah's ark.
The town of Coptos was of considerable commercial importance, having
been at one end of the great desert route from the Nile to the Red Sea
port of Kosseir, whence most of the Egyptian maritime expeditions
started. The land of Punt, which was the objective of the expedition, is
now considered to be identical with Somaliland. The following extracts
from the inscription give an excellent idea of the objects and conduct
of the expedition, which was under the leadership of a noble named
Hannu, who was himself the author of the inscription:[4]--
"I was sent to conduct ships to the land of Punt, to fetch for Pharaoh
sweet-smelling spices, which the princes of the red land collect out
of fear and dread, such as he inspires in all nations. And I started
from the City of Coptos, and his Holiness gave the command that the
armed men, who were to accompany me, should be from the south country
of the Thebaid."
After describing the arrangements which he made for
watering the expedition along the desert route, he goes on
to say:--
"Then I arrived at the port Seba, and I had ships of burthen built to
bring back products of all kinds. And I offered a great sacrifice of
oxen, cows, and goats. And when I returned from Seba I had executed
the King's command, for I brought him back all kinds of products which
I had met with in the ports of the Holy Land (Punt). And I came back
by the road of Uak and Rohan, and brought with me precious stones for
the statues of the temples. But such a thing never happened since
there were kings; nor was the like of it ever done by any blood
relations who were sent to these places since the time (of the reign)
of the Sun-god Ra."
From the last sentence of the above quotation we may infer that previous
expeditions had been sent to the land of Punt. Communication with this
region must, however, have been carried on only at considerable
intervals, for we read that Hannu had to build the ships required for
the voyage. Unfortunately, no representations of these vessels accompany
the inscription.
Between the end of the eleventh and the commencement of the eighteenth
dynasty, the monuments give us very little information about ships or
maritime expeditions. Aahmes, the first king of the latter dynasty,
freed Egypt from the domination of the Shepherd Kings by means of a
naval expedition on the Nile and the Mediterranean. A short history of
this campaign is given in the tomb of another Aahmes, near El Kab, a
place on the east bank of the river, 502 miles south of Cairo. This
Aahmes was a captain of sailors who served under Sequenen-Ra, King
Aahmes, Amenophis I., and Thotmes I. King Aahmes is supposed to have
been the Pharaoh of the Old Testament who knew not Joseph. He lived
about 1700 B.C.
By far the most interesting naval records of this dynasty are the
accounts, in the temple of Der-el-Bahari close to Thebes, of the famous
expedition to the land of Punt, carried out by order of that remarkable
woman Queen Hatshepsu, who was the daughter of Thotmes I., half-sister
and wife of Thotmes II., and aunt and step-mother of the famous king
Thotmes III. She appears to have been called by her father during his
lifetime to share the throne with him, and to have practically usurped
the government during the reign of her husband and during the early
years of the reign of her nephew.
The expedition to the land of Punt was evidently one of the most
remarkable events of her reign. It took place about 1600 B.C.--that is
to say, about three centuries before the Exodus. The history of the
undertaking is given at great length on the retaining wall of one of the
terraces of the temple, and the various scenes and events are
illustrated by carvings on the same wall, in as complete a manner as
though the expedition had taken place in the present time, and had been
accompanied by the artists of one of our pictorial newspapers.
Fortunately, the great bulk of the carvings and inscriptions remain to
this day, and we possess, therefore, a unique record of a trading
expedition carried out at this remote period.
The carvings comprise representations of the ships going out. The
landing at the "incense terraced-mountain," and the meeting with the
princes and people of this strange land, are also shown. We have
pictures of their pile dwellings, and of the trees and animals of the
country, and also portraits of the King of Punt, of his wife and
children. Lastly, we have representations of the ships returning to
Egypt, laden with the precious incense of the land and with other
merchandise, and also of the triumphant reception of the members of the
expedition at Thebes.
One of the inscriptions relates as follows:[5]--
"The ships were laden to the uttermost with the wonderful products of
the land of Punt, and with the different precious woods of the divine
land, and with heaps of the resin of incense, with fresh incense
trees, with ebony, (objects) of ivory set in pure gold from the land
of the 'Amu, with sweet woods, Khesit-wood, with Ahem incense, holy
resin, and paint for the eyes, with dog-headed apes, with long-tailed
monkeys and greyhounds, with leopard-skins, and with natives of the
country, together with their children. Never was the like brought to
any king (of Egypt) since the world stands."
The boast contained in the concluding sentence was obviously not
justified, as we know the same claims were made in the inscription in
the valley of Hammamat, describing the previous expedition to Punt,
which took place eleven centuries earlier.
From the frontispiece, Fig. 1, we can form an accurate idea of the ships
used in the Red Sea trade in the time of the eighteenth dynasty. They
were propelled by rowers instead of by paddlers, as in all the previous
examples. There were fifteen rowers on each side, and, allowing four
feet for the distance between each seat, and taking account of the
length of the overhanging portions at bow and stern, the length of each
vessel could have been little short of a hundred feet. They were
apparently decked over and provided with raised cabins at the two
extremities. The projections marked along the sides may indicate the
ends of beams, or they may, as some writers have supposed, have been
pieces of timber against which the oars could be worked in narrow and
shallow water.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Nile barge carrying obelisks. About 1600 B.C.]
These vessels were each rigged with a huge square sail. The spars
carrying the sail were as long as the boats themselves, and were each
formed of two pieces spliced together in the middle. The stems and
sterns were not waterborne. In order to prevent the vessel from
hogging under the influence of the weights of the unsupported ends, a
truss was employed, similar in principle and object to those used to
this day in American river steamers. The truss was formed by erecting
four or more pillars in the body of the vessel, terminating at a height
of about six feet above the gunwale, in crutches. A strong rope running
fore and aft was passed over these crutches and also round the mast, the
two ends of the rope having been so arranged as to gird and support the
stem and stern respectively.
The Temple of Der-el-Bahari contained also a most interesting
illustrated account of the transport of two great obelisks down the Nile
in the reign of the same queen. Unfortunately, parts of the description
and of the carvings have been lost, but enough remains to give us a very
clear idea of the vessels employed and of the method of transport. Fig.
5 shows the type of barge employed to carry the obelisks, of which there
were two. The dotted lines show the portions of the carving which are at
present missing. The restoration was effected by Monsieur Edouard
Naville.[6] The restoration is by no means conjectural. The key to it
was furnished by a hieroglyph in the form of the barge with the obelisks
on deck. Some of these obelisks were of very large size. There are two,
which were hewn out of granite for Queen Hatshepsu, still at the Temple
of Karnak. They may, very possibly, be the two which are referred to in
the description at Der-el-Bahari. One of them is 98 feet and the other
105 feet in height. The larger of the two has been calculated to weigh
374 tons, and the two together may have weighed over 700 tons. To
transport such heavy stones very large barges would have been required.
Unfortunately, the greater portion of the inscription describing the
building of these boats has been lost, but what remains states that
orders were given to collect "sycamores from the whole land (to do the)
work of building a very great boat." There is, however, an inscription
still intact in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian named Anna, who lived in
the reigns of the three kings Thotmes (and therefore also during that of
Queen Hatshepsu), which relates that, having to transport two obelisks
for Thotmes I., he built a boat 120 cubits long and 40 cubits wide. If
the royal cubit of 20.72 inches was referred to, the dimensions of the
boat would have been 200 feet long by 69 feet wide. This is possibly the
very boat illustrated on the walls of Der-el-Bahari; for, it having
evidently been a matter of some difficulty to collect the timber
necessary to build so large a vessel, it seems only natural to suppose
that it would be carefully preserved for the future transport of similar
obelisks. If, however, it was found necessary to construct a new boat in
order to transport Queen Hatshepsu's obelisks, we may be fairly certain
that it was larger than the one whose dimensions are given above, for
the taller of her two obelisks at Karnak is the largest that has been
found in Egypt in modern times. The obelisk of rose granite of Thotmes
I., still at Karnak, is 35 feet shorter, being 70 feet, or exactly the
same height as the one called Cleopatra's Needle, now on the Thames
Embankment.
The barge shown in Fig. 5 was strengthened, apparently, with three tiers
of beams; it was steered by two pairs of huge steering-oars, and was
towed by three parallel groups, each consisting of ten large boats.
There were 32 oarsmen to each boat in the two wing groups, and 36 in
each of the central groups: there were, therefore, exactly one thousand
oars used in all. The towing-cable started from the masthead of the
foremost boat of each group, and thence passed to the bow of the second
one, and so on, the stern of each boat being left perfectly free, for
the purpose, no doubt, of facilitating the steering. The flotilla was
accompanied by five smaller boats, some of which were used by the
priests, while the others were despatch vessels, probably used to keep
up communications with the groups of tugs.
There are no other inscriptions, or carvings, that have as yet been
discovered in Egypt which give us so much information regarding Egyptian
ships as those on the Temple at Der-el-Bahari. From time to time we read
of naval and mercantile expeditions, but illustrations of the ships and
details of the voyages are, as a rule, wanting. We know that Seti I., of
the nineteenth dynasty, whose reign commenced about 1366 B.C., was a
great encourager of commerce. He felled timber in Lebanon for building
ships, and is said to have excavated a canal between the Nile and the
Red Sea. His successor, the famous Ramses II., carried on wars by sea,
as is proved by the inscriptions in the Temple at Abu Simbel in Nubia,
762 miles above Cairo.
In the records of the reign of Ramses III., 1200 B.C., we again come
upon illustrations of ships in the Temple of Victory at Medinet Habu,
West Thebes. The inscriptions describe a great naval victory which this
king won at Migdol, near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, over northern
invaders, probably Colchians and Carians. Fig. 6 shows one of the
battleships. It is probably more a symbolical than an exact
representation, nevertheless it gives us some valuable information. For
instance, we see that the rowers were protected against the missiles of
their adversaries by strong bulwarks, and the captain occupied a crow's
nest at the masthead.
Ramses III. did a great deal to develop Egyptian commerce. His naval
activities were by no means confined to the Mediterranean, for we read
that he built a fleet at Suez, and traded with the land of Punt and the
shores of the Indian Ocean. Herodotus states that, in his day, the docks
still existed at the head of the Arabian Gulf where this Red Sea fleet
was built.
Pharaoh Nekau (Necho), who reigned from 612 to 596 B.C., and who
defeated Josiah, King of Judah, was one of the kings of Egypt who did
most to encourage commerce. He commenced a canal to join the Pelusiac
branch of the Nile at Bubastis with the Red Sea, but never finished it.
It was under his directions that the Phoenicians, according to
Herodotus, made the voyage round Africa referred to on p. 27. When Nekau
abandoned the construction of the canal he built two fleets of triremes,
one for use in the Mediterranean, and the other for the Red Sea. The
latter fleet was built in the Arabian Gulf.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Battleship of Ramses III. About 1200 B.C.]
In later times the seaborne commerce of Egypt fell, to a
large extent, into the hands of the Phoenicians and Greeks.
Herodotus (484 to 423 B.C.) gives an interesting account of
the Nile boats of his day, and of the method of navigation of
the river.[7]
"Their boats, with which they carry cargoes, are made of the thorny
acacia.... From this tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in
length, and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by a
great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they
have thus fastened the boat together they lay cross-pieces over the
top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with
papyrus. They make one steering-oar for it, which is passed through
the bottom of the boat, and they have a mast of acacia and sails of
papyrus. These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very
fresh wind blowing, but are towed.... Down stream they travel as
follows: they have a door-shaped crate, made of tamarisk wood and reed
mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents' weight,
bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in
front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drag behind by
another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon
it, goes on swiftly and draws on the ... boats, ... while the stone,
dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the water, keeps its course
straight."
In connection with this account it is curious to note that, at so late a
period as the time of Herodotus, papyrus was used for the sails of Nile
boats, for we know that, for many centuries previously, the Egyptians
were adepts in the manufacture of linen, and actually exported fine
linen to Cyprus to be used as sailcloth.
Before concluding this account of shipbuilding in ancient Egypt, it may
be mentioned that, in the year 1894, the French Egyptologist, Monsieur
J. de Morgan, discovered several Nile boats of the time of the twelfth
dynasty (2850 B.C.) admirably preserved in brick vaults at Dashur, a
little above Cairo, on the left bank of the river. The site of these
vaults is about one hour's ride from the river and between 70 and 80
feet above the plain. The boats are about 33 feet long, 7 to 8 feet
wide, and 2-1/2 to 3 feet deep. As there were neither rowlocks nor
masts, and as they were found in close proximity to some Royal tombs, it
is considered probable that they were funeral boats, used for carrying
royal mummies across the river. They are constructed of planks of acacia
and sycamore, about three inches thick, which are dovetailed together
and fastened with trenails. There are floors, but no ribs. In this
respect the account of Herodotus is remarkably confirmed. The method of
construction was so satisfactory that, although they are nearly 5,000
years old, they held rigidly together after their supports had been
removed by Monsieur de Morgan. They were steered by two large paddles.
The discovery of these boats is of extraordinary interest, for they
were built at the period usually assigned to Noah's ark. It is a curious
fact that they should have been found so far from the river, but we know
from other sources--such as the paintings found in papyrus books--that
it was the custom of the people to transport the mummies of royal
personages, together with the funeral boats, on sledges to the tomb.
The famous galleys of the Egypt of the Ptolemies belonged to the period
of Greek and Roman naval architecture, and will be referred to later.
From the time of the ancient Egyptian vessels there is no record
whatever of the progress of naval architecture till we come to the
period of the Greeks, and even the early records relating to this
country are meagre in the extreme. The Phoenicians were among the
first of the races who dwelt on the Mediterranean seaboard to cultivate
a seaborne commerce, and to them, after the Egyptians, is undoubtedly
due the early progress made in sea-going ships. This remarkable people
is said to have originally come to the Levant from the shores of the
Persian Gulf. They occupied a strip of territory on the seaboard to the
north of Palestine, about 250 miles long and of the average width of
only 12 miles. The chief cities were Tyre and Sidon. There are only
three representations known to be in existence of the Phoenician
ships. They must have been of considerable size, and have been well
manned and equipped, for the Phoenicians traded with every part of the
then known world, and founded colonies--the principal of which was
Carthage--at many places along the coast-line of the Mediterranean. A
proof of the size and seaworthiness of their ships was the fact that
they made very distant voyages across notoriously stormy seas; for
instance, to Cornwall in search of tin, and probably also to the south
coast of Ireland. They also coasted along the western shores of Africa.
Somewhere between the years 610 and 594 B.C. some Phoenician ships,
acting under instructions from Pharaoh Nekau, are said to have
circumnavigated Africa, having proceeded from the Indian to the Southern
Ocean, and thence round by the Atlantic and through the Pillars of
Hercules home. The voyage occupied more than two years, a circumstance
which was due to the fact that they always landed in the autumn and
sowed a tract of country with corn, and waited on shore till it was fit
to cut. In the time of Solomon the joint fleets of the Israelites and
Phoenicians made voyages from the head of the Red Sea down the coasts
of Arabia and Eastern Africa, and even to Persia and Beluchistan, and
probably also to India. The Phoenicians were not only great traders
themselves, but they manned the fleets of other nations, and built ships
for other peoples, notably for the Egyptians and Persians. It is
unfortunate that we have so few representations of the Phoenician
ships, but we are justified in concluding that they were of the same
general type as those which were used by the Greeks, the Carthaginians,
and eventually by the Romans. The representations of their vessels known
to be in existence were found by the late Sir Austin Layard in the
palace built by King Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, near Nineveh, about 700
B.C. One of these is shown in Fig. 7. Though they were obviously rather
symbols of ships than faithful representations, we can, nevertheless,
gather from them that the warship was a galley provided with a ram, and
fitted with a mast carrying a single square sail; there were also two
banks of oars on each side. The steering was accomplished by two large
oars at the stern, and the fighting troops were carried on a deck or
platform raised on pillars above the heads of the rowers.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Portion of a Phoenician galley. About 700 B.C.
_From Kouyunjik (Nineveh)._]
SHIPBUILDING IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME.
In considering the history of the development of shipbuilding, we cannot
fail to be struck with the favourable natural conditions which existed
in Greece for the improvement of the art. On the east and west the
mainland was bordered by inland seas, studded with islands abounding in
harbours. Away to the north-east were other enclosed seas, which tempted
the enterprise of the early navigators. One of the cities of Greece
proper, Corinth, occupied an absolutely unique position for trade and
colonization, situated as it was on a narrow isthmus commanding two
seas. The long narrow Gulf of Corinth opening into the Mediterranean,
and giving access to the Ionian Islands, must have been a veritable
nursery of the art of navigation, for here the early traders could sail
for long distances, in easy conditions, without losing sight of land.
The Gulf of AEgina and the waters of the Archipelago were equally
favourable. The instincts of the people were commercial, and their
necessities made them colonizers on a vast scale; moreover, they had at
their disposal the experience in the arts of navigation, acquired from
time immemorial, by the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Nevertheless, with
all these circumstances in their favour, the Greeks, at any rate up to
the fourth century B.C., appear to have contributed nothing to the
improvement of shipbuilding.[8] The Egyptians and Phoenicians both
built triremes as early as 600 B.C., but this class of vessel was quite
the exception in the Greek fleets which fought at Salamis 120 years
later.
The earliest naval expedition mentioned in Greek history is that of the
allied fleets which transported the armies of Hellas to the siege of
Troy about the year 1237 B.C. According to the Greek historians, the
vessels used were open boats, decks not having been introduced into
Greek vessels till a much later period.
The earliest Greek naval battle of which we have any record took place
about the year 709 B.C., over 500 years after the expedition to Troy and
1,000 years after the battle depicted in the Temple of Victory at
Thebes. It was fought between the Corinthians and their rebellious
colonists of Corcyra, now called Corfu.
Some of the naval expeditions recorded in Greek history were conceived
on a gigantic scale. The joint fleets of Persia and Phoenicia which
attacked and conquered the Greek colonies in Ionia consisted of 600
vessels. This expedition took place in the year 496 B.C. Shortly
afterwards the Persian commander-in-chief, Mardonius, collected a much
larger fleet for the invasion of Greece itself.
After the death of Cambyses, his successor Xerxes collected a fleet
which is stated to have numbered 4,200 vessels, of which 1,200 were
triremes. The remainder appears to have been divided into two classes,
of which the larger were propelled with twenty-five and the smaller with
fifteen oars a-side. This fleet, after many misfortunes at sea, and
after gaining a hard-fought victory over the Athenians, was finally
destroyed by the united Greek fleet at the ever-famous battle of
Salamis. The size of the Persian monarch's fleet was in itself a
sufficient proof of the extent of the naval power of the Levantine
states; but an equally convincing proof of the maritime power of another
Mediterranean state, viz., Carthage, at that early period--about 470
B.C.--is forthcoming. This State equipped a large fleet, consisting of
3,000 ships, against the Greek colonies in Sicily; of these 2,000 were
fighting galleys, and the remainder transports on which no less than
300,000 men were embarked. This mighty armada was partly destroyed in a
great storm. All the transports were wrecked, and the galleys were
attacked and totally destroyed by the fleets of the Greek colonists
under Gelon on the very day, according to tradition, on which the
Persians were defeated at Salamis. Out of the entire expedition only a
few persons returned to Carthage to tell the tale of their disasters.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Greek unireme. About 500 B.C.]
The foregoing account will serve to give a fair idea of the extent to
which shipbuilding was carried on in the Mediterranean in the fifth
century before the Christian era.
We have very little knowledge of the nature of Greek vessels previously
to 500 B.C.[9] Thucydides says that the ships engaged on the Trojan
expedition were without decks.
According to Homer, 1,200 ships were employed, those of the Boeotians
having 120 men each, and those of Philoctetes 50 men each. Thucydides
also relates that the earliest Hellenic triremes were built at Corinth,
and that Ameinocles, a Corinthian naval architect, built four ships for
the Samians about 700 B.C.; but triremes did not become common until the
time of the Persian War, except in Sicily and Corcyra (Corfu), in which
states considerable numbers were in use a little time before the war
broke out.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Greek bireme. About 500 B.C.]
Fig. 8 is an illustration of a single-banked Greek galley of the date
about 500 B.C., taken from an Athenian painted vase now in the British
Museum. The vessel was armed with a ram; seventeen oars a-side are
shown. There is no space on the vase to show in detail the whole of the
mast and rigging, but their presence is indicated by lines.
Fig. 9 is a representation of a Greek bireme of about the date 500
B.C.--that is to say, of the period immediately preceding the Persian
War. It is taken from a Greek vase in the
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Fragment of a Greek galley showing absence of
deck. About 550 B.C.]
British Museum, which was found at Vulci in Etruria. It is one of the
very few representations now in existence of ancient Greek biremes. It
gives us far less information than we could wish to have. The vessel has
two banks of oars, those of the upper tier passing over the gunwale, and
those of the lower passing through oar-ports. Twenty oars are shown by
the artist on each side, but this is probably not the exact number used.
Unfortunately the rowers of the lower tier are not shown in position.
The steering was effected by means of two large oars at the stern, after
the manner of those in use in the Egyptian ships previously described.
This is proved by another illustration of a bireme on the same vase, in
which the steering oars are clearly seen. The vessel had a strongly
marked forecastle and a ram fashioned in the shape of a boar's head. It
is a curious fact that Herodotus, in his history (Book III.), mentions
that the Samian ships carried beaks, formed to resemble the head of a
wild boar, and he relates how the AEginetans beat some Samian colonists
in a sea-fight off Crete, and sawed off the boar-head beaks from the
captured galleys, and deposited them in a temple in AEgina. This
sea-fight took place about the same time that the vases were
manufactured, from which Figs. 8 and 9 are copied. There was a single
mast with a very large yard carrying a square sail. The stays are not
shown, but Homer says that the masts of early Greek vessels were stayed
fore and aft.
It is impossible to say whether this vessel was decked. According to
Thucydides, the ships which the Athenians built at the instigation of
Themistocles, and which they used at Salamis, were not fully decked.
That Greek galleys were sometimes without decks is proved by Fig. 10,
which is a copy of a fragment of a painting of a Greek galley on an
Athenian vase now in the British Museum, of the date of about 550 B.C.
It is perfectly obvious, from the human figures in the galley, that
there was no deck. Not even the forecastle was covered in. The galleys
of Figs. 8 and 9 had, unlike the Phoenician bireme of Fig. 7, no
fighting-deck for the use of the soldiers. There was also no protection
for the upper-tier rowers, and in this respect they were inferior to the
Egyptian ship shown in Fig. 6. It is probable that Athenian ships at
Salamis also had no fighting, or flying decks for the use of the
soldiers; for, according to Thucydides, Gylippos, when exhorting the
Syracusans, nearly sixty years later, in 413 B.C., said, "But to them
(the Athenians) the employment of troops on deck is a novelty." Against
this view, however, it must be stated that there are now in existence at
Rome two grotesque pictures of Greek galleys on a painted vase, dating
from about 550 B.C., in which the soldiers are clearly depicted standing
and fighting upon a flying deck. Moreover, Thucydides, in describing a
sea-fight between the Corinthians and the Corcyreans in 432 B.C.,
mentions that the decks of both fleets were crowded with heavy infantry
archers and javelin-men, "for their naval engagements were still of the
old clumsy sort." Possibly this last sentence gives us a clue to the
explanation of the apparent discrepancy. The Athenians were, as we know,
expert tacticians at sea, and adopted the method of ramming hostile
ships, instead of lying alongside and leaving the fighting to the troops
on board. They may, however, have been forced to revert to the latter
method, in order to provide for cases where ramming could not be used;
as, for instance, in narrow harbours crowded with shipping, like that of
Syracuse.
It is perfectly certain that the Phoenician ships which formed the
most important part of the Persian fleet at Salamis carried
fighting-decks. We have seen already (p. 28) that they used such decks
in the time of Sennacherib, and we have the distinct authority of
Herodotus for the statement that they were also employed in the Persian
War; for, he relates that Xerxes returned to Asia in a Phoenician
ship, and that great danger arose during a storm, the vessel having been
top-heavy owing to the deck being crowded with Persian nobles who
returned with the king.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Galley showing deck and superstructure. About
600 B.C. _From an Etruscan imitation of a Greek vase._]
Fig. 11, which represents a bireme, taken from an ancient Etruscan
imitation of a Greek vase of about 600 B.C., clearly shows soldiers
fighting, both on the deck proper and on a raised, or flying,
forecastle.
In addition to the triremes, of which not a single illustration of
earlier date than the Christian era is known to be in existence, both
Greeks and Persians, during the wars in the early part of the fifth
century B.C., used fifty-oared ships called penteconters, in which the
oars were supposed to have been arranged in one tier. About a century
and a half after the battle of Salamis, in 330 B.C., the Athenians
commenced to build ships with four banks, and five years later they
advanced to five banks. This is proved by the extant inventories of the
Athenian dockyards. According to Diodoros, they were in use in the
Syracusan fleet in 398 B.C. Diodoros, however, died nearly 350 years
after this epoch, and his account must, therefore, be received with
caution.
The evidence in favour of the existence of galleys having more than five
superimposed banks of oars is very slight.
Alexander the Great is said by most of his biographers to have used
ships with five banks of oars; but Quintus Curtius states that, in 323
B.C., the Macedonian king built a fleet of seven-banked galleys on the
Euphrates. Quintus Curtius is supposed by the best authorities to have
lived five centuries after the time of Alexander, and therefore his
account of these ships cannot be accepted without question.
It is also related by Diodoros that there were ships of six and seven
banks in the fleet of Demetrios Poliorcetes at a battle off Cyprus in
306 B.C., and that Antigonos, the father of Poliorcetes, had ships of
eleven and twelve banks. We have seen, however, that Diodoros died about
two and a half centuries after this period. Pliny, who lived from 61 to
115 A.D., increases the number of banks in the ships of the opposing
fleets at this battle to twelve and fifteen banks respectively. It is
impossible to place any confidence in such statements.
Theophrastus, a botanist who died about 288 B.C., and who was therefore
a contemporary of Demetrios, mentions in his history of plants that the
king built an eleven-banked ship in Cyprus. This is one of the very few
contemporary records we possess of the construction of such ships. The
question, however, arises, Can a botanist be accepted as an accurate
witness in matters relating to shipbuilding? The further question
presents itself, What meaning is intended to be conveyed by the terms
which we translate as ships of many banks? This question will be
reverted to hereafter.
In one other instance a writer cites a document in which one of these
many-banked ships is mentioned as having been in existence during his
lifetime. The author in question was Polybios, one of the most
painstaking and accurate of the ancient historians, who was born between
214 and 204 B.C., and who quotes a treaty between Rome and Macedon
concluded in 197 B.C., in which a Macedonian ship of sixteen banks is
once mentioned. This ship was brought to the Tiber thirty years later,
according to Plutarch and Pliny, who are supposed to have copied a lost
account by Polybios. Both Plutarch and Pliny were born more than two
centuries after this event. If the alleged account by Polybios had been
preserved, it would have been unimpeachable authority on the subject of
this vessel, as this writer, who was, about the period in question, an
exile in Italy, was tutor in the family of AEmilius Paulus, the Roman
general who brought the ship to the Tiber.
The Romans first became a naval power in their wars with the
Carthaginians, when the command of the sea became a necessity of their
existence. This was about 256 B.C. At that time they knew nothing
whatever of shipbuilding, and their early war-vessels were merely copies
of those used by the Carthaginians, and these latter were no doubt of
the same general type as the Greek galleys. The first Roman fleet
appears to have consisted of quinqueremes.
The third century B.C. is said to have been an era of gigantic ships.
Ptolemy Philadelphos and Ptolemy Philopater, who reigned over Egypt
during the greater part of that century, are alleged to have built a
number of galleys ranging from thirteen up to forty banks. The evidence
in this case is derived from two unsatisfactory sources. Athenaeos and
Plutarch quote one Callixenos of Rhodes, and Pliny quotes one
Philostephanos of Cyrene, but very little is known about either
Callixenos or Philostephanos. Fortunately, however, Callixenos gives
details about the size of the forty-banker, the length of her longest
oars, and the number of her crew, which enables us to gauge his value as
an authority, and to pronounce his story to be incredible (see p. 45).
Whatever the arrangement of their oars may have been, these many-banked
ships appear to have been large and unmanageable, and they finally went
out of fashion in the year 31 B.C., when Augustus defeated the combined
fleets of Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium. The vessels
which composed the latter fleets were of the many-banked order, while
Augustus had adopted the swift, low, and handy galleys of the Liburni,
who were a seafaring and piratical people from Illyria on the Adriatic
coast. Their vessels were originally single-bankers, but afterwards it
is said that two banks were adopted. This statement is borne out by the
evidence of Trajan's Column, all the galleys represented on it, with the
exception of one, being biremes.
Augustus gained the victory at Actium largely owing to the handiness of
his Liburnian galleys, and, in consequence, this type was henceforward
adopted for Roman warships, and ships of many banks were no longer
built. The very word "trireme" came to signify a warship, without
reference to the number of banks of oars.
After the Romans had completed the conquest of the nations bordering on
the Mediterranean, naval war ceased for a time, and the fighting navy of
Rome declined in importance. It was not till the establishment of the
Vandal kingdom in Africa under Genseric that a revival in naval warfare
on a large scale took place. No changes in the system of marine
architecture are recorded during all these ages. The galley,
considerably modified in later times, continued to be the principal type
of warship in the Mediterranean till about the sixteenth century of our
era.
ANCIENT MERCHANT-SHIPS.
Little accurate information as we possess about the warships of the
ancients, we know still less of their merchant-vessels and transports.
They were unquestionably much broader, relatively, and fuller than the
galleys; for, whereas the length of the latter class was often eight to
ten times the beam, the merchant-ships were rarely longer than three or
four times their beam. Nothing is known of the nature of Phoenician
merchant-vessels. Fig. 12 is an illustration of an Athenian
merchant-ship of about 500 B.C. It is taken from the same painted vase
as the galley shown on Fig. 9. If the illustration can be relied on, it
shows that these early Greek sailing-ships were not only relatively
short, but very deep. The forefoot and dead wood aft appear to have
been cut away to an extraordinary extent, probably for the purpose of
increasing the handiness. The rigging was of the type which was
practically universal in ancient ships.
Fig. 13 gives the sheer draught or side elevation, the plan, elevations
of the bow and stem, and a midship section of a Roman vessel, which from
her proportions and the shape of bow is supposed to have been a
merchant-ship. The illustration is taken from a model presented to
Greenwich Hospital by Lord Anson. The original model was of white
marble, and was found in the Villa Mattei in Rome, in the sixteenth
century.
We know from St. Paul's experiences, as described in the Acts of the
Apostles, that Mediterranean merchant-ships must often have been of
considerable size, and that they were capable of going through very
stormy voyages. St. Paul's ship contained a grain cargo, and carried 276
human beings.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Greek merchant-ship. About 500 B.C.]
In the merchant-ships oars were only used as an auxiliary means of
propulsion, the principal reliance being placed on masts and sails.
Vessels of widely different sizes were in use, the larger carrying
10,000 talents, or 250 tons of cargo. Sometimes, however, much bigger
ships were used. For instance, Pliny mentions a vessel in which the
Vatican obelisk and its pedestal, weighing together nearly 500 tons,
were brought from Egypt to Italy about the year 50 A.D. It is further
stated that this vessel carried an additional cargo of 800 tons of
lentils to keep the obelisk from shifting on board.
Lucian, writing in the latter half of the second century A.D.,
mentions, in one of his Dialogues, the dimensions of a ship which
carried corn from Egypt to the Piraeus. The figures are: length, 180 ft.;
breadth, nearly 50 ft.; depth from deck to bottom of hold, 43-1/2 ft.
The latter figure appears to be incredible. The other dimensions are
approximately those of the _Royal George_, described on p. 126.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Roman merchant-ship.]
DETAILS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF GREEK AND ROMAN GALLEYS.
It is only during the present century that we have learned, with any
certainty, what the ancient Greek galleys were like. In the year 1834
A.D. it was discovered that a drain at the Piraeus had been constructed
with a number of slabs bearing inscriptions, which, on examination,
turned out to be the inventories of the ancient dockyard of the Piraeus.
From these inscriptions an account of the Attic triremes has been
derived by the German writers Boeckh and Graser. The galleys all appear
to have been constructed on much the same model, with interchangeable
parts. The dates of the slabs range from 373 to 323 B.C., and the
following description must be taken as applying only to galleys built
within this period.
The length, exclusive of the beak, or ram, must have been at least 126
ft., the ram having an additional length of 10 ft. The length was, of
course, dictated by the maximum number of oars in any one tier, by the
space which it was found necessary to leave between each oar, and by the
free spaces between the foremost oar and the stem, and the aftermost oar
and the stern of the ship. Now, as it appears further on, the maximum
number of oars in any tier in a trireme was 62 in the top bank, which
gives 31 a side. If we allow only 3 ft. between the oars we must allot
at least 90 ft. to the portion of the vessel occupied by the rowers. The
free spaces at stem and stern were, according to the representations of
those vessels which have come down to us, about 7/24th of the whole;
and, if we accept this proportion, the length of a trireme,
independently of its beak, would be about 126 ft. 6 in. If the space
allotted to each rower be increased, as it may very reasonably be, the
total length of the ship would also have to be increased
proportionately. Hence it is not surprising that some authorities put
the length at over 140 ft. It may be mentioned in corroboration, that
the ruins of the Athenian docks at Zea show that they were originally at
least 150 ft. long. They were also 19 ft. 5 in. wide. The breadth of a
trireme at the water-line, amidships, was about 14 ft., perhaps
increasing somewhat higher up, the sides tumbled home above the greatest
width. These figures give the width of the hull proper, exclusive of an
outrigged gangway, or deck, which, as subsequently explained, was
constructed along the sides as a passage for the soldiers and seamen.
The draught was from 7 to 8 ft.
Such a vessel carried a crew of from 200 to 225, of whom 174 were
rowers, 20 seamen to work the sails, anchors, etc., and the remainder
soldiers. Of the rowers, 62 occupied the upper, 58 the middle and 54 the
lower tier. Many writers have supposed that each oar was worked by
several rowers, as in the galleys of the Middle Ages. This, however, was
not the case, for it has been conclusively proved that, in the Greek
galleys, up to the class of triremes, at any rate, there was only one
man to each oar. For instance, Thucydides, describing the surprise
attack intended to be delivered on the Piraeus, and actually delivered
against the island of Salamis by the Peloponnesians in 429 B.C., relates
that the sailors were marched from Corinth to Nisaea, the harbour of
Megara, on the Athenian side of the isthmus, in order to launch forty
ships which happened to be lying in the docks there, and that _each_
sailor carried his cushion and his oar, with its thong, on his march. We
have, moreover, a direct proof of the size of the longest oars used in
triremes, for the inventories of the Athenian dockyards expressly state
that they were 9-1/2 cubits, or 13 ft. 6 in. in length. The reason why
the oars were arranged in tiers, or banks, one above the other was, no
doubt, that, in this way, the propelling power could be increased
without a corresponding increase in the length of the ships. To make a
long sea-going vessel sufficiently strong without a closed upper deck
would have severely taxed the skill of the early shipbuilders. Moreover,
long vessels would have been very difficult to manoeuvre, and in the
Greek mode of fighting, ramming being one of the chief modes of offence,
facility in manoeuvring was of prime importance. The rowers on each
side sat in the same vertical longitudinal plane, and consequently the
length of the inboard portions of the oars varied according as the
curve of the vessel's side approached or receded from this vertical
plane. The seats occupied by the rowers in the successive tiers were
arranged one above the other in oblique lines sloping upwards towards
the stem, as shown in Figs. 14 and 15. The vertical distance between the
seats was about 2 ft. The horizontal gap between the benches in each
tier was about 3 ft. The seats were some 9 in. wide, and foot-supports
were fixed to each for the use of the rower next above and behind. The
oars were so arranged that the blades in each tier all struck the water
in the same fore and aft line. The lower oar-ports were about 3 ft., the
middle 4-1/4 ft., and the upper 5-1/2 ft., above the water. The water
was prevented from entering the ports by means of leather bags fastened
round the oars and to the sides of the oar-ports. The upper oars were
about 14 ft. long, the middle 10 ft., and the lower 7-1/2 ft., and in
addition to these there were a few extra oars which were occasionally
worked from the platform, or deck, above the upper tier, probably by the
seamen and soldiers when they were not otherwise occupied. The benches
for the rowers extended from the sides to timber supports, inboard,
arranged in vertical planes fore and aft. There were two sets of these
timbers, one belonging to each side of the ship, and separated by a
space of 7 ft. These timbers also connected the upper and lower decks
together. The latter was about 1 ft. above the water-line. Below the
lower deck was the hold which contained the ballast, and in which the
apparatus for baling was fixed.
In addition to oars, sails were used as a means of propulsion whenever
the wind was favourable, but not in action.
The Athenian galleys had, at first, one mast, but afterwards, it is
thought, two were used. The mainmast was furnished with a yard and
square sail.
The upper deck, which was the fighting-platform previously mentioned,
was originally a flying structure, and, perhaps, did not occupy the full
width of the vessel amidships. At the bow, however, it was connected by
planking with the sides of the ship, so as to form a closed-in space, or
forecastle. This forecastle would doubtless have proved of great use in
keeping the ship dry during rough weather, and probably suggested
ultimately the closed decking of the whole of the ship. There is no
record of when this feature, which was general in ancient Egyptian
vessels, was introduced into Greek galleys. It was certainly in use in
the Roman warships about the commencement of the Christian era, for
there is in the Vatican a relief of about the date 50 A.D. from the
Temple of Fortune at Praeneste, which represents part of a bireme, in
which the rowers are all below a closed deck, on which the soldiers are
standing.
In addition to the fighting-deck proper there were the two side
platforms, or gangways, already alluded to, which were carried right
round the outside of the vessel on about the same level as the benches
of the upper tier of rowers. These platforms projected about 18 to 24
in. beyond the sides of the hull, and were supported on brackets. Like
the flying deck, these passages were intended for the accommodation of
the soldiers and sailors, who could, by means of them, move freely round
the vessel without interfering with the rowers. They were frequently
fenced in with stout planking on the outside, so as to protect the
soldiers. They do not appear to have been used on galleys of the
earliest period.
We have no direct evidence as to the dimensions of ships of four and
five banks. Polybios tells us that the crew of a Roman quinquereme in
the first Carthaginian War, at a battle fought in 256 B.C., numbered
300, in addition to 120 soldiers. Now, the number 300 can be obtained by
adding two banks of respectively 64 and 62 rowers to the 172 of the
trireme. We may, perhaps, infer that the quinquereme of that time was a
little longer than the trireme, and had about 3 ft. more freeboard, this
being the additional height required to accommodate two extra banks of
oars. Three hundred years later than the above-mentioned date Pliny
tells us that this type of galley carried 400 rowers.
We know no detailed particulars of vessels having a greater number of
banks than five till we get to the alleged forty-banker of Ptolemy
Philopater. Of this ship Callixenos gives the following
particulars:--Her dimensions were: length, 420 ft.; breadth, 57 ft.;
draught, under 6 ft.; height of stern ornament above water-line, 79 ft.
6 in.; height of stem ornament, 72 ft.; length of the longest oars, 57
ft. The oars were stated to have been weighted with lead inboard, so as
to balance the great overhanging length. The number of the rowers was
4,000, and of the remainder of the crew 3,500, making a total of 7,500
men, for whom, we are asked to believe, accommodation was found on a
vessel of the dimensions given. This last statement is quite sufficient
to utterly discredit the whole story, as it implies that each man had a
cubic space of only about 130 ft. to live in, and that, too, in the
climate of Egypt. Moreover, if we look into the question of the oars we
shall see that the dimensions given are absolutely impossible--that is
to say, if we make the usual assumption that the banks were successive
horizontal tiers of oars placed one above the other. There were said to
have been forty banks. Now, the smallest distance, vertically, between
two successive banks, if the oar-ports were arranged as in Fig. 14, with
the object of economizing space in the vertical direction to the
greatest possible degree, would be 1 ft. 3 in. If the lowest oar-ports
were 3 ft. above the water, and the topmost bank were worked on the
gunwale, we should require, to accommodate forty banks, a height of side
equal to 39 ft. x 1 ft. 3 in. + 3 ft. = 51 ft. 9 in. Now, if the
inboard portion of the 57 ft. oar were only one-fourth of the whole
length, or 14 ft. 3 in., this would leave 57 ft. - 14 ft. 3 in. = 42 ft.
9 in. for the outboard portion, and as the height of gunwale on which
this particular length of oar was worked must have been, as shown above,
51 ft. 9 in. above the water, it is evident that the outboard portion of
the oar could not be made to touch the water at all. Also, if we
consider the conditions of structural strength of the side of a ship
honeycombed with oar-ports, and standing to the enormous height of 51
ft. 9 in. above the water-line, it is evident that, in order to be
secure, it would require to be supported by numerous tiers of transverse
horizontal beams, similar to deck-beams, running from side to side. The
planes of these tiers would intersect the inboard portions of many of
the tiers of oars, and consequently prevent these latter from being
fitted at all.
If we look at the matter from another point of view we shall meet with
equally absurd results. The oars in the upper banks of Athenian triremes
are known to have been about 14 ft. in length. Underneath them, were, of
course, two other banks. If, now, we assume that the upper bank tholes
were 5 ft. 6 in.[10] above the water-line, and that one-quarter of the
length of the upper bank oars was inboard, and if we add thirty-seven
additional banks parallel to the first bank, so as to make forty in all,
simple proportion will show us that the outboard portion of the oars of
the uppermost bank must have been just under 99 ft. long and the total
length of each, if we assume, as before, that one quarter of it was
inboard, would be 132 ft., instead of the 57 ft. given by Callixenos.
Any variations in the above assumptions, consistent with possibilities,
would only have the effect of bringing the oars out still longer. We
are therefore driven to conclude, either that the account given by
Callixenos was grossly inaccurate, or else that the Greek word, [Greek:
tessarakonteres], which we translate by "forty-banked ship," did not
imply that there were forty horizontal _superimposed_ tiers of oars.
The exact arrangement of the oars in the larger classes of galleys has
always been a puzzle, and has formed the subject of much controversy
amongst modern writers on naval architecture. The vessels were
distinguished, according to the numbers of the banks of oars, as
uniremes, biremes, triremes, quadriremes, etc., up to ships like the
great galley of Ptolemy Philopater, which was said to have had forty
banks. Now, the difficulty is to know what is meant by a bank of oars.
It was formerly assumed that the term referred to the horizontal tiers
of oars placed one above the other; but it can easily be proved, by
attempting to draw the galleys with the oars and rowers in place, that
it would be very difficult to accommodate as many as five horizontal
banks and absolutely impossible to find room for more than seven. Not
only would the space within the hull of the ship be totally insufficient
for the rowers, but the length of the upper tiers of oars would be so
great that they would be unmanageable, and that of the lower tiers so
small that they would be inefficient. The details given by ancient
writers throw very little light upon this difficult subject. Some
authors have stated that there was only one man to each oar, and we now
know that this was the case with the smaller classes of vessels, say, up
to those provided with three, or four, to five banks of oars; but it is
extremely improbable that the oars of the larger classes could have been
so worked. The oars of modern Venetian galleys were each manned by five
rowers. It is impossible in this work to examine closely into all the
rival theories as to what constituted a bank of oars. It seems
improbable, for reasons before stated, that any vessel could have had
more than five horizontal tiers. It is certain also that, in order to
find room for the rowers to work above each other in these tiers, the
oar-ports must have been placed, not vertically above each other, but in
oblique rows, as represented in Fig. 14. It is considered by Mr. W. S.
Lindsay, in his "History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce,"
that each of the oblique rows of oars, thus arranged, may have formed
the tier referred to in the designation of the class of the vessel, for
vessels larger than quinqueremes. If this were so, there would then be
no difficulty in conceiving the possibility of constructing galleys with
even as many as forty tiers of oars like the huge alleged galley of
Ptolemy Philopater. Fig. 15 represents the disposition of the oar-ports
according to this theory for an octoreme.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Probable arrangement of oar-ports in ancient
galleys.]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Suggested arrangement of oar-ports in an
octoreme.]
It appears to be certain that the oars were not very advantageously
arranged, or proportioned, in the old Greek galleys, or even in the
Roman galleys, till the time of the early Caesars, for we read that the
average speed of the Athenian triremes was 200 stadia in the day. If the
stadium were equal in length to a furlong, and the working day supposed
to be limited to ten hours, this would correspond to a speed of only two
and a half miles an hour. The lengths of the oars in the Athenian
triremes have been already given (p. 42); even those of the upper banks
were extremely short--only, in fact, about a foot longer than those used
in modern 8-oared racing boats. On account of their shortness and the
height above the water at which they were worked, the angle which the
oars made with the water was very steep and consequently
disadvantageous. In the case of the Athenian triremes, this angle must
have been about 23.5 deg.. This statement is confirmed by all the paintings
and sculptures which have come down to us. It is proved equally by the
painting of an Athenian bireme of 500 B.C. shown in Fig. 9, and by the
Roman trireme, founded on the sculptures of Trajan's Column of about 110
A.D., shown in Fig. 16.[11] In fact, it is evident that the ancients,
before the time of the introduction of the Liburnian galley, did not
understand the art of rowing as we do to-day. The celebrated Liburnian
galleys, which were first used by the Romans, for war purposes, at the
battle of Actium under Augustus Caesar, were said to have had a speed of
four times that of the old triremes. The modern galleys used in the
Mediterranean in the seventeenth century are said to have occasionally
made the passage from Naples to Palermo in seventeen hours. This is
equivalent to an average speed of between 11 and 12 miles per hour.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Roman galley. About 110 A.D.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Liburnian galley. Conjectural restoration.]
The timber used by the ancient races on the shores of the Mediterranean
in the construction of their ships appears to have been chiefly fir and
oak; but, in addition to these, many other varieties, such as pitch
pine, elm, cedar, chestnut, ilex, or evergreen oak, ash, and alder, and
even orange wood, appear to have been tried from time to time. They do
not seem to have understood the virtue of using seasoned timber, for we
read in ancient history of fleets having been completed ready for sea in
incredibly short periods after the felling of the trees. Thus, the
Romans are said to have built and equipped a fleet of 220 vessels in 45
days for the purpose of resisting the attacks of Hiero, King of
Syracuse. In the second Punic War Scipio put to sea with a fleet which
was stated to have been completed in forty days from the time the timber
was felled. On the other hand, the ancients believed in all sorts of
absurd rules as to the proper day of the moon on which to fell trees
for shipbuilding purposes, and also as to the quarter from which the
wind should blow, and so forth. Thus, Hesiod states that timber should
only be cut on the seventeenth day of the moon's age, because the sap,
which is the great cause of early decay, would then be sunk, the moon
being on the wane. Others extend the time from the fifteenth to the
twenty-third day of the moon, and appeal with confidence to the
experience of all artificers to prove that timber cut at any other
period becomes rapidly worm-eaten and rotten. Some, again, asserted that
if felled on the day of the new moon the timber would be incorruptible,
while others prescribed a different quarter from which the wind should
blow for every season of the year. Probably on account of the ease with
which it was worked, fir stood in high repute as a material for
shipbuilding.
The structure of the hulls of ancient ships was not dissimilar in its
main features to that of modern wooden vessels. The very earliest types
were probably without external keels. As the practice of naval
architecture advanced, keels were introduced, and served the double
purpose of a foundation for the framing of the hull and of preventing
the vessel from making leeway in a wind. Below the keel proper was a
false keel, which was useful when vessels were hauled up on shore, and
above the keelson was an upper false keel, into which the masts were
stepped. The stem formed an angle of about 70 deg. with the water-line, and
its junction with the keel was strengthened by a stout knee-piece. The
design of the stem above water was often highly ornate. The stern
generally rose in a graceful curve, and was also lavishly ornamented.
Fig. 18 gives some illustrations of the highly ornamented extremities of
the stern and prow of Roman galleys. These show what considerable pains
the ancients bestowed on the decoration of their vessels. There was no
rudder-post, the steering having been effected by means of special
oars, as in the early Egyptian vessels. Into the keel were notched the
floor timbers, and the heads of these latter were bound together by the
keelson, or inner keel. Beams connected the top timbers of the opposite
branches of the ribs and formed the support for the deck. The planking
was put on at right angles to the frames, the butting ends of the planks
being connected by dovetails. The skin of the ship was strengthened, in
the Athenian galleys, by means of stout planks, or waling-pieces,
carried horizontally round the ship, each pair meeting together in front
of the stem, where they formed the foundations for the beaks, or rams.
The hulls were further strengthened by means of girding-cables, also
carried horizontally round the hull, in the angles formed by the
projection of the waling-pieces beyond the skin. These cables passed
through an eye-hole at the stem, and were tightened up at the stern by
means of levers. It is supposed that they were of use in holding the
ship together under the shock of ramming. The hull was made water-tight
by caulking the seams of the planking. Originally this was accomplished
with a paste formed of ground sea-shells and water. This paste, however,
not having much cohesion, was liable to crack and fall out when the
vessel strained. A slight improvement was made when the shells were
calcined and turned into lime. Pitch and wax were also employed, but
were eventually superseded by the use of flax, which was driven in
between the seams. Flax was certainly used for caulking in the time of
Alexander the Great, and a similar material has continued to be employed
for this purpose down to the present day. In addition to caulking the
seams, it was also customary to coat over the bottom with pitch, and the
Romans, at any rate, used sometimes to sheath their galleys with sheet
lead fastened to the planking with copper nails. This was proved by the
discovery of one of Trajan's galleys in Lake Riccio after it had been
submerged for over thirteen centuries.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Stem and stern ornaments of galleys.]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Bow of ancient war-galley.]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Bow of ancient war-galley.]
The bows of the ancient war galleys were so constructed as to act as
rams. The ram was made of hard timber projecting beyond the line of the
bow, between it and the forefoot. It was usually made of oak, elm, or
ash, even when all the rest of the hull was constructed of soft timber.
In later times it was sheathed with, or even made entirely of, bronze.
It was often highly ornamented, either with a carved head of a ram or
some other animal, as shown in Figs. 8 to 11; sometimes swords or
spear-heads were added, as shown in Figs. 19 and 20. A relic of this
ancient custom is found to this day in the ornamentation of the prows of
the Venetian gondolas. Originally the ram, or rostrum, was visible above
the water-line, but it was afterwards found to be far more effective
when wholly immersed. In addition to the rams there were side
projections, or catheads, above water near the bow. The ram was used for
sinking the opposing vessels by penetrating their hulls, and the
catheads for shattering their oars when sheering up suddenly alongside.
Roman galleys were fitted with castles, or turrets, in which were placed
fighting men and various engines of destruction. They were frequently
temporary structures, sometimes consisting of little more than a
protected platform, mounted on scaffolding, which could be easily taken
down and stowed away. The use of these structures was continued till far
into the Middle Ages.