An essential baseline for understanding the coastal interface between sea and land in the Aegean Bronze Age is knowledge of the ships and boats active at that time: the range of their forms and functions, their operating limits and geographical ranges. A voluminous and constantly expanding scholarship exists on all aspects of Aegean Bronze Age seacraft (Basch 1987; McGrail 2001; Tzalas 1989, 1995a, 1999, 2001, 2002; Wachsmann 1998; Wedde 2000). Much of this discussion remains speculative because, as we have seen, there are few surviving physical remains, and many of the details shown on images and models of Bronze Age vessels are highly ambiguous as to identity and function. Moreover, certain classes of craft that must have existed are represented poorly or not at all. The objective of this chapter is to summarize the salient features that are known or can be inferred about Bronze Age, particularly Mycenaean, seagoing and coastriding vessels. Here and in the chapters to follow, ship images are cited using the numbering system of Michael Wedde's catalogue in Towards a Hermeneutics of Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery (Wedde 2000). In an image citation, a reference such as W612 simply means Wedde, catalogue number 612 (one of the Flotilla Fresco vessels). The virtues of Wedde's system are that it is rational and easy to use, each item is illustrated and discussed thoroughly, a handy concordance with other catalogues is included, and it is easily accessible in libraries.
General Characteristics of Mediterranean Bronze Age
Ships and Boats
All evidence suggests that Mediterranean Bronze Age vessels were constructed hull first rather than frame first, and there is in fact no certain evidence of frames in the small amount of hull material recovered to date (Pulak 2002: 616).
3.1 Mortise-and-tenon joinery. Drawing by Felice Ford after Wachsmann 1998: 216, fig. 10.2.
The earliest known frame-first ships date to the mid-first millennium AD, based on recent finds from Tantura Lagoon near Haifa (Kahanov 2001, 2009) and the Theodosian Harbor at Istanbul (Pulak 2009). There were two basic methods of joining the planks and other structural members of the ship: mortise-and-tenon joinery, and lacing or sewing (Fig. 3.1). The two Mediterranean Bronze Age shipwrecks from which pieces of the hull have been preserved, those at Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya, were both made with locked mortise-and-tenon joinery (Bass 1989; Pulak 2002). Mortise-and-tenon joinery is well known from earlier and contemporary Egyptian vessels (McGrail 2006: 60), but the technique of locking or pegging the tenons into place with treenails was possibly an innovation of Canaanite shipbuilders in the mid-second millennium BC.1 The locked mortise-and-tenon joint was part of a wider repertoire of woodworking techniques, as illustrated by roughly contemporary tables excavated at MB II Jericho (circa 1750—1650 BC: Wachsmann 1998: 240—41, fig. 10.28) and in Shaft Grave V at Mycenae (Muhly 1996). Despite the fact that the Uluburun and Gelidonya hulls were joined in this way, ships with sewn planking persisted well into historical times. The hulls of a number of Mediterranean wrecks from the period 600—100 BC are either fully sewn or partly sewn and partly joined by mortise and tenon (Mark 2005: 45—68; McGrail 2006: 61).2 Most experts accept, however, that the Uluburun and Gelidonya ships were of Levantine or Cypriot, not Mycenaean, origin. There is no consensus on when shipwrights in the Aegean world began to employ mortise-and-tenon joints. Some interpret the boat that Odysseus fashioned to depart from Calypso's island (Odyssey 5.234—57) as a mortise-and-tenon joined boat (e. g., Casson 1995: 217—19), which would establish the Late Geometric period as the minimum age for this technique's appearance in the Aegean. Others, however, read into the same passage a sewn vessel (Mark 2005: 94), and Samuel Mark (2005: 63—64) in fact places the transition from sewn to mortise-and-tenon joinery in the sixth century BC,
3.2 Painted keel on boat model, Asine LH IIIC. After Vichos and Lolos 1997: 333, fig. 21.
As a specific modification to accommodate large, heavy amphora cargoes and burgeoning polis-supported navies. We cannot assume that the Mycenaeans used this technique, but even if they did, many hulls, particularly those of smaller ships and boats, undoubtedly continued to be partially or completely sewn.
The Uluburun ship had a keel that projected into the interior of the hull, rather than outward as was typical of most ancient Mediterranean hulls (Pulak 2002: 618—19). Boat models from the Mycenaean world of late palatial and postpalatial times show the keel as a painted longitudinal line on the inner bottom surface (e. g., Kynos LHIIIC models W332, W333; Fig. 3.2) or a protrusion on the external bottom surface (Mycenae LH IIIC model W312; Karaminou 2002: 446).
A range of appendages and devices on the bow, stempost, and stern are portrayed on the ships of the Flotilla Fresco (Wedde 2000: 119—30, figs. 9— 11; see Fig. 2.7). The larger vessels have bowsprits, or spars, running from the stempost as decorative devices or to fasten the stays (Wedde 2000: 215). Those on the ships participating in the procession are long and decorated with symbols of birds, dolphins, butterflies, and suns. These sprits were apparently detachable (Wedde 2000: 120). Elaborate bowsprits are not characteristic of Mycenaean vessels, but the stempost (the upright continuation of the keel at the bow) often terminates in the head of a bird or other animal, sometimes rendered realistically and in other cases abstractly (Fig. 3.3). These figured stemposts are diagnostic of late Mycenaean ship depictions of LH IIIB and LH IIIC (Wedde's [2000: 123— 24] Skyros and Tragana clusters). The prevalence of bird heads as figureheads accords well chronologically with the depiction of birds (along with other motifs including fish, bulls, octopi, and chariot scenes) often rendered in a similar fashion on painted Aegean and Aegean-style pictorial pottery beginning in LH IIIA in the Argolid at Mycenae and Tiryns (Gtinter 2000). Subsequently in LH IIIB, an industry centered in the Argolid produced pictorial vessels for export to Cyprus. In LH IIIC, this tradition continued with the “Close Style" at Mycenae and Tiryns, and with other local styles in Greece, the eastern Aegean Islands, coastal Asia Minor, and Cyprus. This tradition then influenced the Philistine
3.3 Bird-head stempost decoration on a straight-sided alabastron, LH IIIC Middle, Tragana.
Wedde 2000: Catalogue 643, after Korres 1989: 200. Courtesy of Michael Wedde.
Monochrome and Bichrome pictorial pottery as migrants from the Aegean and Cyprus contributed culturally to the formation of the historical Philistines in the twelfth and eleventh centuries (Bunimovitz 1998; Dothan 1998; Yasur-Landau 2005, 2010). Thus the pattern of bird motifs on pottery and ship representations demonstrates continuity bridging the Aegean palatial and postpalatial worlds and involving broad maritime contacts (Meiberg 2011).
Ships and boats were propelled by one or more of three instruments: paddle, oar, or sail (Wachsmann 1998: 247—54).3 Anyone who has paddled a canoe and rowed an oared boat will immediately understand the difference in these means of propulsion. Paddling was the earlier form and rowing an innovation in which the pivoting of an oar on a grommet or oarlock increased power and used energy more efficiently. Although paddling continued in use during the Bronze Age in small craft and for cultic use, oared vessels were well established by the later third millennium in Egypt. In the contemporary EBA Aegean, longboats of the Cycladic islands employed up to 25 or more paddlers (Broodbank 2000: 99). It is possible that the shift from paddle to oar as the primary means of propulsion took place as part of an infusion of maritime technology that also brought the sail to the Aegean near the end of the Early Bronze Age. This transformation is evident in the changing depictions on pottery, seals, and models that characterize the developmental sequence from Wedde's “Syros" (EC/EM/EH II) to “Platanos" (EM III-MM III) types (Wedde 2000: 45-52). These changes had other implications for hull design, including broadening the beam to accommodate the mast and rigging as well as the positioning of oars and oarsmen.
Another prominent feature related to propulsion was the steering oar (or quarter rudder, taking the name from its usual position projected over the starboard quarter near the stern), almost certainly attached to the side of the hull by some kind of strap.4 The steering oar's function is to redirect water past the hull to impart a turning motion to the vessel, and by 3000 BC in Egypt it was found to be a necessary aid to steering. The earliest clear depiction in the Aegean of a steering oar, in this case with a tiller attached, comes from an Early Cycladic III askos from Phylakopi (W416; Wedde 2000: 314; Fig. 3.4). There is a general evolution of the steering oar during the Bronze Age, particularly in
3.4 Early steering oar on an Early Cycladic III sherd. Wedde 2000: Catalogue 416, after Atkinson et al. 1904: pl. V.8c. Courtesy of Michael Wedde.
The form of the blade (Wedde 2000: 60-62, fig. 7). Earlier depictions from the Cyclades and Crete show a spindle - or leaf-shaped blade, while the Mycenaean blade of LH IIIC was larger and thicker, with a triangular shape. Normally, one steering oar is depicted on the starboard quarter, but rarely there are two (e. g., the ship under sail in the Akrotiri Flotilla Fresco; W617) or even three.
The earliest certain depiction of a sail in the Mediterranean occurs in Egypt on a Naqada II (Gerzean) pottery vessel dated between 3500 and 3100 BC (Fig. 3.5).5 The image depicts a ship bearing a single square sail positioned well forward toward the prow, in clear contrast to the conventional positioning of the sail amidships in Bronze Age iconography and models.6 The position of the sail forward of the center of the hull's profile has been interpreted as part
3.5 Earliest Mediterranean depiction of a sailing vessel, on a Naqada II (Gerzean) jar, Egypt. © Trustees of the British Museum.
3.6 Steatite seal with a ship and possible steering oar, Siteia district, EM III or MM I. Wedde 2000: Catalogue 707, after Xenaki-Sakellariou 1958: pl. 18.79a. Courtesy of Michael Wedde.
Of an early evolutionary stage in ship configuration (Casson 1995: 19), but to modern ship designers, the center of the sail area is properly shifted forward if the vessel is to sail into the wind or with the wind direction forward of the beam (Tilley 1999).
The sail was probably introduced to Crete via Egypt just before 2000 BC (Broodbank 2000: 341—47; Yule 1980: 164—66). The earliest certain evidence for the sail in the Aegean comes from a series of Minoan seals from EM III and EM III—MM I contexts (Wedde 2000: 331—33; W701—713), showing ships with a single mast amidships, two or three fore - and backstays, and variable numbers of oars. At least one (W707) may show a steering oar (Fig. 3.6). The high, sweeping stern - and stemposts form the crescent shape characteristic of Cretan vessels through the MBA and into the early phases of the LBA, as is plainly shown in the Akrotiri fresco a half-millennium later.
Until the last phase of the LBA, the square or rectangular sail was stretched between a yard and a fixed boom, and furled by lowering the yard to the boom. This boom-footed rig presented certain limitations (Wachsmann 1998: 248—54). With the fixed boom, the ship had limited ability to sail into the wind; when not traveling before the wind, the crew's options narrowed to lying at anchor or taking up oars. Further, the sail could not be taken in, so to reduce sail the crew was forced to remove the sail and raise a smaller one, not a simple matter with an unwieldy cable system. The results of preliminary sailing experiments with a replicated boom-footed square rig do not contradict these assessments (Raban and Sterlitz 2002).
A significant innovation of the Bronze Age was the brailed rig with a loosefooted sail, which replaced the boom-footed rig after 1200 BC. In this new configuration, the boom disappeared altogether, replaced by lines (brails) attached to the foot of the sail and threaded up the sail through brailing rings sewn onto the sail. The sail could now be furled by simply pulling on the brails to raise it up to the yard, saving considerable time, effort, and manpower (Wachsmann 1998: 251) and making the ship more responsive to changing conditions at sea. The transition from boom-footed to brailed rig is clearly illustrated in the Aegean.
When rigging is identifiable in images of LH/LM IIIB (thirteenth century BC) or earlier, it is almost invariably of the boom-footed type,7 But most LH IIIC examples of the post-1200 BC period employ the new brailed rig (Wachsmann 1998: 251; Wedde 2000: 80—87). Elsewhere, shortly after 1200, the naval battle scene from the north wall of the mortuary temple of harnesses III at Medinet Habu shows the ships of both Egyptians and Sea Peoples with brailed rigs (Casson 1995: 36—38, fig. 61; Raban 1995). The brailed, loose-footed sail seems not to be an Egyptian or Aegean innovation, however. Some interpret the Sea Peoples' ships as Syro-Canaanite (Wachsmann 1998: 163—98). Earlier depictions of Syro-Canaanite ships may or may not carry brailed rigs. An oft-cited example is a craft of Syro-Canaanite type painted in the tomb of Nebamun at Egyptian Thebes, dating to the reign of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep II in the last quarter of the fifteenth century BC. The rigging has been interpreted as supporting a loose-footed sail (Raban 1995: 355), but the part of the painting where the boom would be positioned is not preserved, and several scholars have reconstructed the ship with a standard boom (Wachsmann 1998: 45—47, figs. 3.6-3.8).
Various features depicted on the decks and hulls were probably detachable furniture reserved for ceremonial occasions. On both larger and smaller ships in the Flotilla Fresco, a prominent framework composed of vertical stanchions and horizontal roofing beams forms an awning-like structure that occupies almost half the length of the hull (see Fig. 2.7). The framework creates several compartments in which numerous robed figures are seated. Because boar's tusk helmets hang from some of the compartments' roofs, along with what may be weapons stacked on top, these figures have been interpreted as representations of soldiers (Warren 1979: 119), though they could be VIPs of another type (Morgan Brown 1978). This structure is limited mainly to the Akrotiri fresco of LM IA and the Miniature Wall Painting at Ayia Irini of slightly later date in LM IB/LHII (W672-76; Wedde 2000: 327-28). At that time, Ayia Irini in the northern Cyclades had strong ties to the southern Cycladic and Minoan worlds. A gold signet ring found near Tiryns and dated on stylistic grounds to LH II depicts a similar structure, with two passengers seated face to face under the awning (Fig. 3.7).8 Several salient points emerge from studies of the awnings. They occur on frescoes in the Cyclades and seals on Crete, in a relatively narrow time horizon in the middle of the second millennium BC, but with the exception of the (surely imported) Tiryns ring, they are not found on the Greek mainland at any time. They appear in pictorial contexts that are strongly ritual or ceremonial in nature - the elaborate ornamentation, fanfare, and deliberately archaizing propulsion at Akrotiri, and intimations of feasting at Ayia Irini. Since such large structures would have proved a hindrance both to sailing and rowing, as well as cargo capacity, it is safe to conclude that these were detachable structures assembled onboard for special events and disassembled afterward. Ships configured
3.7 LH II signet ring showing awning structure, Tiryns. © Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religions, Culture and Athletics/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Courtesy of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
With this special furniture may not have been taken very far from shore, if the Akrotiri and Ayia Irini scenes are any indication.
Another kind of deck furniture has greater relevance for the Mycenaean world. An elaborately decorated ship cabin, or ikrion (pl. ikria), present on the sterns of all of the larger ships in the Flotilla Fresco procession, was in essence a screen of oxhide or woven fabric on a framework of poles and crossbars, which presumably housed a seat for the ship's captain or some other important official (Shaw 1980, 1982; Wedde 2000: 132—34; Fig. 3.8). The ikrion was unroofed — as clarified by the heads of occupants protruding over the top of the framework — and open on the side facing the bow. Like the awning structure, it was detachable, but it may have been mounted on a permanent platform built onto the stern deck (Shaw 1982: 56, fig. 5). Maria Shaw (1982: 55) characterizes the ikrion as a light, flexible tent-like structure that could easily be disassembled and stored.
Apart from the Flotilla Fresco, images of ships with ikria are relatively rare and date mainly to LM I/II. They include a seal (W910) of MM IIIB—LM I type possibly found near Thebes, a number of “talismanic" seals predominantly from Crete or of unknown provenience, and a few examples of Linear A sign *86 that may incorporate ikria. The renderings of ship components in these last two categories, highly stylized in the talismanic seals and schematic in the Linear A script, make readings as ikria a matter of interpretation. A stone vase with relief decoration found near Epidauros contains a depiction of a ship with an ikrion in an anomalously late LH IIIB context (W642; Wedde 2000: 324). Like awning structures, ikria appear in ceremonial scenes. They are not depicted on Late Mycenaean galleys shown engaged in naval battle, for example, or on any of the nonceremonial ships in the Akrotiri fresco.
3.8 Ikria from two of the Flotilla Fresco ships, Akrotiri. Wedde 2000: Catalogue 614 (top), after Marinatos 1974b: 140, fig. 26; and 615 (bottom). Courtesy of Michael Wedde.
Another class of ikrion representations forges a more direct link with the Mycenaean world. The main decoration on the walls of Room 4 of the West House at Akrotiri, adjacent to the room containing the Flotilla Fresco, was a continuous frieze of eight painted ikria (Wachsmann 1998: 94; Warren 1979: 119; Fig. 3.9). M. Shaw (1980, 1982) has convincingly reconstructed painted stucco fragments excavated in 1886 in a small room just north of the Megaron of the palace at Mycenae as part of a comparable frieze of at least four ikria. The room is interpreted as belonging to a domestic quarter within the palace complex, similar to the inferred function of West House Room 4. The Mycenae ikria, along with additional fresco fragments from the Mycenaean palace at Thebes that may illustrate an ikrion in association with a female wearing a flounced skirt, and the Epidauros relief vessel mentioned above, combine to make a strong case for the survival of this particular emblem through a halfmillennium of changing relationships and ship forms. Found in highly elite contexts at Akrotiri, Mycenae, and Thebes, the ikrion can be understood as a symbol of nautical power transmitted among those elites whose power rested partially in the control of sea routes by which access to raw materials and privileged relationships was secured. The recent recognition that fragments of a wall painting from Hall 64 at the Mycenaean palace at Pylos constitute parts
3.9 Ikrion frieze from West House Room 4, Akrotiri. Shaw 1980: 176, ill. 8. Courtesy of Maria C. Shaw and the Archaeological Institute of America.
Of a ship with a brailed rig (Shaw 1980, 2001) highlights the underappreciated role of the nautical realm in the visual language of Mycenaean power.
Types of Mycenaean Seacraft
It is possible to recognize certain distinct types of vessels plying the Aegean in the LBA, and to hypothesize the existence of other types for which we have little or no direct evidence. Two basic functional types that have been projected onto the Bronze Age data are the merchantman and the galley (Wedde 2001: 609).9 The merchantman was a trading vessel designed to maximize cargo capacity. To do so, the space available for rowers and other crew was reduced. With diminished capacity for propulsion by rowing, the merchantman was a true sailing ship that could operate with a minimal crew, but relied on wind power and used oars for limited tasks such as maneuvering within harbor areas. The design of the merchantman hull favored a broader beam, i. e., a larger width to length ratio, to achieve greater capacity and enhanced stability when loaded. Merchantmen were not, however, depicted by Aegean Bronze Age artists, and the true merchantman does not appear in the pictorial record until the late sixth century BC. The date of its initial use will have been somewhat earlier, perhaps as a response to a constellation of novel conditions in the Greek world, including the opening of the Western markets as a result of the colonizing movement, and the naval capacities of the burgeoning poleis that were able to suppress piracy sufficiently for a dedicated cargo ship with few defenses to become viable (Wedde 2002: 845).
Egyptian and Near Eastern representations record a range of forms for merchant ships (Wachsmann 1998: 9—60), but the Uluburun ship is probably typical of the merchant vessels plying the Aegean in the LBA. In view of the ship's apparent westward route and the possibility of two Mycenaean individuals aboard (Pulak 2005), the design of such Syro-Canaanite ships must have been widely known. The Uluburun ship, estimated from hull remains to have been around 15 meters long and 5 meters wide, carried a cargo weighing approximately 20 tons (Pulak 2002: 615). This 1:3 width to length ratio with its substantial storage capacity may be typical of vessels designed primarily for maritime trade in the LBA eastern Mediterranean. The smaller Gelidonya ship, estimated at 9—10 meters in length but uncertain width, has been associated with a “traveling smith, or tinker" because of the tools and scrap metal that formed much of its cargo (Bass 2005b: 51), and must represent another, poorly substantiated, class in the continuum of Bronze Age seacraft.
Neither the ships of Uluburun/Gelidonya type nor the iconographic Mycenaean galleys fit the functional end members of the round-bottomed trading ship or the oared warship, respectively. Wedde (2001: 610—12) argues for the existence of multifunctional hulls in the Bronze Age, with intermediate or hybrid forms such as the “cargo galley" or “merchant galley" developing near the end of the Bronze Age and in the Iron Age (see also Casson 1995: 65—8, 157— 68). There must have been many intermediate designs that constituted distinct solutions to competing desires for increased storage capacity, speed, and ideal propulsion methods (oar or sail). As compromises, these versatile ships could be called upon for speedy transport of warriors and other important persons, time-sensitive messages, or cargo in need of rapid delivery, perhaps including perishable commodities. The Akrotiri fresco illustrates several distinct classes of craft that form a baseline for reconstructing the variety of Mycenaean ships and boats (see below).
The pictorial corpus of Mycenaean seacraft is instead dominated by oared galleys with long, narrow hulls designed to maximize the number of rowers for the purpose of high speed regardless of wind conditions (Wedde 2001: 609). Although the galley carried a mast and sail, it was a less efficient sailing ship than the merchantman with a greatly reduced cargo capacity. Pictorial vases of LH IIIC from Kynos on the coast of East Lokris in central Greece clearly show galleys engaged in naval warfare (Dakoronia 1999, 2002), and the pedigree of Aegean ships involved in warfare or piracy can be traced back at least to MH II with the painted representation on a pithos sherd from Kolonna on Aigina of armed figures aboard a ship with a curved hull (W511; Fig. 3.10), if not earlier (Hockmann 2001). The Mycenaean galley was not strictly a dedicated warship,
3.10 MH II sherd showing armed figures aboard a ship, Kolonna. Drawing by Felice Ford after Siedentopf 1991: pl. 38.162.
However, since it is frequently shown without warriors and in contexts that imply ritual and other nonmilitary activities. The true warships of Archaic and Classical Greece were the result of a gradual evolution that began with the Mycenaean galley, with incremental innovations that moved the design toward the single purpose of naval warfare.
Development of the Mycenaean Galley
The oared galley is, practically speaking, the only type of distinctly Mycenaean vessel in the pictorial record. Mycenaean merchantmen may have existed, and small working boats certainly did, but we have no indisputable representations of either. Even the Mycenaean oared galley does not appear iconographically until LH IIIB, before being depicted much more frequently in LH IIIC, leaving a period of several hundred years in Early Mycenaean and early palatial times with almost no evidence of seafaring on the Greek mainland. Because Minoan-style vessels continue to be depicted in small numbers until LM/LH IIIB, it is possible to bridge the gap by assuming that Minoan-style vessels were used by the Mycenaeans up to and including a short period of coexistence in LH IIIB (Wedde 2002: 844—45), but the examples of Minoan-style ships and boats are few on the mainland. A terracotta model from Tanagra (W319) of LH IIIA—B date that shares formal characteristics with Theran and Minoan ship images is perhaps representative of a mainland type influenced by Minoan shipbuilding traditions. Certainly, given the heavy influence of Minoan Crete on the emergence of complex society on the mainland in the Shaft Grave Era, also the time of greatest Minoan maritime expansion in the neopalatial period, such a transfer of technology would be unsurprising. On the other hand, because a Mycenaean figural tradition did not emerge in any medium until mature palatial times, the lacuna may be simply part of the general situation with respect to artistic representation, and not an indication that seafaring was of little importance to Mycenaean polities or that Mycenaean shipbuilders lacked their own distinctive practices.
Here it is appropriate to mention the recent discovery of ships in frescoes from two sites in Messenia that help to bridge the chronological and typological gap between the ships of the Flotilla Fresco and the LH IIIC galley images. These important and as yet unpublished finds, from Pylos (Brecoulaki et al. 2011; Stocker and Davis 2011)10 And Iklaina (Cosmopoulos 2011),11 May prove to be intermediate types along this evolutionary path, although it is important to remember that artistic representations may not reflect actual shipbuilding traditions. The Pylos “naval fresco" as reconstructed to date shows three ships in fragmentary state (and possibly the steering oar of a fourth?) that are quite varied in their shape and appearance. What is perhaps most striking is that two of the three ships have the strongly crescentic shape of the Minoan/Cycladic tradition, while the profile of the third is flatter and curves only as it rises to the (apparent) sternpost. The hull of the best-preserved ship is brightly painted with a multicolored zigzag pattern, and three oars extend over the side of the ship into the water. At the stern an ikrion can be discerned, as well as a large foliate steering oar, with two secondary steering oars, one to port and the other to starboard. Only a small fragment of the second crescentic boat is preserved, but two oars are in the water and a steering oar is visible. The third ship seems to have an awning structure and an ikrion. The single fresco fragment from Iklaina shows a portion of a boat with two rowers under an awning structure with their oars in the water. Behind them, the head of a figure is visible behind a curved sheet that must represent an ikrion built into the awning structure. The side of the hull is decorated with painted spirals, and two dolphins swim alongside. Like the third ship in the Pylos fresco, the shape of the hull is flatter, with a gentle curve toward the prow, which is not preserved. Interestingly, the rowers appear to be backing the boat, stern-first, into anchorage.
The early date of the Iklaina fresco fragment, recovered in a reportedly secure LH IIB—niAl context, makes it unique in shedding light on the transmission and adaptation of the Aegean tradition on the mainland. Michael Cosmopoulos identifies both mainland and Minoan features in the fragment, and concludes that it shows a Helladic adaptation of Minoan iconographic motifs. A significant difference between the earlier Minoan/Cycladic tradition and the later LH IIIC representations of the Mycenaean galley is that in the former, rowers are often painted realistically as men, as in the Flotilla Fresco and the Iklaina fragment, with realistic details of the hair, face, arms, and clothing. In LH IIIC rowers are schematic shapes if they are depicted at all; often the oars stand in for the men. No rowers are preserved in the Pylos fresco thus far, but the ships also blend mainland and Minoan/Cycladic features at a much later date in LHIIIB, testifying to the continuing influence of the Minoan iconographic tradition. It is not certain whether these two examples represent a peculiarly Messenian tradition, or one that was more widespread on the mainland but rarely preserved. In any case, these frescoes do not contradict Wedde's conjecture that Minoan-style vessels were used on the mainland in the LBA and coexisted for a time with the newly developing galley in LH IIIB.
According to Wedde (2005: 29), the Mycenaeans invented the oared galley, a radical departure in naval architecture, sometime after 1400 BC. The Mycenaean galley of LH IIIB and IIIC differed in important respects from the Cycladic and Minoan ships that preceded it. Minoan ships, including the seacraft depicted in the Akrotiri Flotilla Fresco, appear to have developed gradually out of the Early Cycladic II longboat tradition illustrated in the ceramic “frying pans," two lead plaques from Naxos, a sherd from Orchomenos, and a model from Palaikastro (Wedde 2001: 610, 2006: 256 [types II—IV]). Wedde (2005: 30) argues for a single, multifunctional hull type depicted on Minoan seals and the Akrotiri fresco, one equally capable of carrying trade goods, ferrying people on religious processions, or transporting warriors. He considers this a definitively Minoan type of “oared sailing ship" because although they had crews of oarsmen, their design was primarily for sailing. They were versatile in that a small crew could operate them if room was needed for cargo storage, but they also performed efficiently as naval ships.
When representations of Mycenaean galleys appeared rather abruptly in LH IIIB on pictorial pottery, they presented a radically different hull configuration, possibly redesigned from the keel up, rather than the result of a gradual evolution (Wedde 2005: 30—32, 2006: 257—61). The Mycenaean galley loses the crescent shape and sweeping extremities of the Akrotiri ships, replaced instead by vertical stern - and stemposts. The stempost usually rises higher, and is surmounted by a bird or bird head device, in some cases realistic and in others abstract.12 The fundamental transformation was from Minoan oared sailing vessel to Mycenaean rowed galley. Minoan-style hulls, including the Akrotiri ships stripped of their ceremonial add-ons and with sails restored, sailed efficiently while resorting to oar power mainly when compelled by environmental conditions — dead calm seas, entering or leaving harbors, rounding headlands, or avoiding lee shores. Their general-purpose shape was not optimized for any one task such as rapid movement of troops or other personnel, raiding or defending, or maximum cargo capacity, but they could modify their configuration or propulsion method as the situation demanded (McGrail 2001: 121—22).
The Mycenaean galley moved toward a more purpose-built design. Although equipped with a mast and sail, it featured a long, narrow hull that emphasized oar-driven speed at the expense of wind power and storage capacity. Some basic structural characteristics can be distilled from pictorial representations
And models of LH IIIB and IIIC (Wachsmann 1998: 130—53). Along the length of the extended hull, a frequently occurring ladder-like painted design represents an open rowers' gallery with vertical stanchions defining each rower's station (see Fig. 3.3). Oars corresponding to these stations are usually visible against and below the hull, and in rare cases the oarsmen themselves are added. The origin of the penteconter (50-oared galley) in the Mycenaean galley is confirmed by the common occurrence of 25 rowing stations and oars, with slight variations in the number probably the result of artistic license or insufficient space. Thirty-oared galleys (triaconters) are also depicted, and 10- and 20-oared vessels may have been standard types as well.
A logical measure of the contrast in shape between the Minoan all-purpose hull and the later Mycenaean galley ought to be the width to length ratio, but the estimation of this ratio from two-dimensional representations presents many potential errors in both dimensions (Wedde 2000: 101—10). If paddlers, rowers, or oars are depicted, a rough length can be calculated by recourse to the inter-scalmium, or distance required between rowers or paddlers for them to execute their task. Once the length for this “motor section" is derived, the length of the bow and stern sections can be established as percentages of the depicted length of the motor section. Estimates of width (or beam) are less reliable, since two-dimensional representations provide no information. They are conventionally derived from some combination of the width required to accommodate two rowers or paddlers across, general considerations of hydrodynamic properties and shipbuilding traditions, and Bronze Age boat models.
The difficulties with this approach are easily illustrated by the widely divergent dimensions calculated for the length and beam of one of the large ships in the Akrotiri fresco (Table 3.1). With length and beam varying by as much as a factor of two, these calculations reconstruct vessels of very different size, hull shape, technical performance at sea, and likely function. It is overly optimistic to hope that Bronze Age artists sought to produce drawings at standard scales, and lacking the dimension of width, definitive reconstructions are practically impossible to generate based solely on two-dimensional images (McGrail 2001: 120). The boat models present the third dimension of beam, but are considered unreliable for calculating dimensions of real vessels because of their typically crude execution. Interestingly, however, the beam to length ratio of most models hovers in the range of 1:3. Such a ratio implies a different kind of craft than the large Akrotiri ships, the Early Cycladic longboats (perhaps circa 1:10), or the Mycenaean and later galleys (in the 1:7 or 1:8 range), but roughly matches the ratio of the Uluburun ship. There is reason to believe, therefore, that some boat models represent cargo hulls of the day, though they could equally represent small boats, similar at least in size to those illustrated at Akrotiri. By and large, the models do not seem to depict galleys.
The Mycenaean galley offered certain performance advantages over the Minoan oared sailing vessel. It was a speedier ship with its long, narrow profile and emphasis on propulsion from the motor section and greater proportional waterline length. Although lighter overall, it seated more rowers. Being lighter, it was easier to draw out of the water onto anchorages lacking offshore mooring. It was less dependent on favorable winds, but in many situations ship captains would have preferred to wait out favorable winds rather than try to row long distances. The steering mechanism was a significant improvement: the Mycenaean triangular steering oar, evolved from its Minoan spindle-shaped counterpart, was a forerunner of the Early Iron Age to Archaic steering oar, with possibly superior hydrodynamic properties.
The drawbacks to the galley design are that it could not easily be operated with a skeleton crew (Wedde 2005: 32); its cargo capacity was reduced — a long, narrow vessel with most room taken up by oarsmen would not have made an efficient trading vessel; it was less efficient at sailing; and crew fatigue on long journeys must have played a greater role.
If the Mycenaean galley was a purpose-built ship, what were the roles for which it was designed? To answer this question, we must begin with the historical circumstances of the Mycenaean period, and consider what need there would have been for a fast seagoing ship with a large, potentially heavily armed crew and relatively little cargo space. This was an era of intensive trade and diplomatic relations among the greater and lesser powers of the eastern Mediterranean. Although the Mycenaeans may have been largely peripheral to the main sphere of interaction to the east, their presence — direct or indirect — is attested by the large quantities of fineware pottery vessels that arrived in Egypt, the Syro-Canaanite coast, and Cyprus in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries, corresponding to pottery phases LH IIIA and LH IIIB (see Chapter 2). There is reasonable doubt about whether the pottery was carried by Mycenaean ships to all these destinations, and it seems unlikely in any case that the galley would have been an effective means to transport such commodities, except in modest quantities that make little pure economic sense. Perhaps galleys participated in quasi-diplomatic or gift exchange missions, which might result, for example, in the kind of concentration of Mycenaean pottery seen at Tell el-Amarna during the reign of Akhenaten in the mid-fourteenth century.
There is ample evidence, both direct and indirect, that piracy and naval warfare were concerns that contributed to the design of the Mycenaean galley. Already in the middle to late third millennium BC, heavily fortified coastal settlements had appeared on the Aegean islands and the Aegean coastlines of the Greek mainland and western Asia Minor. Weapons, including daggers of copper and bronze as well as sling stones, have been recovered from some of the fortified sites, and the Cycladic longboat has been linked to the implicit hostilities as a raiding ship (Branigan 1999; Doumas 1990). Later in MHII, armed figures are depicted aboard a long-oared vessel on a pithos sherd from Kolonna on Aigina Island (Fig. 3.10). This is fitting, since Kolonna was a sea power surpassed only by Minoan Crete in the MBA Aegean area (see Chapter 7). Mycenae's great period of awakening, the Shaft Grave Era, occurred in MH Ill—early LH IIA. The frequent martial themes illustrated on artifacts of the Shaft Graves form a striking contrast to previous Aegean imagery, and at least one object, the Silver Siege Rhyton from Shaft Grave IV, depicts a seaborne attack upon a fortified coastal settlement (Fig. 3.11). The narrative scene on the north wall of West House, Room 5 at Akrotiri, contemporary with the Shaft Grave Era in full flower, is interpreted by some as a seaside battle involving both naval warfare and seaborne attacks on a coastal town (Warren 1979: 117—18). Others prefer to see it as a shipwreck scene (Morgan Brown 1978).
Although ships of the palatial period, LH nIA—IIIB, are poorly represented iconographically, contemporary texts and archaeological sites record Mycenaean maritime forays to the east. By the late fifteenth century, Mycenaean emigrants were active in southwestern Asia Minor and the islands of the southeastern Aegean, where their settlements succeeded Minoan colonies at Miletos on the Anatolian mainland and at Ialysos on Rhodes. In the Hittite texts from Hattusa, ships of Ahhiyawa (Mycenaeans) are reported in various actions on the sea in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries (see Chapter 2). The Mycenaean ships that participated in a naval raid on Cyprus and helped fugitives from Hittite justice escape by sea from Asia Minor must have been galleys (Bryce 2005; Neimeier 2003). On the other hand, an apparent Hittite embargo designed to prevent Mycenaean ships from reaching the Syrian coast in the late thirteenth century (Cline 1991; Gtiterbock 1983: 136) may have targeted either military or commercial traffic, including Mycenaean merchant hulls if they did exist.
A small corpus of Linear B tablets from Pylos, dating to the final days of the palace's existence circa 1200 BC, concern the deployment of rowers to man ships around the coastlines of the kingdom (particularly, tablets An 1, An 610, and An 724: Chadwick 1994: 173—79). The close match between the different crew sizes that can be estimated from iconographic representations (with 20, 30, and 50 as units) and the requisition in Pylos tablet An 610 of approximately 600 rowers,
3.11 Fragment of the "Silver Siege Rhyton" showing a seaborne assault on a fortified coastal town. Mycenae, Grave Circle A, Shaft Grave IV. National Archaeological Museum 481.
A multiple of any of these apparently standard galley types, makes it reasonably certain that the ships in question were galleys, and that the palace was able to control the fleet and the personnel to operate it. The role or mission of the ships listed in these tablets is not known, but the description "Thus the watchers are guarding the coastal region" (PY tablets An 657, 654, 519, 656, 661) has been interpreted, in view of the impending destruction of the palace, as indicating an anxious effort to defend the kingdom against imminent attack from the sea (Chadwick 1994: 173—75). At the very least these recruitments involve naval or military operations rather than trade. On the other hand, the rowers are called up according to their villages of residence using the same system of proportional ratios employed for taxation, with sailors obliged to contribute service in return for land grants (Killen 1983). It is thus possible that the recruitment of rowers in Pylos tablets An 1, An 610, and An 724 represents a regular, annual activity and not a desperate measure taken at a time of extreme danger (Palaima 1991: 285—86). Most normal palatial activities continued to the very end, including craft and industrial activities, sacrifices and feasting, and the routine oversight and documentation of many aspects of the agricultural economy (Shelmerdine 2001: 351-62).
Representations of Mycenaean galleys increase dramatically in LH IIIC, ironically perhaps because of the collapse of the palaces. It is at that time that we first see the galley depicted explicitly in scenes of naval warfare, on pictorial pottery from Kynos in East Lokris (Dakoronia 1999, 2002, 2006; Fig. 3.12). The Kynos ships in particular have been compared with the roughly contemporary depictions of Sea Peoples' ships at Medinet Habu, and the similarities have been cited as evidence of a significant Aegean component among the Sea Peoples (Wachsmann 1997, 1998: 171-72). This close relationship has been disputed, however. Sean McGrail (2001: 125) finds closer parallels for the Sea Peoples' vessels with Levantine ships, while Vassilis Petrakis (2004: 3—4) characterizes similarities such as the bird-head device as imprecise, emphasizing instead the differences in bow and stern morphology to suggest that the vessels may be of an entirely different type. Thus, ship iconography lends little weight to the assertion, better left to other forms of evidence, that Aegean refugees formed part of the movements of the Sea Peoples and participated in their raids.
It is worth asking whether the galleys and warriors engaged in combat on the Kynos vessels are meant to show pitched sea battles between the navies of two polities, or instead the predatory actions of pirates. Piracy, in the form of quick-strike raids on coastal towns, was probably a fixture of Aegean existence at least since EH II, when fortified coastal settlements became widespread. It has been remarked that there is a fine line between trading and raiding, and the same can be said for the distinction between piracy — “informal warfare" — and interpolity warfare on the seas. The Near Eastern and Egyptian documents of the LBA are replete with references to coastal raids by a variety of agents, orchestrated both by recognizable political entities (such as Ahhiyawa) and shadowy, stateless groups such as the Sea Peoples. From the perspective of modern world history, quick-strike guerilla campaigns and terrorist actions of elusive, nonstate groups pose particular problems for large states, because traditional diplomatic and military solutions tend to be ineffective. It is easy to comprehend why piracy, a form of guerilla warfare by sea, was of such concern to eastern Mediterranean states of the Bronze Age that preferred to settle their differences through diplomatic channels or traditional land battles. They were not easily able to respond in a timely or effective manner to piratical attacks, as is abundantly clear in the Hittites' protracted troubles at the hands of the renegade actor Piyamaradu, or Ugaritic texts from the Rap'anu archive containing desperate communications from the king of Ugarit to his counterpart in Alashiya (Cyprus) regarding devastating coastal raids perpetrated by unnamed enemies:
My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities (?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots (?) are in the Hittite country, and all my ships are in the land of Lycia? . . . Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it:
The seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.
(RS 20.238, transl. M. Astour [1965: 255])
The responses of states to piracy could include organized and aggressive pursuit — the systematic sweeping of pirates from the seas attributed by Thucydides
3.12 Kynos A galley with decked hull, LH IIIC Middle. Wedde 2000: Catalogue 6003, after Dako-ronia 1990: 122, fig. 2. Courtesy of Michael Wedde.
To the Minoans, or the historically attested Roman efforts to extinguish piracy in the Mediterranean during the pax Romana — and/or enhanced defensive capabilities. Defensive strategies might involve fortified harbors, coastal installations such as watchtowers for monitoring the sea and sending fire signals, placement of major settlements some distance inland, strategic deployment of naval fleets, and improved intelligence operations.
Historical texts of the post-Bronze Age period portray piracy as not only ubiquitous, but in certain contexts a not dishonorable profession. Thucydides (1.4) famously attributed to King Minos of Crete the organization of the first navy in the Hellenic world, with which he extended his rule over the Aegean and eliminated piracy therein. This passage is fundamental to the highly controversial notion of a Minoan thalassocracy in the Middle and early Late Bronze Age, but it also reflects increasingly negative attitudes toward piracy in the Classical period, a time in which unfettered trade and communication by sea were vital to highly developed state societies. At an earlier time reflected in the Homeric epics, however, the piratical life was imbued with much greater ambiguity. The practices of piracy and warfare, as well as those who practiced them, were poorly differentiated; both (as we would distinguish them) were aspects of the violent life of a seagoing warrior (de Souza 2000: 16—19).13 In the Odyssey, pirates can be viewed with suspicion as “reckless wanderers of the sea. . . who risk their lives to prey on other men" (3.71—74; also 9.252—55), but the acquisition of booty through plunder is also an honorable means to achieve high status. Odysseus' false tale of a Cretan upbringing (14.191—265) includes episodes of plunder that bring him wealth and respect, and in this passage it is particularly difficult to distinguish warfare from piracy. Ultimately, however, Odysseus' Cretan adventurer is taken prisoner in a botched raid on Egyptian shores. Two further stories in Book 9 find Odysseus' ships raiding coastal settlements on their return from the Trojan War, with similar results. Upon their departure from Troy, the convoy was blown northwest to the Aegean coast of Thrace, where they attacked Ismaros, a town of the Ciconian Thracians (9.39—61). After killing the men and carrying off their wives, livestock, and other wealth, Odysseus' men lingered, feasting in spite of Odysseus' entreaties to return to the ships. The surviving Cicones rallied local forces and routed the attackers, killing many and driving the rest to the sea. Later, it was Odysseus himself who foolishly insisted on staying on to explore the island of the Cyclopes, with the result that many of his men lost their lives in Polyphemus' cave (9.172—402). Almost comically, each of these stories ends in disaster because in their lust for booty, Odysseus and his men ignore the cardinal rule of piracy: strike quickly and get out fast. The piratical way of life is revealed as dangerous, but this level of ineptitude suggests that the Trojan War heroes turned to plundering coastal towns out of need, not by choice, and with little experience of the art.
The galley, whether in Mycenaean or later Homeric form, was the ideal pirate ship: light enough to be beached, optimized for speed with its powerful motor section and capable of rapid strike and retreat regardless of wind conditions, battle-ready with a large number of oarsmen doubling as warriors, and endowed with sufficient storage space for modest quantities of plunder to be distributed among the convoy. The typical pattern of piratical raids, whether described in LBA diplomatic letters or Homeric epics, is that when they are executed in quick-strike fashion, few towns or even empires are able to respond quickly enough to prevent attackers from escaping with their loot (Bradford 2007: 4—5).
Although the Mycenaean galley began a movement away from the all-purpose design, it nevertheless assumed a variety of roles, some of them similar to those inferred for Cycladic longboats of a millennium earlier: raiding, trading of low-bulk cargo, and elite voyaging (Broodbank 2000: 100). To these we might add rapid transport of personnel and messages, defensive deployment against pirates and enemy navies, and ultimately pitched naval battles like the ones depicted on the Kynos sherds. The apparent shift toward more frequent use in warlike situations is not surprising in light of textual and pictorial evidence from the eastern Mediterranean recording naval warfare as a relatively common aspect of LBA interrelations.
Social and Historical Impact of the Galley
Iconographic representations of the Mycenaean galley are virtually absent until the mature palatial phase of LH IIIB, but since the Mycenaean world had experienced tremendous growth economically and politically by LH IIIA2 — including the emergence of palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, and Pylos — there is reason to believe that the galley was part of this transformation. One motivation for the galley design may have been to extend the range of maritime forays in search of raw materials and trade contacts. The rapid development of the galley could be explained in terms of a feedback loop between a dramatic increase in overseas interaction in LH IIIA2—IIIB1 on the one hand, and innovations in technology on the other (Wedde 2005: 29). As social and economic conditions gave impetus to technological development, the enhanced galley in turn expanded the Mycenaean world. That these circumstances may not have resulted in the development of the merchantman, as would seem logical from an economic perspective, must indicate the high priority for a ship able to defend itself and make headway under widely varying wind and current conditions.
The fact that so much of the pictorial evidence comes from LH IIIC is a striking detail that has received insufficient attention. Why the concentration of galley iconography in the postpalatial period, when it might have been expected to peak instead in LH IIIA2—IIIB1, the heyday of Mycenaean overseas contacts and international trade? Was it merely the sluggish development of a palatial pictorial/figural tradition that delayed the depiction of prominent objects already well established in daily life, or was there something particular about the relationship between the palaces and the seagoing fleets that made such illustration inappropriate?
World History
