9-24-2012-Warships-II-III-The Phoenicians

Warships II: The Phoenicians
Phoenician
coin showing a
warship, a
hippocampus,
and a murex
shell
Dr. Kristian Lorenzo

Warships I
Warships II: Topics
The Bronze Age
Shell or Hull-First technique
Mortise-and-Tenon Construction
Pabuç Burnu Archaic shipwreck
Warships II
Warships III:
Laced Construction and Homer’s Odyssey
Who were the Phoenicians?
Phoenician Biremes
The Greeks

Warships I: Bronze Age
Mycenaean Warship from Kynos with a single bank of rowers, ca. 1200 BC

Warships I: Bronze Age
Mycenaean Warship
from Kynos with a
single bank of rowers,
ca. 1200 BC
A – starboard or right-hand gunwale*
X – port or left-hand gunwale
B – rower’s gallery
C – keel
*the upper edge or planking of the side
of a boat or ship

Warships I: Bronze Age
Castles*
Mycenaean Warship from Kynos with a single bank of rowers, ca. 1200 BC
*castle – an often raised part of the main deck from which archers and other
fighting men could shoot arrows

Warships I-II: Shell or Hull-First technique
Uluburun Ship ca. 13 th
century B.C.
Reconstruction of the shell or hullfirst
Kyrenia shipwreck (ca. 300
BC)

Warships I-II: Shell or Hull-First technique
The hull or skin is built of planks
The keel or spine supports the
length of your ship

Warships I-II: Shell-First Technique
Wood Planks
Oak Pegs
Mortise holes
Tenons
Mortise-and-Tenon Construction

Mortise-and-Tenon Construction
Schematic of Uluburun Mortise-and-Tenon
Construction
Remains of Uluburun Hull in situ

Warships I-II: Shell-First technique
Labour intensive
Idiosyncratic
More intuitive than actually engineered.
But there is another way….

Pabuç Burnu: the earliest shipwreck with hull remains
in the Aegean (ca. 530 B.C.)
Excavation of the Archaic Period Pabuç Burnu shipwreck, sunk ca. 530 B.C. near
Halicarnassus, Aegean Coast of Turkey

Pabuç Burnu: the earliest shipwreck with hull remains
in the Aegean (ca. 530 B.C.)
Excavated Amphorae and Hull
fragments of the Archaic Period Pabuç
Burnu shipwreck, near Halicarnassus,
Aegean Coast of Turkey

Pabuç Burnu: the earliest shipwreck with hull remains
in the Aegean (ca. 530 BCE)
Photographic
recording of
preserved
remains of the
hull of the Pabuç
Burnu ship

Pabuç Burnu Shipwreck and Homer’s Odyssey Bk 5.244-57
Odysseus fleeing the clutches of Calypso: ‘He bored all the pieces and fit them one to
another, and then with pegs and lacings he joined it together.’

Warships II

Warships II: Who were the Phoenicians?
A Semitic or Asiatic people
originating along the coast of
modern Syria and Israel.

Warships II: Who were the Assyrians?
The Assyrians were a militaristic Semitic or Asiatic people originating in northern
modern Iraq. An Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser I (1114-1076 B.C.) invades
Phoenicia and demands tribute from the Phoenician kingdoms.

Warships II: Who were the Phoenicians?
From the ancient sources they were Pan-Mediterranean:
Traders
Merchants
Great Mariners/Seafarers
Colonizers
As well as Greedy and Deceitful

Warships II: The Trading Empire of the
Phoenicians
Brown = Phoenician homeland, Areas of Colonization
and Trade

Warships II: Who were the Phoenicians ?
Phoenicians in a
tribute scene from the
palace of the Assyrian
King Ashurnasirpal II
(ca. 859-839 B.C.).

Warships II: The Phoenician Bireme
Drawing of an Assyrian
relief (now lost) from
the palace of Sargon II
(ca. 722-705 B.C.)
showing Phoenician
warships with 2 levels
of oarsmen, a bireme.

Warships II: The Phoenician Bireme
A more detailed view of a Phoenician warship from a relief in the Assyrian palace of
Sennacherib (ca. 705-682 B.C.) with 2 levels of oarsmen, a bireme.

Warships II: The Phoenicians
Phoenicians develop and deploy a bireme = a warship with 2 levels of oarsmen
A technological leap forward from Mycenaean warships with only 1 level of oarsmen
Mycenaean, 12 th century B.C.
Phoenician, 8-7 th century B.C.

Warships II: The Marsala Shipwrecks
Two Phoenicians warships were found and excavated off the
northwest coast of Sicily. However, they were not biremes,
but smaller warships with 1 level of oars.

Warships II: The Phoenicians
An artist’s reconstruction of a small Phoenician warship, based
on data derived from the excavation of the Marsala wrecks.

Warships II: The Phoenicians
An artist’s reconstruction of a small Phoenician warship’s rowing
system, based on data derived from the excavation of the
Marsala wrecks.

Warships II: Phoenician Triremes
Phoenician triremes served in the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis, 480 B.C.

Warships III: The Greeks
Greek pottery showing
warships with 2 levels of
oars, ca. 800-700 B.C.

Warships III: The Greek Trireme
The Olympias: a 20 th century replica of a 5 th century B.C. trireme

Warships II-III: The Phoenicians: What’s so
important?
Phoenician biremes are a continuation of the technological
evolution which began with Bronze Age monoremes.
This 2 nd stage of tech evolution is an important precursor step
towards the development of the trireme
A stronger, more powerful, faster fighting ship able with the
addition of a ram to be a weapon in and of itself

Warships II-III: The Ram
the ‘evolution’ of the warship from a troop transport and
fighting platform to a weapon