The development of maritime activity in the Aegean during the Bronze Age: navigational techniques and shipbuilding (original) (raw)

The adoption of the sail in the Early Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 2550-2200 BC) and its impact on later Minoan, Aeginetan, and Mycenaean seafaring 1

I. Radić Rossi, K. Batur, T. Fabijanić, D. Romanović (eds.), Sailing through History, Reading the Past – Imagining the Future. Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology ISBSA 16, Zadar, Croatia, 26 September – 1 October 2021 (Zadar: University of Zadar) 329-336., 2024

This paper redates the adoption of the sail in the Aegean to ca. 2550-2200 BC-significantly earlier than previously thought. It argues that the sail was introduced first in the East Aegean and from there in the Central and West Aegean, reaching Minoan Crete only ca. 1900 BC. Sailing technology seems to have come from Egypt via the Levant to the Aegean in the context of the Early Bronze Age Anatolian Trade Network. This new maritime technology had a major impact on the Aegean in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, facilitating the rise of Aeginetan, Minoan, and Mycenaean maritime trade networks.

Maritime Interactions in SW Aegean during the Bronze Age

This paper is the result of two Masters dissertations completed in the University of Southampton in the field of Maritime Archaeology Ivrou, 2004). The main objective is to examine the maritime network connecting the areas of the southern Peloponnese and west Crete in the southwest Aegean, and to tackle questions regarding the nature of maritime activities and interactions between these areas during the course of the Bronze Age. Our principal intention is to approach this objective in a maritime dimension that is focusing on the restrictions, potentials as well as the mentality enhanced by the interaction of the related populations with the sea.

JUST A LONGBOAT RIDE AWAY Maritime interaction in the southern Aegean Sea during the Final Neolithic Period

Shima: The International Journal of Research Into Island Cultures, 2020

In the last decade, abundant evidence for seafaring and interaction among Southern Aegean communities has been produced through the recovery of imported materials (mainly metals, lithics, and ceramics) in archaeological excavations dated to the Final Neolithic period (c 4th millennium BC). This article attempts to synthesise the available data on exchange networks, and to discuss the images of maritime interaction, namely the longboats depicted on FN rock carvings. It is suggested that during the 4th millennium BC maritime communication played an important role in the transfer of people, ideas and technologies. A contrast between closely interacting regions, comprised by both mainland and island areas (such as for example Attica and the Northern Cyclades), and long-range, lower intensity connections (for example between Attica and Crete) can be identified. Similar to the Early Bronze Age period, the capacity of a Final Neolithic community to provide enough men for a longboat crew would be crucial in long-distance maritime connections. The longboat could have been used in establishing social alliances among Final Neolithic communities and/or piracy and warfare.

NAVIGARE NECESSE EST, VIVERE NON EST NECESSE: Reflections on the Prehistoric Seafaring in the Mediterranean and Adriatic

Archaeologia Adriatica, 2017

In the past fifteen years we have substantially improved our knowledge of the seafaring expeditions in the Mediterranean, based either on the indirect evidence of the navigation or on what we know about the earliest such ventures. This paper presents an overview of what is known about the earliest navigation in the Mediterranean and considers the possible origins of the first such ventures in the Adriatic as a specific part of the Mediterranean. It focuses on the problem of the navigation between the Italic and Croatian coasts, tackling the possibility of such maritime expeditions based on the distribution of the obsidian from the Aeolian Islands. It also ponders on the practical aspects of the use of sailing vessels in the Late Neolithic.

Navigation and Maritime Trade Networks in the Aegean (9 th -13 th c.): The Evidence from Shipwrecks

MAGS 2023 Short Reports Series, 2024

The following paper was presented during the fifth Maritime Archaeology Graduate Symposium (MAGS 2023) that took place at the Archaeological Research Unit (ARU) of the University of Cyprus (1st - 4th of March 2023) and was supported by the Honor Frost Foundation and the University of Cyprus. This paper focuses on the study of seventy-four shipwrecks as evidence for the understanding of complex navigation patterns and the formation of maritime trade networks in the Aegean during the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. An analysis based on the spatial and chronological distribution of wrecks and on the nature of their cargo has been followed. The aim of this study is to place the maritime archaeological data in the broader historical and archaeological context of the period, for the interpretation of the mechanisms of maritime trade activity and the distinguished characteristics they present.

The Sea Peoples, Egypt, and the Aegean: Transference of Maritime Technology in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Transition (LH IIIB-C) (Aegean Studies 1, pp. 21-56), 2014

Aegean Studies, 2014

The appearance of the brailed rig and loose–footed sail at the end of the Late Bronze Age revolutionized seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean. The most famous early appearance of this new technology is found in history’s first visual representation of a naval battle, on the walls of Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. In this monumental combat scene, both Egyptian and Sea Peoples ships are depicted with this new rig, as well as top–mounted crow’s nests and decking upon which shipborne warriors do battle. The identical employment of these innovative components of maritime technology by opposing forces in this battle suggests either some level of previous contact between the invaders and those responsible for designing and constructing Egypt’s ships of war, or shared interaction with a third party, perhaps on the Syro–Canaanite coast. This article examines the evidence for the development of the brailed rig in the eastern Mediterranean, and explores the possibility that at least one group of Sea Peoples, who may have comprised a key part of the international economy of the Late Bronze Age in their role as “pirates, raiders, and traders” (Georgiou 2012: 527) – Artzy’s “nomads of the sea” (1997) – played a similarly integral role in the transference of maritime technology between the Levant, Egypt, and the Aegean.

Tzovaras, P. 2020. Before ‘Thalassocracies’: Reconstructing the ‘Longboat’ and Rethinking its Use and Social Implications in the 4th and 3rd Millennium South Aegean

In: N. Raad and C. Cabrera Tejedor, Ships, Boats, Ports, Trade, and War in the Mediterranean and Beyond Proceedings of the Maritime Archaeology Graduate Symposium 2018. BAR publishing, 2020

This study aims to address lacunae in research relating to prehistoric boatbuilding traditions and seafaring in Aegean, bridge gaps in our current knowledge and challenge misconceptions of interpretation through a reassessment of extant evidence by implementing new evidence. The broader implications of these new data also have bearing on interpretations of economy, trade and exchange, the nature of maritime communities and the structure and organisation of the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Aegean communities. Until recently, due to the lack of evidence, many scholars wrongly attributed functions to the longboats that probably go beyond their actual capabilities. Moreover, attempts to “reconstruct” these vessels, were either meagre and based on limited data or they derive from inconclusive interpretations that do not reflect realities of prehistoric technology. Thereby, I argue that this particular type of boat was incorrectly assigned the role of a seagoing ‘commercial’ ship when it was, in fact, capable of limited sea routes and used in specific operations. In order to support my argument, the main purpose is to yield a database comprised of direct-indirect evidence, various ethnographic parallels and the essentials of traditional boatbuilding. This made possible their 3D digital reconstruction through the software MAXSURF, 3dsMAX, Rhinoceros 3D and its plugin Orca, that allowed to test the seafaring properties of the watercraft as far as the hydrostatics, stability, seakeeping and performance are concerned.