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Micah Minnocci
ANT 3145
Professor Walker
Fall 2012
Aegean Maritime Technology
With its land-locked water’s multitude of islands and natural harbors, it is no wonder as
to why the Aegean Sea is one of the world’s earliest foci regarding the development of maritime
technology. Here, maritime expansion flourished with the necessity of intra-coastal travel being
employed in order to attain resources from nearby islands and coastal markets. Through the
Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, a vast network of trade and commerce was able to form,
arguably connecting inland Egypt and Northern Africa to coasts as distant as the Baltic Sea;
however, many believe this connection is the end result of land-based trade networks meeting on
the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and effectively making Aegean merchants retailers of traded
commodities. This research will serve to briefly discuss the dynamics of Aegean maritime
activity and give details of how and why the inhabitants of the Aegean were the most innovative
boat designers in both Europe and Northern Africa from the Upper Paleolithic through the
Bronze Age.
Although the Aegean would seem to be one of the earliest foci of maritime activity,
considering that it has a coastline from northern Africa and Egypt, archaeological evidence
supporting a nautical “Out-of-Africa” movement, thousands of years after mankind’s early
ancestors left the continent by foot, is scant or entirely absent. Broodbank asserts that early
human ancestors certainly had the capability of sea-travel, as is evidenced by the discovery of
artifacts on the Indonesian island of Flores dating back to approximately eight hundred thousand
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years. However, the archaeological record does not provide any support for sea travel in the
Mediterranean during the Lower Paleolithic. This trend continues all the way through the Upper
Paleolithic, with few exceptions. The first definitive sign of sea-crossing in the Mediterranean
and Aegean Seas is found at the Fontana Nuova site. Here, water-travel is evidenced by the
appearance of Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian artifacts in southeast Sicily, which demands a
crossing of the narrow Strait of Messina, located between the Italian mainland and the island of
Sicily. The narrowness of the strait would not require complex watercraft to navigate and some
have postulated that simple rafts would suffice. According to Broodbank, archaeologists have
conducted experimental trials with reed-built rafts as well as dugout canoe designs based on
watercraft that are known to have existed much later in the Levant, around 10,000 BC; however,
there are no such remains of watercraft present in Sicily from this time. The author notes that
small vessels such as these were unlikely to have been used for ambitious seafaring, and instead
were used for more tentative seagoing.
Broodbank’s research is important for understanding the background and causes for the
technological innovation in the eastern Mediterranean region. This work also lays the foundation
for a timeframe from which to work with by explaining the most probable method s of nautical
transportation for early human ancestors.
My sources agree that the Aegean early Bronze Age is the period of vast expansion
towards seafaring exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, beginning with the settlement of
Cyprus in the eighth millennium BC, and possibly as early as the ninth. The reed-raft and canoe
experiments above have yielded information that signifies it would take about thirty hours to
complete a trip from the mainland of Anatolia to Cyprus’ shores. Later depictions of hulled
watercraft are found in the forms of terracotta models. Wachsmann notes that these terracotta
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models depict a watercraft with a deep hull and a flat top, with a single sternpost used perhaps to
support a steering oar. She also explains that this is similar in style to Egyptian river craft that
were in use until the second millennium B.C.; however, she states that “This arrangement was
never used on seagoing ships, which are always depicted with rudders hung from their quarters.”
Lionel Casson, author of Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, supports this argument by
declaring that the majority of the development of nautical technology did not arise in riveroriented civilizations such as Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or Egypt, but instead occurred in
the open waters of the eastern Mediterranean, with maritime ventures to places such as Crete, the
Aegean islands, and along the coasts of Greece and the Levant. It is further argued that the
technological development of seafaring vessels spread first from the Aegean Sea to river-based
civilizations such as Egypt due to the physical characteristics of open-water travel. Egyptian
watercrafts were designed for transportation along the Nile River, with relatively shallow hulls to
account for depth of the river, although the cataracts often remained unable to be navigated.
Although the Egyptians had the opportunity to develop watercraft suitable for open-sea travel,
their efforts may still have been thwarted by antagonistic meteorological forces. Connie
Lambrou-Phillipson’s article Seafaring in the Bronze Age Mediterranean: The Parameters
Involved in Maritime Travel, addresses the concern of unfavorable weather conditions in
traveling from Egypt to destinations such as Crete in early naval traveling. She suggests that
prominent southeastern winds and currents in this part of the Aegean Sea are responsible for
seafaring technology first developing in Crete before reaching Egypt. One caveat problem that I
have with Lambrou-Phillipson’s article is I believe it may have been translated into English if it
were written in another language, perhaps French as the name suggests. I believe this to be the
case because there are several notable spelling and grammatical mistakes throughout the article.
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Regardless, the author cites other research and generally seems credible despite these
typographical errors.
Hara S. Georgiou’s research on Bronze Age ships and rigging posits the idea that
Egyptian ships were fully capable of making hauls along the Levantine coast, which is
characterized by mild winds, predictable currents, and overall calm seas; however, the author
also concedes that these ships may have not fared so well in the unpredictable changes in
weather in the open seas. Finding this information in two otherwise unrelated articles, one
dealing with conditions, the other with equipment, I am at least reassured that LambrouPhillipson’s conclusions are valid.
Georgiou also identifies the standards for which different types of ships are made. An
example of this is found in the explanation between a cargo ship and fighting ship. Fighting ships
and cargo ships may both be equipped to be propelled either by wind, through rowing, or by a
combination of the two. While Georgiou argues that oared cargo ships were not practical in the
Bronze Age, as the limited size of the ship would have to accommodate for the cargo it holds, as
well as room for the rowers, they and combination setup ships nevertheless accounted for the
majority of ship designs, as displayed by iconographic depictions of Aegean Bronze Age
artifacts.
Although artifacts such as painted storage containers and model ships are a sort of
Aegean technology in their own right, or, if nothing else, a new cultural application of an
existing technology, the focus here is on the technology of the watercraft that are often seen on
these artifacts.
Casson diligently describes the technical aspects of Aegean Bronze Age vessels as having
straight, slender, and low hulls equipped with steering oars that are braced above the stern in a
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“Fish-shaped” strut. Many of these ships, he notes, had sails to accompany the efforts of the
rowers, which depended on the size of the ship. Since the sail was not the main mode of
propulsion, it was relatively small, to only provide some relief and also to prevent the ship
capsizing in strong winds. One example of this is the famous Ulu Burun cargo ship found off of
the coast of Turkey. Georgiou suggests that poor management of a larger sail may have been
what led to the sinking of the Ulu Burun cargo ship, known for carrying an array of artifacts
from greatly varied civilizations. Georgiou claims that a strong wind in a larger sail made the
Ulu Burun violently rock sideways, shifting the ballast, or the weight which keeps the ship
upright, off center, thus rendering it unable to correct the leaning mast and sail in the aggressive
sea.
Warships are briefly discussed in Casson’s article as well. The premise of this section
emphasizes the ships need for fortification while making them more maneuverable than their
cargo counterparts. Fortifications were made to the sides and railing of the ships in order to
prevent boarding enemies, as well as protect the rowers. By using a small sail for support and all
but eliminating majority of the cargo holds, Aegean sailors were able to have a more
maneuverable vessel.
Another type of ship is the Theran sailing ships, widely recognized in iconographic
depictions such as the Akrotiri ship painting. Theran ships were narrow and designed with a
curved hull to effectively cut through waves and rough water. Remarkably, even with its curved
design, the hull remained relatively shallow, allowing it work reasonably well against wind.
Casson’s information on the stylistic changes in Aegean ships is useful because it
displays the Aegean Sea inhabitants’ ability to reformat their shipbuilding culture to suit the
needs of traveling different types of weather, as well as creating different styles of ship for
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different purposes altogether. Additionally, with the case of the Theran ships, it can be argued
that the people of the Aegean Sea and surrounding civilizations continued to refine their works in
order to create more efficient ships. In turn, when ships become more efficient they more easily
lead to a greater expansion of ideas and products. The driving force behind this innovation,
finding more efficient ways to doing this, has led mankind to where it is today.
Despite the fact leaving Egypt via boat, would conceptually be more efficient than by
foot, this was not the case due to a number of physical obstacles such as opposing winds and
currents. Ancient Egyptians had the full capability and opportunity to create seafaring vessels,
but this was not culturally necessary for them. Instead, the technological innovation of seafaring
watercraft came from the inhabitants of the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, using new designs
and prevailing winds to their advantage, become the masters of marine transportation during the
Aegean Bronze Age.