NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 16.2

Table 1. Dimensions of Newe- Yam Anchors

Anchor Diameter of Length Width Thickness Weight Rope Shape of no. rope hole (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) (kg) groove rope hole

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 I 1 12 13 14 15 16

10 ? 12 7 8.5 7.5

11.5 10 1216 13 ? 8.5

10.5 10 9.5 ?

86 62 ? 53

81 56 77.5 45 71 49 77.5 49.5 79 52.5 78 55 75 33.5 84 52 ? 5 1 73 49 91 59.5 79 5 0 72 48.5 ? 28

23.5 19.5 17 19.5 20 14.3 22.5 22 13 20 19.4 18 21.4 204 18 12.4

155 ?

95 135 85 60 75

108 38 95 ? 78

105 80 78 ?

+ ? + + + + + ? ?

+(one side) + + + ?

-

-

straight ?

straight straight straight straight straight straight

double cone straight

? straight straight straight straight straight

column, line 16: instead of Frost, 1979:151 the reference should be Frost, 1963:9.

In the course of a recent underwater survey, divers from the Center for Maritime Studies dis- covered yet another ‘Baby Byblian type’ stone anchor, belonging to the Newe-Yam group (Fig. 11 16). The anchor was found some 25 m south- east of the main group. Its upper part is broken, its weight is estimated to be c. 17 kg. The anchor is of the same limestone as the rest of the members of the group.

Finally, in G. F. Bass’s article: ‘A Bronze Age shipwreck at Ulu Burun (KaS): 1984 Campaign’,

The Athenian Trireme

In view of the imminent launch in Piraeus of the reconstructed Athenian trireme and of her sea trials in August 1987 our friend Lucien Basch’s critical review (in the Mariner’s Mirror 73, pp. 93-105) of The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge, 1986), in which we set out the principles of that reconstruction, has called for some immediate reply from us. Since the Editor of the Mariner’s Mirror was unable to give us the opportunity of making these remarks in the succeeding issue of that journal we wish to express our gratitude to the Editor International Journal of Nautical Archaeology for the hospitality of being able to express our views here.

AJA 90, we noticed that the 6 anchors are pos- itioned in a north-south line between rows of ingots. From the position of the anchors, as seen in the illustration, it seems possible that they were stored along with the ingots in the bottom of the vessel. If indeed this is the case, it would be much like the anchors from the shipwreck in Newe Yam.

Ehud Gulili Institute of Archaeology

and Maritime Studies, University of Huifa, Mount Carmel,

Ha f a , Israel

We shall confine ourselves to four major points: (a) the arrangement of the oars; (b) the length of the shipsheds; (c) the length of the oars; (d) the Lenormant relief.

(a) M. Basch says (p.94): ‘the arrangement of the oars proposed by J. S. Morrison in 1941 , . . has now been abandoned and radically re- shaped’. M. Basch has misunderstood. The arrangement of oars proposed in 1941 (and repeated in 1968) was diagrammatic, set out with the intention of demonstrating the theory that oars at three levels in a galley could, rather sur- prisingly, be of the same length, as the ancient evidence required. The step now taken in The

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NOTES A N D NEWS

Athenian Trireme is for a naval architect to fit this system of oars into a properly designed hull taking into account the ancient evidence. There is no abandonment of anything or ‘radical re- shaping’, but there is the crucial application of the laws of physics and the techniques of wooden boatbuilding to the previously proposed theory, which has stood the test of time.

(b) D. J. Blackman’s reservations about the length of the shipsheds were proper and well recognised by us. ‘They naturally continued under water but their lower ends have nowhere been established.’ This is, as Biackman con- tinues, ‘a gap in our knowledge’. Nevertheless, the length as we have it provides a very useful rough guide to the maximum length of the ship the sheds were designed to house. Furthermore, in the course of designing a complete ship in detail to fit the evidence, it became apparent that the length of the vessel is determined more criti- cally by three factors other than the length of the sheds. These are: (1) the length of the hydro- dynamically acceptable and buildable shape of hull in which the required numbers of oarsmen in the middle and lower files can be accommodated satisfactorily; (2) minimization of the wetted area of the hull; (3) achieving the greatest rate of turning. It must be assumed that the ancient Athenians, at a time of great practical skill and competence, did arrive by a process of trial, error, and a great deal of thought, at a design of ship near to the optimum for their naval pur- poses. If those called for the greatest speed and manoeuvrability of warships, as must have been the case when the ram was their main weapon, then all the above three factors would, in the reconstruction, have to be satisfied simul- taneously within the constraints of the other evidence. That requires the first factor to be satis- fied with the minimum possible length of hull. It was only then a matter of seeing that a ship of such a length could have been satisfactorily housed in the sheds.

(c) M. Basch has not appreciated correctly the position with regard to the length of the oars. In the first place there is, in any oared galley, an ideal length of oar by means of which an oars- man of average physique will exert the maximum force under normal conditions of pulling at sea. The designer will therefore arrange his oar sys- tem so that all the oars will, as far as possible, conform to that ideal length. It is therefore a safe

assumption that in the trireme, which was mani- festly designed for speed and manoeuvrability under oar, the oars would, all things being equal, be of that same length. Secondly, the main prac- tical argument put forward from Renaissance times until the present against a ship of three levels of oars is that such a ship must necessarily have had oars of three considerably different lengths, and thus have been unworka6le. It was not only to counter this criticism but also to satisfy the ancient evidence that in 1941 JSM demonstrated with a working model that oars of different lengths were not required necessarily by the difference of levels. Evidence from the pre- served inventories of the Piraeus naval dock- yards shows that in a trireme of the later part of the 4th century BC there were three categories of oars, thranite, zygian and thalamian (length not given) and a further category, spare oars of two lengths, 4 m and 4.22 m. These spares were carried to meet breakages among any of the three previous categories, whose lengths, conse- quently, must have been either 4 m or 4.22 m. Three ancient texts show that the (only slightly) shorter oars were employed at bow and stern, where, in the reconstruction, shorter looms have indeed been found to be needed, so compact is the arrangement. The conclusion follows that, apart from some oars at bow and stern, all the oars at all three levels were 4.22 m long.

The naval inventories also show that there was a noticeable difference between the oars at the different levels, although this difference could not lie in length. We found by practical exper- iment with a mock-up (in full scale) of the oar system shown at Greenwich in 1983, what should have been obvious, namely that the steeper the angle of the oar to the surface of the water when the blade is immersed for pulling, the shorter, and therefore wider, the blade must be. M. Basch’s first reaction, that length was the differentia in appearance between the categories, is mistaken. It was the shape of the blade. If he were to attempt to work a long-bladed oar at a steep angle and a wide-bladed oar from a pos- ition near the waterline, especially in a choppy sea, he would, we think, soon agree.

(d) M. Basch’s comments on the Lenormant relief do not shake our confidence that it, cor- roborated by the Ruvo vase, which he hardly mentions and which is firmly dated to the end of the 5th century BC, is sufficient (even if, con-

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NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 16.2

ceivably but not probably, indirect) evidence, when combined with a number of physical con- siderations, from which to deduce the oar system of a trireme. These physical considerations are, in particular (a) that the breadth overall must be less than the interior breadth of the ship sheds in Piraeus, (b) that the beam on the waterline must be adequate for stability, and (c) the oar blades must be able to be moved at speeds relative to the ship of up to about 5m per second during a sprint. The last condition requires the highest practicable oar gearing, about three-to-one, and a very high striking rate. In such circumstances discussion of any length of oar but the minimum set by the evidence and the physical factors deter- mining the design is academic. The satisfaction of conditions (a) and (b) above requires oars at

all levels to be of the same length, except at the ends of the ship where there is an overriding factor.

The best way to verify many of the points made in this note is to test them geometrically on a drawing board and by calculation. Indeed it would not otherwise be easy to appreciate the constraints laid by the ancient evidence and by the laws of physics on the design of the trireme, which by the time this note appears is likely to be afloat.

John Morrison Granhans, Granhams Road,

Gt Shelford, Cambridge CB 5JX John Coates

Sabinal, Lucklands Road, Bath, Avon BAI 4AU

Comment on ‘The Athenian Trireme’ by J. S. Morrison and J. F. Coates

This is a very interesting book about a long dis- cussed object which now reaches, as we all hope, a convincing solution, but, as ever, there are some points which are controversial. It is pro- posed that the oars were 114 inside and 314 out- side the thole. All seagoing oars known to me are set 1/3 and 2/3 at the thole. There are perhaps boats used for recreation with such an arrange- ment, but I do not know how these could work in a choppy sea. All other drawings in the book (lOa, lob, 16b, c, d, e) have oars 1/3-2/3 at the thole. Themistocles (p. 52) built his triremes ‘for speed and agility in turning’, but I doubt if with the deep keel of the reconstruction, the trireme with these short oars and corresponding leverage (ps 57, 59,64) would be quick in turning. There are other ways to give the ship rigidity with a flatter bottom, probably with the same or even less weight and using no more or even less wood.

On page 163 it is told how the trierarch Brasidas fell from the deck into the outrigger, and his shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and on the next page ‘that the outrigger projected from the side of the ship at a lower level than the deck, and was so constructed that a man could

fall through it’. All drawings of the reconstruc- tion show a deck as broad as the outrigger (46, 55, 67, 62, 66). The description of the deck (p. 161) states that ‘the Themistoclean triereis at any rate had as narrow a deck as possible’. On page 160 it is noted that ‘the deck had a slot in it running fore and aft on the ship’s median line’. The reconstruction pictures show that this slot was exactly over the gangway (55,57,62,65). All that is said about the difficulty resulting from armed men on deck (pp. 161-2) shows that they could not stand in the gangway, as they would have done if the slot had been open, and so give better stability to the ship, but were on the deck. So probably the slot was short, just to take the mast in and out, and was then covered to give the armed men more space on the narrow deck and a better foot hold, avoiding the danger of falling down into the gangway.

These are all minor details, which have to be mentioned, but can be corrected during the building of the reconstruction.

Federico Foerster Laures Consejo de Ciento, 335,

E 08007, Barcelona, Spain

170