The performance of a ship or boat at sea depends on multiple and interacting technical, environmental, and human factors. The technical characteristics of the vessel govern the parameters of its behavior at sea and its tolerances under a range of maritime conditions, modified by alternative configurations and loads that may change from voyage to voyage. Thus, a merchant's sailing ship, like the one that wrecked at Uluburun, will have a sharply different performance profile from an Early Cycladic paddled longboat, quite independent of any environmental or human variables. Environmental factors include macro - or mesoscale forces such as weather and prevailing winds and currents, which in the Mediterranean are often subject to pronounced seasonality. The configuration of coastlines controls the distance between landfalls and the landing places that are suitable for different kinds of vessels; the distribution and contour of land masses in the sea influence visibility and navigational possibilities. The human dimension must take account of experience, knowledge of habitual and alternate routes, navigational knowledge and skill, and crew attributes such as technique, strength, and stamina. In the next chapter I consider in detail the environmental and human contribution to maritime travel; here I focus on what we can reconstruct of the technical performance characteristics of the different types of vessels we have proposed for the Mycenaean world.
Estimation of performance does not depend on a vessel's technical specifications alone, of course. Typically, when attempts are made to evaluate the performance of ancient ships on the basis of the technical parameters of their design, environmental and human factors are neutralized, held “constant," or “averaged." The resulting projections are usually optimized or maximum performance limits. For this reason, ethnographic reporting offers the advantage that the complete interplay of technical, environmental, and human factors can be observed and assessed, and the reasons for success or failure to achieve optimal performance can be identified. To move toward valid comparisons between Aegean Bronze Age mariners and those living in our time in the Pacific, Alaska, or elsewhere in the world, the similarities and differences in all three classes of variables must be identified and assessed. Experiments with reconstructed ancient vessels have the advantage of sailing the same seas as their ancient counterparts, potentially facing many of the same environmental conditions specific to Aegean seafaring. The challenge with these experiments is instead to reach a satisfactory level of confidence that the physical specifications, and to a lesser extent the human performance characteristics, are right.
Let us consider some published data that have been offered as baselines for vessel performance in the Aegean Bronze Age. Cyprian Broodbank (2000: 101— 106, 341—48) uses ethnographic data, calculations based on ancient hull remains, and experimental archaeology with “broadly analogous boats" to carefully outline the performance implications, as well as the profound social and economic transformations that attended the transition from paddled canoes and longboats to the first sailing ships in the late third millennium BC (Table 3.4). The advent of sailing technology, probably transmitted first to Crete via contacts with Egypt, brought in train a series of new performance capabilities. The ability to harness wind power increased the speed of voyaging significantly while also making longer voyages feasible by conserving muscle power. A sailing ship could now voyage from Crete to Egypt in the four days that were previously required
Table 3.4. Optimized performance characteristics for different types of Aegean Bronze Age seacraft (adapted and expanded from Broodbank 2000: tables 3, 12)
For a longboat to reach Crete from the mid-Cyclades (Broodbank 2000: 345).19 This greater speed and range effectively shrank the Aegean and reconfigured maritime relationships. On Crete, the new maritime technology and the contacts it fostered with Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean proved to be contributing factors to the rise of complex society and ultimately to the emergence of palaces and their elites, who exerted strong cultural and even political influence over the Cycladic islands in the first half of the second millennium BC.
The sail made new sea routes possible by allowing the ship to make considerable headway against the wind (Broodbank 2000: 345—46), though it remains controversial just how well they did so, and how often voyages of any length were taken against the wind (Tilley 1999). In this regard, nevertheless, the sailing ship was clearly superior to the galley in offering possibilities for sailing to windward.20 With their limited sailing ability, galleys had recourse only to short bursts of exhausting rowing to advance into the wind. The implications of this limitation for sea voyaging are worthy of consideration. In a later period, Viking galleys served admirably in roles requiring speed, rapid deployment and escape, and transport of warriors. But as long-distance, open-sea sailing vessels, Alec Tilley (1999: 424) comments, “Wonderful though their galleys were, they made a long ocean voyage an adventure for heroes, not a profitable venture for merchants." The situation for Mycenaean galleys must have been similar, even in the smaller world of the Aegean. Their movements must have involved coast-hopping with frequent stops, making long open-sea crossings only in the expectation of favorable winds. Still, we are left with a curious lack of evidence for true Mycenaean sailing ships capable of voyaging throughout the Mediterranean as merchant vessels.
Historical records indicate that in antiquity, ship captains often preferred to wait out fair winds rather than risk sailing to windward for extended portions of a journey. Sailors possessed techniques for advancing against headwinds, but progress was often slow and the effort arduous. In the early 1970s, ethnographer Richard Feinberg accompanied a sailing canoe on a 50-kilometer voyage, into the wind, from Anuta to Patutaka in the Solomon Islands (Feinberg 1988: 89—91, 133—47, fig. 19). The navigator's technique was to take a favorable tack as far as possible under sail, then lower the sail and paddle back to the point where the initial tack could be resumed, marking out a zigzag path. Using this slow, strenuous process, the voyage took twenty hours. The trip home, running under a brisk wind, took only six.
The challenge presented by headwinds in the era before the sail appeared in the Aegean would have been that much greater, as the experiments conducted with the Corfiot papyrella illustrate (Tzalas 1995b; Fig. 3.19). Tzalas' point of departure was to evaluate the hypothesis that the obsidian that found its way from Melos to Franchthi Cave already in the Mesolithic period was transported on paddled reed boats, similar to those used in Egypt in the Bronze Age and in use until recently in Corfu, making the long voyage in a series of coastwise and open-sea segments. After resolving problems with construction techniques and recruitment of a five-person paddling crew, the team wished to set out from near Franchthi, only to discover that the circumnavigation of the Saronic Gulf would be so long and arduous as to give no advantage over acquisition through overland transport from a coastal anchorage much closer to Melos. The team subsequently chose to begin the voyage at Lavrion in Attica. This finding in itself deserves comment. In recent decades, it has become commonplace among Mediterranean archaeologists and historians (myself included) to assert that under conditions of ready access to the sea and underdeveloped terrestrial infrastructure, travel by sea would have been a more efficient and less arduous means of maintaining contacts with other coastal and near-coastal communities near and far. As a counterbalance to the land-focused reality in which most modern Western scholars live, this “corrective" has had some validity and utility. Yet the pendulum may have swung too far, such that the difficulties of sea travel are now underestimated, and long histories of overland connectivity disregarded. Still, Tzalas' claim that a coast-hugging voyage from Franchthi to Melos circumnavigating the Saronic Gulf “would have required much more
3.19 Experimental Corfiot papyrella on the Aegean sea. The Papyrella Voyage is a project of the Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Traditions. Courtesy of the photo archive of Theodor Troev.
Time than the combination of a land voyage from the Argolis to Attica and a sea crossing from Lavrion to Melos" (Tzalas 1995b: 450) is jarring, since we would normally regard the overland journey from Lavrion to Franchthi as particularly long and difficult. Part of the solution may lie in a number of coastal nodes, lost in the rise of global sea level since the Mesolithic, through which obsidian may have been exchanged in down-the-line fashion. It should be remembered that obsidian was recovered in only miniscule quantities from Mesolithic levels at Franchthi (Perles 1990), making the notion of direct Franchthi to Melos runs all the more unlikely. If such intermediate settlements did exist, obsidian distribution would have entailed a series of short-distance trade expeditions by land or sea, a very different scenario. In the bigger picture, assertions such as these that run counter to current ways of thinking challenge us to develop more precise knowledge about how exchange worked at diverse scales, including the role of overland traffic.
As the papyrella made its way from Lavrion to Melos in early October, with two or three island stops scheduled, it encountered unseasonably (though not extraordinarily) rough weather, including heavy rain, high winds, and waves of 1.2—1.5 meters in height. As a result, in addition to seven days of paddling at sea, another eight days were spent anchored at Seriphos when severe weather and winds of 7 and 8 Beaufort made conditions at sea too dangerous. Thus, a relatively modest sea voyage of 120 kilometers might consume an entire
Month — or more, since the return voyage would face opposing sea currents and a greater chance of headwinds.21
The adverse environmental conditions proved to be a blessing in disguise, because they tested the design and addressed the research question in a way that perfect weather and a trouble-free voyage could not. The general seaworthiness of the Corfiot boat proved that the simplest kinds of vessels constructed with basic, universally available tools and materials were capable of island-hopping voyages in the Aegean. The technical and environmental problems encountered en route illustrate vividly some of the challenges the Aegean presents for small-boat captains.
By harnessing wind power, sailing ships reduced the need for human propulsion, allowing for smaller crews and increased cargo space. Merchant vessels of the LBA, of which the Uluburun ship is perhaps representative, improved sailing capabilities and cargo capacity while sacrificing speed and the ability to operate in shallow anchorages. As we have seen, the design of the Mycenaean galley moved in the opposite direction toward a fast rowing ship that maximized crew at the expense of storage and sailing capability.
Broodbank (2000: 346—47) indicates some important implications of the arrival of the sailing ship for coastal inhabitants. The increased speed, range, and cargo space triggered the establishment of new maritime networks as any particular place on the Aegean coast could now be reached more often, and from much more distant points of origin. The Aegean became smaller and contacts expanded. With greater range and cargo capacity, the transport of perishable bulk staples became feasible over longer distances, presenting an opportunity for small coastal communities, for whom self-sufficiency and highly localized subsistence networks had been a matter of survival, to expand into larger, nucleated settlements sustained by regional-scale exchange networks.
The transition from canoes and other light boats with minimal draft to broader, more heavily laden ships propelled primarily by wind power also meant that many shallow and/or exposed beachfronts could not accommodate the new ships. Sailing ships, with heavy sails, rigging, and cargo, could not be dragged out of the water, instead requiring anchoring or mooring in sufficiently deep water off the coast; nor could they easily get underway against strong winds. The result of these new requirements was a partial shift from the opportunistic use of a proliferation of small anchorages to the establishment of major dedicated harbors at the more limited number of suitably sheltered, deep-water anchorages that the Aegean offers.
The archaeological record of the Cyclades in EC III—MC I is plausibly interpreted to manifest these transformations. Old island centers lacking sheltered anchorages, such as Chalandriani-Kastri on Syros, declined while new nucleated settlements with excellent harbors (Akrotiri, Phylakopi, Paroikia on Greater
Paros) grew and flourished (Broodbank 2000: 347—49). External influences, particularly from the emerging powers on Crete, expanded interaction spheres in the Aegean. Although Broodbank emphasizes the nucleation of settlement and maritime activity around the sheltered harbors once sailing ships were in place, I think it is important to assert that small boats and anchorages would not have disappeared from use. Although the configuration of many networks changed, with old relationships broken and new ones initiated, networks of local, regional, and interregional scope persisted in parallel or in nested arrangements that performed different but often complementary functions (more on this in Chapters 4 and 6). Certain coastal settlements will have participated in networks at all these scales, while others, generally smaller or less advantageously sited, did not. Some communities, especially on small islands lacking sheltered harbors and extensive, agriculturally productive hinterlands, were bound to suffer in the reconfigured environment, and Chalandriani-Kastri may be a good example. Yet there were alternative ways to adapt, and many small coastal communities must have been able to ensure their survival by reaffirming traditional links, establishing new ones, or strengthening ties to inland communities.
Building large sailing ships was not necessarily in the best interests or capabilities of small coastal communities controlling minor anchorages. Sails can equally be installed on small boats, even canoes, which could still use all the old landfalls. Thus, the same benefits of an expanded maritime horizon could be realized by small settlements, helping to compensate for periodic reorientations or interruptions in traditional relationships.
One area in which greater knowledge and attention are needed is in the relationship between coastal settlements and their insular or continental interior territories. Small islands, particularly relatively infertile ones such as most of the Cyclades, have little agriculturally productive land, and this has shaped their maritime histories and reliance on external sources of supply. On continental shores and large fertile islands such as Crete or Corfu, relationships with inland dwellers can be important. The complementarity of resources and commodities can stimulate symbiotic relationships, in spite of common difficulties in communication caused by mountainous, broken topography. A town situated on a typical, small coastal plain with limited arable land may seek foodstuffs, timber, and other products from the interior, and these sources may have been more dependable than trade by sea, particularly during the months outside of the sailing season. The Uluburun wreck demonstrates that preserved foods, such as olives and wine, could be transported long distances by ship, but we do not know how pervasive the practice was, especially among small communities. Inhabitants of the interior would have desired certain kinds of imported raw and finished goods otherwise unavailable to them, such as obsidian from Melos, volcanic stone from Aigina or Methana for ground-stone implements, and metals for fashioning tools and the prestige objects with which they were often buried.
For coastal communities with recourse to relationships by both land and sea, the balance must have fluctuated over time with changing political, economic, and security conditions. The potential of regional-scale archaeological projects to describe and assess the mix of coastal-inland relationships in the Bronze Age is great, but still far from realized. This topic is addressed from a methodological point of view in Chapter 5.
How, then, do these observations apply to the Mycenaeans, who plied the Mediterranean some five millennia after the Mesolithic inhabitants of Franchthi Cave, and the better part of a millennium after the introduction of the sail to Crete? In the LBA, sailing technology was long established in the Aegean; the Mycenaeans may have learned these skills directly from the Minoans, or perhaps through the mediation of the Aiginetans at Kolonna. Their maritime world was expansive within the Aegean, and perhaps they also undertook voyages to Egypt and the Levant — or at least as far as Cyprus and Ugarit — and to the central Mediterranean to visit southern Italy, Sicily, and the Lipari Islands. Yet, these far-flung contacts did not spell an end to local and regional connectivity by land or by sea. In any complex society, no matter how hierarchical, there are multiple nested economies, and the Mycenaeans were no different. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the territory controlled by the palatial center at Pylos, where Linear B archives and archaeological discoveries reveal a hierarchical society with complex economies, of which the palace controlled only certain key elements. Local and microregional networks of interdependence, which coastal inhabitants shared with inland neighbors or their counterparts on further shores, constituted economies every bit as real, and surely as prevalent, as the “palace economies" or the long-distance exchange of highly visible commodities. One aim of this book, pursued explicitly in the case studies, is to uncover the archaeological signatures of these smaller-scale coastal economies.
Conclusions: Mycenaean Ships and Boats
This chapter has examined the evidence for Mycenaean ships and boats, and summarized what can be surmised of their forms, functions, and performance characteristics. Only the galley is sufficiently widely attested in a range of media to allow a reasonable understanding of all of these categories. A case has been made for several other kinds of ships and boats, for which we have equivocal evidence or no evidence at all. This case has been an interpretive exercise relying on diverse information: contemporary non-Aegean boats, the Flotilla Fresco at Akrotiri, ethnographic data, shipwrecks, and interpretation of iconography and boat models. From this information, it is possible to suggest that the galley was joined in the Mycenaean repertoire by varied types of vessels that we might
Label with designations like canoe, fishing boat, rowboat, pilot, coasting vessel, merchant vessel, and so on.
Teasing out a fuller roster of ships and boats, and considering their likely physical and performance attributes, sheds light on the seas, coasts, harbors, and simple anchorages where they would have been active. With their properties and requirements in mind, the next chapter examines the physical characteristics of coastal settings in Greece, and the other parameters — environmental conditions and human skill — of travel to and from them.
World History
