Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:54:03.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the construction of the ‘Syracusia’ (Athenaeus V. 207 A-B)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Fik Meijer  and
André Wegener Sleeswyk
André Wegener Sleeswyk
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam University of Groningen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is perhaps significant that one of the more informative texts on ancient shipbuilding predates the period in which Greco-Roman shipping flourished. It is Homer's description of how Odysseus built a ship () on the island of the nymph Calypso, with which he intended to return to his native island of Ithaca (Od. 5.244–57). The text is of exceptional interest because it gives as early as the eighth century B.C. a stepby- step description of the tenon-and-dowel ‘shell-first’ method typical of Greco- Roman ship-building, which has been so amply confirmed in the last few decades by underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 575 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sleeswyk, A. W., ‘Phoenician joints, coagmenta punicana’, UNA 9.3 (1982), 243–4Google Scholar

2 Cf.Pomey, P., MEFR 85 (1973), 401–409;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMeijer, F. J. A. M., ‘Ovide, Heroïdes 16.112 et la construction navale romaine’, Mnemosyne 43 (1990), 450–452.Google Scholar

3 Sleeswyk A. W., ‘Voorwoord’, in Hoving, A. J., Nicolas Witsens Scheepsbouw Konst Open Gestelt (Franeker, 1994).Google Scholar

4 The text says (5.209a): ‘The vessel was loaded with 60,000 measures of grain (), 10,000 jars of Sicilian salt fish (), 20,000 talents of wood (), and other freight amounting to 20,000 talents ()’. The problem what tonnage this load represented has been discussed authoratively by Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1972 2), 185–186; he arrives at a total of 1940 tons, a conservative estimateGoogle Scholar

5 Boudriot, J. and Berti, H., Les Frégates de 12. La Belle Poule, 1765 (Paris, 1986).Google Scholar

6 Greenhill, B.and Manning, S., The Evolution of the Wooden Ship (London, 1988Google Scholar

7 Frost, H., ‘Lilybaeum-Marsala—The Punic ship: final excavation report’, in Atti della Academia Nazionale dei Lincei; Notizia degli Scavi di Antiquitá 30 (1976), 228–270.Google Scholar

8 Poraey, P., ‘Shell conception and skeleton process in ancient mediterranean shipbuilding’, in Chr.Westerdahl, (ed.), Crossroads in Ancient shipbuilding (Oxford, 1994), 125–130.Google Scholar

9 Gassend, J.-M.and Cuomo, J.-P., ‘La construction alternée des navires antiques et l′épave de la Bourse de Marseille’, Revue Archéologique de Narbonnaise 15 (1982), 163–172; cf. Pomey,Crossroads (1994), 126.Google Scholar