Ancient Greek Merchant Ships: Types, Cargoes, Shipwrecks | Early European History And Religion

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ANCIENT GREEK SHIPS

cargo ship

Greek ships were built of wood and had shelters to protect the crew from the fierce Mediterranean sun. Over the open sea they traveled using hand-woven square sails. Some were also outfit with oars. The planks were usually made of a soft wood like sealed pine placed across tennons of live oak and fastened with oak pegs and sealed with sap and resin. The keels and steering oars were made from a hard wood such as oak.

Clay boats from Cyprus are of a type frequently found in sixth-century B.C. graves in Amathus. Two of them represent merchant vessels, as is shown by their breadth and deep hulls. The largest has strakes along the water-line which held the “under-girding” of ropes used to prevent the planks from springing in stormy weather, and large cat-heads at the bows to receive the anchor. The helmsman sits in the stern with his two steering-oars. Of the two other boats the smallest is a row-boat, and the other has a deck and a small deck-house. [Source: “The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans”, Helen McClees Ph.D, Gilliss Press, 1924]

Many ships had decorative “eyes” placed on the bow of the ship to help guide the ship through the sea and avoid trouble. They were generally made from marble and were found on both merchant ships and war vessels. The custom remains alive today. One the roads of Turkey, truck drivers have “eyes” painted on their bumpers that serve a similar purpose. Anchors were damaged or lost so often that ships often carried several of them. Rock was used as ballast. Early anchors were made of stone. Anchors from the 5th century B.C. had a lead core and wooden bod and looked like a Christian cross with a pick ax head, perpendicular to the cross, at the bottom. The weight of the lead help drive the pick-ax part of the anchor into the sea bed.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest human-power ship ever was a catamaran galley with 4,000 rowers built in Alexandria Egypt in 210 B.C. for Ptolemy II. The vessel was 420 feet long and had 8 men on each 57-foot oar.

Book: “ Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World” by Lionel Casson

3,000-Year-Old Hand-Sewn Boat Found Off Croatia

ortise and tenon joint method of hull construction employed in ancient vessels

In 2023, Ilana Herzig wrote in Archaeology magazine: Off the coast of present-day Croatia in the Adriatic’s Bay of Zambratija, a team of archaeologists recently retrieved the remnants of the oldest hand-sewn boat discovered in the Mediterranean, dating to between the twelfth and tenth centuries B.C. First spotted in 2008, the vessel was partially excavated in 2011 and fully excavated, documented, and reburied in 2013. In summer 2023, the team brought to the surface eight planks, the largest of which measures 23 feet long, as well as several additional pieces of the boat. The delicate removal process required creating and placing supports matching the measurements of the planks before lifting them out of the water to be stabilized. [Source: Ilana Herzig, Archaeology magazine, November/December 2023]

The vessel was constructed of planks and frames of locally sourced elm, alder, and wild pear that were sewn together, likely with plant fibers. The hull was made watertight by filling spaces between the planks with thin wood pieces that were held in place by a glue made from pitch, or resin, boiled with other materials. The boat was likely made by local people known as the Histri — renowned both for nautical acumen and piracy — and used to transport goods and people and for fishing.

It is a unique example of a boat-sewing tradition that differs from the hand-sewn boats of a Greek tradition known from written sources and archaeological remains. “The find is important for the region and for the history of Mediterranean navigation,” says archaeologist Giulia Boetto of the French National Center for Scientific Research. “It’s of a specific northern Adriatic tradition which has no parallel elsewhere in the Mediterranean. This hand-sewn boat tradition survived in the northern Adriatic until the end of the Roman Empire.”

Ancient Greek Merchant Ships

model of a 6th century BC Trireme

Merchant ships were generally sailing ships designed for sea travel or river travel. They had a few oars for maneuvering close to shore or in shallow water. They did not have large numbers of oars like fighting ships, which were designed to ram enemy ships.

Much of the cargo — usually grain, olive oil or wine — was carried amphorae (large clay jars) with two handles near the mouth that made it possible to pick them up and carry them. They generally were two to three feet tall and carried about seven gallons. Their shapes and markings were unique and these helped archaeologists date them and identify their place of origin.

A ship found off Cyprus, dated to 300 B.C., was 65 feet long and capable of carrying 2,000 to 3,000 amphorae. It was made of pine planks joined edge to edge with great skill.

The wreck of a merchant ship dated to 440-425 B.C., during the Greek Golden Age, was found in waters less than 100 meters deep off the west coast in Turkey about 40 kilometers south of Izmir. The ship was carefully excavated by archaeologists and its contents were brought to the surface and analyzed. The mid-size vessel was most likely used for coast-hugging, short-haul trips, most likely around the island of Chios. It mostly likely went down in a storm. The wooden hull had deteriorated but the shape of the ship could be determined by the contents that had been left behind. [Source: George Bass, National Geographic, March 2002]

Mostly what was discovered was amphorae. There were also hydria, kraters, drinking cups and pitchers made in nearby Chios, and they appear to have been cargo. Among the more interesting find were amphorae with cattle bones; oil lamps, one-handled cups; and the lead cores of wooden anchors.

Large Merchant Ships

At the Antikythera shipwreck large hull planks were found Jacques Cousteau in the 1960s. Jo Marchant wrote in Smithsonian Magazine: “At four inches thick, they rival those of 19th-century warships and are bigger than planks from the largest ships discovered from antiquity—including two 230-foot floating palaces sunk in Lake Nemi, Italy, built for the Roman emperor Caligula in the first century A.D. [Source: Jo Marchant, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2015]

fighting ship

“If the ship is as large as the hull planks and anchors suggest, Foley speculates, it might be a grain carrier, either repurposed to carry a luxury cargo or transporting treasures along with what was most likely primarily wheat. These grain carriers were the biggest seagoing vessels in antiquity. Not one has been found, but ancient writers described how these oversized freighters traveled from Alexandria to Rome.

“In the second century A.D., the Roman satirist Lucian described one such vessel, Isis, when it pulled in at Athens. Even larger was the Syracusia, reportedly built by Archimedes in the third century B.C. It carried grain, wool and pickled fish, and was equipped with flowerbeds, stables and a library. The cargo list of the maiden voyage, from Syracuse in Sicily to Alexandria, suggests it carried almost 2,000 tons. Finding one of these giants “has been one of the holy grails for archaeologists for generations,” Foley says. He can’t resist describing the Antikythera to journalists as “the Titanic of the ancient world.”“

Ancient Greece’s Huge Number of Ships and the Wood Needed to Build Them

Igor V.Bondyrev, of Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi, believes that one reason the colonization of the Black Sea region took place is that the Greek city states had exhausted their wood supplies to build huge numbers of ships to carry out military campaigns and trade, and needed new supplies of wood which the forests of the Black Sea region provided. [Source: Igor V. Bondyrev, Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute of Geography, Georgian Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgia, July 24, 2004]

Bondyrev wrote : According to research data on shipbuilding history [First, Patochka, 1977], it took from 2 to 4 thousand oak trees to construct a single ship and it oars. As about 100 to 800 trees grow on one hectare (ha) territory we may conclude that 25 to 40 ha of forest was felled for the construction of a single warship (32 ha on an average). It is quite clear that colonization of Pontus required much more ships and not only warships but freighters as well, which were 3- 4 times bigger.

Using the most rough calculations, about 10 to 12 thousand ships of different sizes took part in colonization, and thus 12000 x 32 ha =384,000 ha, or 3840 square kilometers, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. It should also be noted that the ships were seaworthy not more than 10 years. Therefore this figure is repeated every 10 year. For the 400 year period between the of 8th and 4th 4 centuries B.C., we get 384 000 ha x 400 = 153 600 000 ha, or 153,600, square kilometers of forest, an area equal to the size of England and Wales. “Such is the ecological value of one of the aspects of colonization of the Black Sea by the ancient Greeks.”

Ancient Greek Shipwrecks and Underwater Treasures

Kyrenia shipwereck

In July, 1992, a recreational diver checking out a starfish in 50-foot-deep water near the Adriatic port of Brindisi, Italy noticed some greenish toes sticking out of the sand. His first though was that it was the foot of a copse dumped by gangsters. "Not here too!" he later told National Geographic. "I brushed the first three toes with my hand. They were rough and hard. I knew the foot was not human." [Source: National Geographic, April 1995]

The diver, a “ carabinieri” commander named Luigi Robusto, had discovered pieces of bronze sculptures, possibly dumped by sailors to lighten their load during a storm. The diversity of the objects and their ages—ranging from the 4th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.—has led archaeologists to believe that the pieces possibly were going to be melted down and made into new sculptures. Archaeologist Francesco Nicosia told National Geographic, "This discovery is the first tangible proof of commerce in the recycling of ancient bronzes."

It is believed there are thousands of sunken ships, with untold treasures, are still out waiting to be discovered. In 2007, a new law intended to lure more tourists, opened most of Greece’s 15,000-kilometers of coastline to scuba divers, except for about 100 known archaeological sites. Archaeologists worry about the new law will attract looters and tempt divers to grab whatever artifacts they can find, Already some tour companies have run advertisements luring divers with promises of ancient artifacts. One has an ad that says: “Scuba diving in Greece is permitted everywhere...Ideal for today’s treasure hunter. ” An official at the Greek Culture Ministry said that metal detectors and bathyspheres allow treasure hunter to find objects with relative ease in the Aegean and Adriatic.

Jason Urbanus wrote in Archaeology magazine: A Greek merchant ship discovered more than a mile under the surface of the Black Sea has been radiocarbon dated to 2,400 years ago, making it the world’s oldest known intact shipwreck. The vessel was located by the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project as they surveyed the seafloor some 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Bulgaria with a remote deep-sea camera system. The 75-foot-long wooden ship remains remarkably well preserved because the Black Sea’s depths are oxygen-free. This has allowed experts to examine elements of ancient ship construction for the first time, including the design of the mast, twin rudders, and rowing benches. “A ship, surviving intact, from the Classical world is something I would never have believed possible,” says Jon Adams of the University of Southampton. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.” [Source: Jason Urbanus, Archaeology magazine, January-February 2019]

Antikythera Shipwreck

The Antikythera shipwreck found off the island of Antikythera in 1901 by sponge divers is one of the most famous Ancient Greek shipwrecks. The immense size of the hull planks and anchors suggests the ship was a grain carrier, the only one found from antiquity. But even more amazing were its contents—Greek statues, glassware, jewelry and the sophisticated device called Antikythera Mechanism, a sophisticated 2nd century B.C. gadget described as an ancient Greek computer.

According to Smithsonian magazine: “Studies of the ship and its contents have since concluded that this was a Roman vessel that sailed between 70 and 60 B.C., carrying Greek treasures—some of which were centuries old when the ship sank—from the eastern Mediterranean westward. At this time, the Romans were gradually taking over the entire region, and they shipped boatloads of Greek artwork, including paintings, mosaics and sculptures, back home to decorate their luxury villas. For archaeologists today, the wreck is a time capsule, a single moment of history preserved. Like the tomb of an ancient pharaoh, it offers a unique window into a long-lost world.” [Source: Jo Marchant, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2015]

Hundreds of ancient cargo ships have been excavated but only a handful with interesting items like those from Antikythera have been found: a load of marble columns and sculptures from a wreck near Mahdia, Tunisia; a bronze statue of Zeus in the act of throwing a thunderbolt, found off Greece’s Cape Artemision; ebony, ivory and ostrich eggs from a late Bronze Age ship that sank off Turkey’s Cape Gelidonya.

Greek Shipwreck from 350 B.C.

reconstruction of the Kyrenia oikas from the 4th century BC

In 2006, it was announced the remains of an ancient Greek cargo ship that sank around 350 B.C. had been uncovered by a deep-sea robot. The ship was carrying hundreds of ceramic jars of wine and olive oil and went down off Chios and the Oinoussai islands in the eastern Aegean Sea. Archeologists speculate that a fire or rough weather may have sunk the ship. The wreckage was found submerged in 60-meter (200-feet) deep water. The wreck is "like a buried UPS truck," said David Mindell of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "It provides a wealth of information that helps us figure out networks based on the contents of the truck." [Source: Ker Than, Live Science, February 2, 2006]

Ker Than wrote in Live Science: “The shipwreck was located using sonar scans performed by the Greek Ministry of Culture in 2004. In July of 2005, researchers returned to the site with the underwater robot, called SeaBed. The robot scanned the shipwreck and scattered cargo and created a topographical sonar map of the region. It also took more than 7,500 images over of the site over the course of four dives. The researchers have assembled those images into a mosaic.

“The study of the Chios shipwreck is part of a 10-year project that aims to examine ancient trade in the Mediterranean during the Bronze age (2500-1200 B.C.). In particular, the project will focus on the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures and their trading partners. The investigating team also includes researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR).

45 Shipwrecks Found in One Area — the Fourni Archipelago

In 2016, researchers announced that he had found the remains of 45 ships dating between 525 B.C. and 1850 in the Fourni archipelago, roughly 20 percent of all the pre-modern shipwrecks identified in Greek waters. “Fourni is certainly an exceptional case. It was a huge shock last season to find so many ships when we expected to find 3 or 4,” expedition co-director Peter Campbell of the RPM Nautical Foundation tells Smithsonian.com. “This season we thought we’d already found the bulk of ships and there must be only 5 or 10 left. When we found 23, we knew it was a special place.” [Source: Jason Daley, smithsonian.com, July 13, 2016]

The project began in summer of 2015 when maritime archeologist and co-director George Koutsouflakis received a call from a spear fisherman, according to Nick Romeo at National Geographic. Manos Mitikas, who had spent years fishing around Fourni, had come across dozens of spots on the sea floor covered in cargo from ancient ships. He had a hand-drawn map of about 40 sites that he wanted to show Koutsouflakis. In September 2015, aided by Mitikas, the researchers discovered 22 wrecks in 11 days. Returning in June 2016 with a crew of 25 scuba divers and artifact conservators, the team found 23 more wrecks over 22 days, guided to several new locations by fisherman and sponge divers.

So why is Foruni such a hotspot? The set of 13 islands and reefs between the better-known islands of Samos and Ikaria was part of a major Mediterranean shipping route for millennia. The area was known as a safe anchorage for ships, and noted on maps from the Ottoman Empire the Royal Navy as a safe stopping point. Other ancient cultures stopped there too. “It’s like a maritime Khyber Pass, the only way through the eastern Aegean,” says Campbell. “The number of wrecks is simply a function of the huge volume of trade traffic going through there in every time period. Spread that over the centuries and you have a lot of ships sinking in the area.”

While the ships themselves have disintegrated over the years as victims of marine worms, their cargos tell the story. Their loads mainly include amphorae — clay vessels used to transport things like wine, olive oil and fish sauce — identified by their style from Italy, North Africa, Cyprus, Egypt, Spain and elsewhere.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except the Africans, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024