of life is immortalized in miniature model boats of lead and
painted depictions of what seem to be long, open galleys.
Evidence for the ships themselves has not survived in the ar-
chaeological record, but they may have resembled skin boats
or dugout canoes.
A Late Bronze Age trading vessel wrecked off the south-
ern coast of Turkey at Uluburun ranks among the most sig-
nifi cant fi nds in the history of archaeology. When it sank
around 1300 b.c.e. to a depth of between 140 and 200 feet,
the Uluburun ship was carrying a mixed cargo of copper,
tin, and glass ingots as well as fi nished materials, such as
glass beads, faience (glazed earthenware) drinking cups,
Cypriot pottery, gold and bronze jewelry, and ivory cosmetic
boxes. Th ese 20 tons of cargo were suffi ciently heavy, and the
seabed conditions suffi ciently favorable, to preserve intact a
small portion of the ship itself, which currently represents
the only substantial section of a ship’s hull from the Bronze
Age Mediterranean.
Study of the hull remains from Uluburun has shown
that the ship was constructed in the “shell-fi rst” technique,
which was to become the conventional method of Greco-
Roman shipbuilding across the Mediterranean for the next
two millennia. Unlike the modern approach to building a
wooden boat, the ancient shipwright conceived of his vessel
from the outside in, fi rst building up a shell of planks con-
nected to one another at their edges with mortises (cavities)
and tenons (pieces of wood used to join planks), which were
locked in place with wooden pegs. Once the shell was com-
plete, the shipwright made it stronger and stiff er by nailing
wooden frames to the planking at regular inter vals along the
bottom and sides of the hull. Th e excavation at Uluburun
uncovered no indication of a framing system, perhaps sug-
gesting that the Bronze Age shipwright did not feel the need
to incorporate frames or that the surviving hull section is
simply not large enough for evidence of these timbers to have
been preserved.
Roughly a millennium aft er the Uluburun shipwreck,
another small merchant vessel sank in the eastern Mediter-
ranean, this time off the northern coast of Cyprus at Kyrenia.
More than 60 percent of the Kyrenia ship’s hull was pre-
served on the seabed, giving archaeologists an opportunity
to excavate, raise, conserve, and reassemble over 6,000 pieces
of this ancient Greek merchantman. An in-depth study of
the Kyrenia ship has made it possible to recreate the con-
struction process: First the keel and posts were erected, and
then the hull planking was built up. Th e fl oor timbers were
fastened to the hull by driving copper nails through wooden
treenails, helping to make the vessel watertight. Finally, to
protect the wood from the destructive eff ects of timber-bor-
ing worms, the ship’s 47-foot-long hull was smeared with
gooey, black pitch.
Th e Kyrenia ship carried a cargo of oil and wine stored
in amphoras—two-handled clay jars used for shipping com-
modities like wine, oil, nuts, fruit, meat, and pine tar. Because
many Greek city-states tried to manufacture unique amphorashapes and because these shapes change over time, amphoras
are among the most diagnostic and ubiquitous artifacts found
on the seafl oor. Two other important amphora wrecks from
the Greek world illustrate the range in scale of ancient ship-
ping: Th e modest merchantman excavated at Tektaş Burnu,
Turkey, was laden with 213 amphoras, while the shipwreck
explored at Alónnisos, Greece, is estimated to have been car-
rying as many as 4,000 jars.
Pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery was the benchmark
of ancient Greek ship construction, but it was not the only
method utilized. Excavations of several Archaic (600–480
b.c.e.) wrecks off the coasts of France, Italy, and Turkey re-
veal the existence of an alternate tradition of sewn or lashed
construction. In this method, the planks are still edge-joined
according to the shell-fi rst philosophy, but in the place of
mortises and tenons the shipwright stitches planks together
with plant fi bers pulled through angled holes drilled in the
plank edges. In one ship from the late fi ft h century b.c.e., ex-
cavated at Ma’agan Mikhael, Israel, both construction tech-
niques (pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery and lashing) were
utilized in diff erent parts of the same vessel.
Any study of Greek warships must rely heavily on
iconographic and written sources, since the archaeological
evidence is eff ectively nonexistent in that most galleys were
likely towed away by the victors or, if badly damaged, fl oated
away in pieces at the surface. Th e most signifi cant develop-
ment in Greek naval warfare was the invention of the ram,
which probably occurred in the Iron Age (ca. 900 b.c.e.) as
suggested by images painted on vases. Th e ram became the
primary off ensive weapon of the Greek fl eet, and for the next
fi ve centuries galleys underwent a rather linear progression,
increasing in size and speed with the addition of more and
more rowers.
In 480 b.c.e. an allied Greek navy under Athenian lead-
ership won a stunning victory over the Persian king Xerxes
at Salamis. Th e ships taking part in the battle included some
older-style pentecontors (50-oared ships), but the majority
consisted of larger, faster triremes (warships with three banks
of oars), the classic Greek ship of the line. Scholars have long
debated how the oarsmen aboard a trireme were arranged—
did they sit on three superimposed benches, or were there
three men to a bench? Th e visual evidence, which consists
mostly of vase paintings and sculptural reliefs, is plentiful
and varied, while the textual evidence includes historical and
theatrical works as well as naval inventories from the Athe-
nian port at Piraeus.
Debate about the trireme question, as it is known, will
likely continue in earnest until nautical archaeologists can
provide more conclusive physical evidence (if it survives) for
Greek warships. Until this happens, scholars and naval histo-
rians continue to test their hypotheses on full-scale working
models, such as the trireme Olympias, launched in 1987. Th e
replication of the ancient merchant ship lost at Kyrenia, too,
has proved to be an eff ective tool for understanding the char-
acteristics and capabilities of an ancient sailing ship.ships and shipbuilding: Greece 9810895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i981 981 10/10/07 2:30:39 PM