from classification to narrative: the contribution of iconography towards writing a history of early...

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This article was downloaded by: [The University Of Melbourne Libraries] On: 10 October 2014, At: 03:25 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Mediterranean Historical Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmhr20 From classification to narrative: The contribution of iconography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding Michael Wedde a a Staff member of the excavations at the Minoan sites of Petras and Khalasmenos , Crete Published online: 02 Jun 2008. To cite this article: Michael Wedde (1996) From classification to narrative: The contribution of iconography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding, Mediterranean Historical Review, 11:2, 117-164, DOI: 10.1080/09518969608569711 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518969608569711 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

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Page 1: From classification to narrative: The contribution of iconography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding

This article was downloaded by: [The University Of Melbourne Libraries]On: 10 October 2014, At: 03:25Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Mediterranean Historical ReviewPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmhr20

From classification to narrative: Thecontribution of iconography towardswriting a history of Early AegeanshipbuildingMichael Wedde aa Staff member of the excavations at the Minoan sites ofPetras and Khalasmenos , CretePublished online: 02 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Michael Wedde (1996) From classification to narrative: The contribution oficonography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding, Mediterranean HistoricalReview, 11:2, 117-164, DOI: 10.1080/09518969608569711

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518969608569711

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. Theaccuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Page 2: From classification to narrative: The contribution of iconography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 3: From classification to narrative: The contribution of iconography towards writing a history of Early Aegean shipbuilding

From Classification to Narrative:The Contribution of Iconography towards

Writing a History of Early AegeanShipbuilding

Michael Wedde

An Herrn Prof. Dr.Hans-Jürgen Hornzum 60. Geburtstag

I. PREAMBLE

Throughout the course of history, geography has imposed mastery ofthe sea upon the inhabitants of the Aegean shores as the prerequisite forcultural and political development. Movement across water has thusplayed a crucial role in the events unfolding, be it the rise of theMinoans, the expansion of the Mycenaeans, the Greek colonization, thedefence against the barbarian, the hegemony of Athens, or the armsraceof the diadoches. Wherever textual evidence is available, the historiansprovide ample testimony.1 The sea figures prominently.

The ships themselves have, despite a long bibliography, been lessfortunate. Beyond the interest of the specialist, watercraft rarely meritmore than an aside in general works, taken for granted in the narrativesubstance of factual history as a tool of human conquest and folly. Aparagraph, a page. And the deeper the historian penetrates into theearliest times, the less assured become whatever words are deignedspent on the art of building ships.2

For acknowledgements and note on the sources see p. 159*1. Cf. C.G. Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History (Oxford-New

York, 1989), passim.2. The major accounts of Aegean Bronze Age ships are S. Marinatos, 'La marine

créto-mycénienne', BCH, 57 (1933), 170-235; D. Gray, 'Seewesen',Archaeologia Homerica, Vol. I, Ch. G (Göttingen, 1974), pp. 14-20, 33-57,75-84; and Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 76-154. Cf. also M. Wedde,

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118 MEDITERRANEAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

The evidence itself is partly at fault. Wrecks, the spectacularadvances in underwater archaeology notwithstanding, offer mereglimmers in the dark. They are rare for the earlier periods, and at alltimes almost exclusively merchantmen, creating a glaring discrepancybetween the various categories of evidence.3 Images of ships are farmore numerous, but frequently small in size, schematic, andfragmentary. Ancient texts, when available, assume intimateknowledge of the craft behind generic designations such as naus, doruand ploion, or even more specific terms such as eikosoms, triakontoros,or pentekontoros, and therefore omit specification. In sum,archaeologists excavate the hulls of merchantmen, which the artistsalmost never depicted, and the writers rarely described, while the textsrefer mainly to warships, represented in the imagery (although notalways easy to identify as a specific type), but never available for thedetailed study only a wreck can offer. From this, a narrative is to bewrought.

The working habits of scholars, as these can be distilled fromlearned texts, seldom provide the necessary means to remedy thelacunae in the physical data. In an age when archaeological andhistorical analysis has become, and gone beyond being, processual andstructuralist, the study of ships remains a-theoretical in spirit, outside aclearly formulated framework of theory and method, hypotheses andassumptions.4

Towards a Hermeneutics of Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery' (dissertation,Mannheim 1992, forthcoming). For the later phases, cf. G.S. Kirk, 'Ships onGeometric Vases', BSA, 44 (1949), 93-153; J.S. Morrison and R.T. Williams,Greek Oared Ships, 900-322 (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 12-42, 73-91; L.Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), pp.43-60; Gray, 'Seewesen', pp. 21-8, 57-75, 84-90; and Basch, Muséeimaginaire, pp. 155-205. E. Spathari, Sailing through Time: The Ship in GreekArt (Athens, 1995) offers a number of fine colour photographs.

3. Cf. AJ . Parker, Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean & the RomanProvinces, BAR-IS, 580 (Oxford, 1992).

4. To speak in Clarkeian terms: the study of ship imagery has yet to lose itsinnocence. Cf. D.L. Clarke, 'Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence', Antiquity,47 (1973), 6-18. The present author readily acknowledges a substantial debt tocertain aspects of New Archaeology in its many reincarnations. See the call fora 'poetics of archaeology', a critical treatment of the books and papers producedby archaeologists as literary texts in need of textual analysis, by M. Shanks andC. Tilley, 'Archaeology into the 1990s', Norwegian Archaeological Review, 22(1989), 1-12 (with comments 12-54), esp. 7-9.

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 119

Nowhere is this so apparent as in the Bronze Age and theimmediately subsequent Geometric period. With the exception of thetrieres, the developments of the period between 3000-700 constitute the most significant contributions to the history of Aegeanshipbuilding:5 the planked hull emerges, modes of propulsion areperfected, large craft become viable, and the oared galley is developed,then extended to accommodate a second level of rowers. It is atimespan which has produced few physical remains, laying the fullweight of the interpretative process on the representational documents.6

Since the last 20 years have seen a significant increase in the size andquality of the data base, and important advances in theoreticalarchaeology, a re-evaluation of the generally accepted account hasbecome imperative.7

The present paper proposes, in concise form, an alternativeapproach to a narrative of Aegean shipbuilding in the Bronze and IronAges (down to 600 By restricting itself to the representations itconcentrates on the largest body of material, the sole source liable toprovide sufficient data for a diachronic reconstruction. It is against sucha framework, a catalogue of types extending through time, that themore punctual contributions of the ancient texts can be assessed. It isalso by sketching out the major post-Bronze Age development, theperfection of the oared galley, that a backdrop can be created againstwhich to consider the slim evidence for merchantmen before theClassical age. And finally, however popular comparisons with the

5. In terms of conception, the trieres and the poly eres are variations on a theme.New ideas appear in the Middle Ages with the stern rudder and the change fromthe vessel as weapon itself (ramming) to guncarrier with the appearance of thecannon. Multiple masts appear in the sixth century cf. L. Casson, 'Two-Masted Greek Ships', UNA, 9 (1980), 68-9.

6. Parker, Shipwrecks, pp. 10-15, lists four relevant Bronze Age finds, cat. nos.362 (Dhokos), 544 (Kimi), 1193 (Ulu Burun), 208 (Cape Gelidonya A). The UluBurun wreck alone has produced sufficient timbers to permit observationspertinent to its architecture. For the period prior to 650 Parker lists 14wrecks throughout the Mediterranean, from a total of 1259 recorded sites. Byplacing the limit at 550 the total rises to 27 wrecks.

7. Marinatos, 'Marine créto-mycénienne', catalogues 69 Bronze Age documents;Gray, 'Seewesen' — 97 Bronze Age, 67 Iron Age down to early Archaic c.600

(some shared numbers); Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics', 358 for theBronze Age; Morrison and Williams, Greek Oared Ships, includes 44 Geometricentries, and 50 Archaic down to 550 No more recent listings have beenpublished (Basch, Musée imaginaire, does not contain a catalogue), but an on-going survey by the author of the later data notes only a slight increase.

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watercraft of other cultures, historical or ethnographical, may be, theyoffer relatively little towards understanding the earliest Aegean vessels:specific features may find parallels, various modes of propulsion bedetailed, even missing stages in an evolution be sketched in, but thetypological framework finds no use for temporally and spatiallyunrelated intrusions.

The research design, of which this paper covers but one aspect, isbased on the fundamental belief that the manner in which an account ofearly Aegean ship architecture is generated must be considered at threelevels: the nature of the evidence employed, the analytical techniquesapplied to it, and the resulting discourse. Thus, it is argued, it isnecessary to employ two parallel narratives; on the one hand, thehistorical reconstruction based on the available material, on the other,the theoretical and methodological discourse detailing the interpretativeprocess itself.8

II. THE DATA BASE

The earliest representation of a watercraft believed to have pliedAegean waters is dated to some time around 2600 Evidence for

8. It is by no means the present author's intention to ignore the textual and otherevidence. The imagery merely offers the most apposite starting-point againstwhich to highlight, in subsequent work, the more disparate data offered by texts,wrecks, and comparative material.

9. Dated to the Early Cycladic II period (2800/2700-2400/2300 a mediandate used in the text. The chronology employed for the Aegean Bronze Age isthat which A J. Evans devised for the Knossos excavation, subsequently adaptedfor the mainland by A J.B. Wace and C. Biegen. Its most recent and substantialstatement is P. Warren and V. Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol,1989), esp. p. 169, Table 3.1. The recent redating of the Santorini eruption to1628 (cf. the papers in D.A. Hardy et al. [eds.], Thera and the Aegean WorldIII, Vol. II, Chronology. Proceedings of the Third International Congress[London, 1990]) necessitates a revision, undertaken by S. Manning, 'TheBronze Age Eruption of Thera: Absolute Dating, Aegean Chronology andMediterranean Cultural Interrelations', JMA, 1 (1988), 17-82, esp. 56,Table 10.The major effect is the updating of the beginning of Middle Minoan IIIA to1800/1775 (previously 1700/1650), which places the border of MiddleMinoan IIIB and Late Minoan IA at c.1700 (1600), and that between LateMinoan IA and IB at c.1630 (1480). The Late Minoan III period begins about acentury earlier, around 1500 (1390). Cf. also S. Manning, The AbsoluteChronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, Radiocarbon andHistory (Sheffield, 1995). The terms 'Protopalatial' and 'Neopalatial' cover

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 121

movement across the sea goes back to 8000 The data base is,thus, characterized by a massive absence of information for the firstfive and a half millennia. The reasons therefore are to be sought in aconstellation of partial explanations, which, even by their cumulativeeffect, are incapable of providing a complete answer to an inquiry intowhy this is so: the overwhelmingly non-figurative nature of ceramicdecoration, the preference for human and animal figurines, the role ofthe sea in the thought of the earliest Aegean people.11 Above all mustbe noted the extremely low proportion of artistic endeavour beingcentred on depicting boats and ships throughout the history of what wasto become Greece. Even in periods relatively well endowed with shipimages (the Neopalatial period on Crete, Athenian Geometric andBlack-figure vase painting), the absolute numbers, when compared toother subjects, are very low.

The effect on the development of scholarship has been non-negligible: repeated reference to a few adequate to spectacular images,generalizing statements covering much ground but little data, pleas topurported ethnographic parallels. Even when a catalogue is appended,its small size deters the scholar from considering it in terms of statistics,as data sets of varying eloquence, as variations on a presence/absencematrix.

Evidence for ship construction in the Bronze Age comprises 358catalogue entries, these being 44 models, 173 linear representations(wall paintings, vase paintings, incisions), and 141 glyptic images.12

The three categories are unequal in size, in conservation, in quality, andin the ease with which their contents are integrated into a narrative.Models are rudimentary, devoid of details, rarely complete, anddifficult to place within the typological framework generated by the

the periods Early Minoan Ill-Middle Minoan III A, and Middle MinoanIIIB-Late Minoan II, respectively. For the Geometric period, the author followsJ.N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery: A Survey of Ten Local Styles andtheir Chronology (London, 1968), passim.

10. C. Perlès, 'Des navigateurs méditerranéens il y a 10000 ans', La Recherche, 10,No. 96 (1979), 82-3.

11. An argument based on a discrepancy in size between subject and support isinvalidated by reference to the Minoan sealstones.

12. Cf. Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics', Catalogue. Not all entries are acceptedby scholars as ship representations: ibid., App. lists those rejected by thepresent author with the reasons therefore. All statistics employed here are as ofJune 1996.

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other two categories.13 The linear images range from the monumentalto the minute, from the precise to the fleeting, have a high incidence ofbreakage, and contain many unclassifiable individuals. Those depictedon seals, sealings, and finger rings are almost all complete, restricted indetail due to the small size of the support, frequently uniform in type,and coherent in the impressions they impart to the beholder.

Moreover, the spatial and temporal distribution is extremelyuneven. Crete provides over 55 per cent of the catalogue, the islandsand the mainland less than 25 per cent each. Whereas the Minoanmaterial is spread out over a timespan of a millennium (c.2500-1500

the Cycladic documents are concentrated to the Early Cycladic IIperiod, and to the site of Akrotiri (Thera) in Late Minoan IA,14 whilethe mainland sees a scattering of inconsequential evidence down to thefinal phases of the Bronze Age, when a slight increase becomesmanifest.

The Protogeometric and earlier Geometric periods are poorlyrepresented, but it should be kept in mind that figurative vase paintingceases almost completely for over 300 years. Only 16 representationsare recensed down to the beginning of Late Geometric, two-thirds datedto Middle Geometric. When ships are again represented in greaternumbers, some 38 for the short timespan of Late Geometric I, and 31for Late Geometric II, Athens is overwhelmingly the major producer,with no distant second clearly discernible. This weighting of theevidence in favour of Athens changes in the seventh century, which hasproduced some 45 representations, by virtue of the large series ofBoiotian fibulae. The sixth century is again almost wholly Athenian asfar as the evidence is concerned.15

13. C. Davaras, 'Minōiko; kēriophoro ploiario tēs Syllogēs Mitsotakēs', AE ( 1984),55-95, and P.F. Johnston, Ship and Boat Models in Ancient Greece (Annapolis,1985), approach the problem of Aegean Bronze Age ships solely from theperspective of models. The strong bias in favour of models in the CypriotBronze Age leaves no other alternative to K. Westerberg, Cypriote Ships fromthe Bronze Age to c.500 (Göteborg, 1983), pp. 9-18. Cf. A. Göttlicher,Materialien für ein Corpus der Schiffsmodelle im Altertum (Mainz, 1978) forship models in general.

14. This cannot be the place to enter into the polemic regarding the nature ofAkrotirian culture and imagery. For the purpose of the present paper, the apriori assumption that the ships depicted on the wall paintings of the WestHouse are Minoan will be eschewed.

15. The statistics are dependent on the availability of material in some or otherpublished form. There is no recent and authoritative account of Iron Age and

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 123

This statistical breakdown dominates the overall picture: the historyof the early Aegean shipbuilding is that of a Cycladic prologue at thedawn, not of travel across the sea, but of seeking artistic inspiration inthis activity, followed by a long Minoan monologue with the odd, albeitbrilliant, cameo by the other Aegean cultures, closing on a Mycenaeancrescendo which, as will be shown below, also constitutes the first, andcrucial, elements of the Geometric and Archaic narrative, massivelyAthenocentric.

III. INTRODUCTION TO METHOD

Shipbuilding in the early Aegean is documented primarily by images,to which are added a series of models of generally rudimentarymanufacture. The inherent two-dimensionality, schematic renditionwithin restricted space, conscious and unconscious alterations toaccommodate particular purposes or supports, variable distance fromthe original object due to workshop procedures, and imperfectacquaintance with ship construction, as well as, and not the least, theunavailability to the modern beholder of the iconographie codes,hamper attempts to reconstruct the original vessels.

Yet far from rendering the discourse impossible, these evidentialcharacteristics constitute one of the main qualities: analysis becomes aninvitation to enhance the theoretical content of the discipline, and, thus,better to understand the interpretative act.16

early Archaic Greek shipbuilding which includes a catalogue raisonné. For thepurposes of the present paper, a listing of some 132 representations dating fromthe early Iron Age (c.1100) down to 600 has been established. Group A(Proto- to Middle Geometric) contains 18; (Late Geometric I), 38; (LateGeometric II), 31; D (700-650), 12; E (fibulae 700-650), 26; F (650-600), 7entries.

16. Four major problems are apparent in the literature on early Greek shipbuilding,here illustrated with reference to the Bronze Age. (1) Basing arguments onsingle instances: several scholars have attempted to solve the bow/sterncontroversy in the earlier Aegean Bronze Age ship architecture by reference tosingle documents, see C. Renfrew, 'Cycladic Metallurgy and the Aegean EarlyBronze Age', AJA, 71 (1967), 5; Casson, Ships and Seamanship, pp. 30-31,41;I.A. Sakellarakis, 'Elephantinon ploion ek Mykinōn', AE, 1971, 188-233;Davaras, 'Minōiko kēriophoro ploiario', 67-72. (2) Making unfounded com-parisons across large temporal and spatial distances: Casson, Ships and Sea-manship, p. 31, compares Maltese with Cycladic documents without estab-lishing a directional determination for the former. More prevalent is the attemptto compare early Cycladic vessels with Predynastic Egyptian Naqada II

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A two-dimensional image renders the object in profile, rarelyoffering clues regarding athwartship dimensions or internal fittings.The presence of tridimensional representations in the data base pro-vides scant compensation: a correlation between a model and a vesseltype distilled from the bulk of material is infrequent, models seldomfurnish internal evidence regarding their dimensions, and very fewmodels have been preserved complete.

The single most important factor affecting the image is the support,involving three parameters: material, size, and technique. Whereas walland vase paintings permit larger dimensions, and sealstones imposeminiatures, the size of the support does not guarantee superior quality.Whether sufficient or restricted, the use of space is dependent on .theintentions of the artist, who is frequently content, or obliged, to catchthe essence with a few lines, leading to substantial schematization.Repetitive aspects such as the long, drawn-out lines amidships may becompressed, details simplified or omitted, the shape altered to fit intothe available surface, variant scales be employed, and the imageundergo modification for ideological reasons. The analytical techniquesmust take all these possible distorting factors into account, examiningeach document within the patterns created by the aggregate of data: thereconstruction undertaken by the modern beholder is the cumulativeimage of all the classifiable instances.

craft, cf. Tsountäs, 'Kukladika II', AE, 1899, col. 91; A J . Evans, The Palaceof Minos, Vol. II (London, 1928), pp. 240-42. (3) Relying on frequentlyenlightening but rarely relevant references to the ethnographic literature:Basch, Musée imaginaire, constitutes a sustained reading of ancient shiparchitecture within such a framework, but while the work offers one of the mostexciting contributions to the discipline, why the chosen comparandum aloneprovides the clinching parallel is never elucidated. (4) The reliance on theconcept of 'artist's error' to remove contradictory evidence. On the concept, cf.

Torr, Ancient Ships (Cambridge, 1894), p. xii; A. Köster, Das antikeSeewesen (Berlin, 1923), pp. 84-5; L. Basch, MarM, 71 (1985), 413 (in anappendix to a paper by T. Gillmer); id., Musée imaginaire, pp. 36-8. Apreliminary attempt to refute this concept is made in Wedde, 'Towards aHermeneutics', Ch. 1.9. 'Artist's error' can only be invoked when a singleinstance is shown by a cluster to act in a manner non-commensurate with thebehaviour prescribed by its peers. If all members of the cluster could — this isa purely hypothetical suggestion — be shown to contain erroneous features, thecumulative effect of an entire cluster population exhibiting the same errorwould canonize this as the 'correct' rendition.

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 125

It is the simple tenets of typological analysis which provide thelinchpin of the method employed here: the cluster approach.17 Thecluster is the group of representations which can be shown to betypologically identical, or to exhibit degrees of variability deemedwithin the margins established by the population of the group as it iscontrasted with all other groups generated from the material understudy. The aggregate image will designate certain elements as primaryfeatures, those which constitute the general form, and without whichthe object could not be rendered (hull-shape, bow and sternmorphology, relationship in height between the extremities). Lesssignificant elements, neither universal nor irreplaceable (bow and sterndecorations, superstructures, means of propulsion), are termedsecondary traits.

The common denominator, regardless of any minor differences indetail observed, which unites the cluster population is the ability to becovered, without exception, by a number of simple statementsdescribing the shape of the hull, particularly (as shown by protractedconfrontation with the data) the extremities and their relationship toeach other and the hull proper. Secondary statements may be necessaryto account for variant notations due to differences in support, in skill,in size. No two clusters will exhibit an identical set of statements. Increating the clusters, a further two factors have been brought to bear onthe material. It is considered preferable to create larger clusters ofstatistical significance than to allow minor differences to dominate andscatter related documents into smaller groups. The population of acluster is dated to contiguous chronological periods, not spread out

17. On the cluster approach, cf. M. Wedde, 'Bow and Stern in Early Aegean BronzeAge Ship Imagery — a Re-Analysis', in Tropis III, pp. 485-506; id., '"TheRing of Minos" and Beyond: Thoughts on Directional Determination in AegeanBronze Age Ship Iconography', Hydra: Working Papers in Middle Bronze AgeStudies, 7 (1990), 1-24; id., 'Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery: Regionalisms,a Minoan Bias, and a Thalassocracy', in R. Laffineur and L. Basch (eds.),Thalassa. L'Egée préhistorique et la mer. Actes de la troisième Rencontreégéenne internationale, Aegaeum, Vol. VII (Liège, 1991), pp. 76-81; id.,'Pictorial Architecture: For a Theory-Based Analysis of Imagery', inR. Laffineur and J.L. Crowley (eds.), EIKON. Aegean Bronze AgeIconography: Shaping a Methodology, Proceedings of the 4th InternationalAegean Conference, Aegaeum, Vol. VIII (Liège, 1992), pp. 181-203; id.,'Canonical, Variant, Marginal: A Framework for Analysing Imagery', in I. Piniand J.-C. Poursat (eds.), Sceaux minoens et mycéniens. IVe symposiuminternational, CMS, Beiheft 5 (Berlin, 1995), pp. 271-84; id., 'Towards aHermeneutics', Ch. 1.

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through time, unless a continuous series of images can be tied togetheracross the distance between the earliest and the latest member.

Idiom becomes a major issue in the clustering process. Differentartists inspired by the same hull type may create images which at firstsight appear to warrant separate classification. Once an attempt is madeto generate the mastertype subjacent to the creative process behind eachdocument, factoring size, material, and technique into the analysis,substantial similarities may surface, warranting a commonclassification.

A catalogue of several hundred individuals may be expected tocontain a number of clusters, and a proportion of documents which forvarious reasons (otherwise unattested shape, uncommon notation, poorconservation) cannot be securely clustered. Against these latter, andagainst the other clusters, each group is compared in a test forverisimilitude of the suggested typological classification. This step maybring further insight into how an artist created a specific, unclassifiedrepresentation and permit assignation to any one cluster.

The method described above should be recognized for what it is, anattempt by the scholar to render the data manageable. It proceeds fromthe assumption that the representational evidence is sufficient toprovide the foundations for at least a partial narrative of early Aegeanshipbuilding history. It cannot account for hull shapes insufficientlywell documented in the data base; the text is the product of the methodand the archaeological reality. The beholder is responsible forundertaking a number of adjustments: the minimum populationrequired to warrant a type designation, the degree of variability deemedacceptable for inclusion, the treatment of chronological stragglers.

Furthermore, the entire endeavour is placed within a specific optic:it is believed that the similarities in silhouette observed between thevarious shapes reflect generic relationships, that is, an evolutionaryinterrelatedness. This assumption does not exclude revolutionarychange, but postulates, on the basis of the well-known conservatism ofancient and traditional shipwrights, a predominantly slow developmentfrom one shape to another.

Employing an overall framework anchored to the reality of the well-defined types permits integrating less clearly documented shapes, evensingle significant instances into the narrative, provided that suchinclusions are understood as hypothetical.18

18. The present approach is designed to be applied to images of the single ship,detached from any other elements which might be included. The material itself

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IV. TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

For various reasons which remain to be examined, there areconsiderable differences in the classificatory behaviour between theBronze and Iron/Early Archaic Ages material. Whereas six clusterscover the timespan from Early Cycladic II to Late Mycenaean IIIC, thatis, almost the entire Bronze Age, the later material is characterized bytwo well-defined clusters, the Late Geometric IADipylon craft, and thevessels on early seventh-century Boiotian fibulae, as well as a numberof insufficiently documented groups scattered throughout the timespanfrom 1100 to 600 Despite this absence of populous clusters, themorphology exhibited by the members of the small groups allows thesketching of a continuous development.19

The first vessel shape, attested to several times, is that illustrated bythe so-called frying-pans primarily known from the Khalandrianicemetery on Syros: a long, low hull with the one extremity raisedabruptly to a substantial height, the other only slightly, and terminatedby a horizontal and a vertical extension (Fig. 1). The population of thiscluster, termed the Syros cluster (Type I), numbers eighteenindividuals, with a further three tentative inclusions.20 None of the

justifies such a procedure as the bulk is constituted of isolated representationson seals, on vases, or in the form of models. The comparatively rare instancesof more than one vessel sharing the same finite surface can be integrated intothe analysis by division into single documents since the object is to establish atypology, not to read the images on a symbolic level. Images of greatercomplexity, for example the cult-scenes on finger-rings and seals employed toreconstruct Minoan-Mycenaean religious beliefs, demand a method whichtakes into account their particular features. The basic tenets of analysis byclusters remain applicable, but the actual formation of the cluster makesreference to the pictorial structure, the normative framework determining theposition on the surface of the various components which constitute the image.The emphasis is less on the morphology of the individual shapes, more on therecurrent occupation of the same zone by comparable elements, and on theinteraction between occupants of the zones. Cf. the EIKON and Sceauxminoens et mycéniens papers cited in n. 17.

19. The clusters are named by reference to the most significant single member orgroup of members so as to create a high-profile label. Occasionally, thisparadigm case may be geographically marginal to the main distribution of thecluster.

20. Type I population: for the 12 ships on 'frying pans', cf. Basch, Muséeimaginaire, pp. 80-82, Figs. 159-68; a further 'pan' in the Ashmolean Museum(J. Thimme [ed.], Art and Culture of the Cyclades in the Third Millenium B.C.

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certain members of the cluster provides means towards a directionaldetermination, although one of the tentatives, incomplete, shows a sternwith helmsman and steering-oar.21 The belief that the near-vertical,raised extremity is to be understood as the stern is founded onmorphological comparisons with the first Minoan hulltype. Thechronological extension is Early Cycladic II, in absolute chronology:2800/2700-2400/2300

The referred-to Minoan type, known from 23 representations (threetentative),22 extends in time from Early Minoan III to Middle MinoanIII (2300/2150-c. 1700 but there are reasons to believe that thelatest individuals constitute images archaic to their archaeological

[Chicago, 1977], p. 354, No. 405); the Orkhomenos sherd (Basch, Muséeimaginaire, p. 83, Fig. 172); the Palaikastro model (ibid., Figs. 170-71); thetwo Korphē t'Aroniou plaques (ibid., p. 78, Fig. 152, and p. 83, Fig. 169; onthese cf. Doumas, 'Korphē t'Aroniou: mikra anaskaphikē ereuna en Naxoi',AD, 20 [1965], A, 41-64). The 'frying pan' with a ship in Berlin (W.Zschietzschmann, 'Kykladenpfannen', AA 1935, Col. 657, Fig. 3) barelyconserves the stern only. A further fragment from Orkhomenos (E. Kunze,Orchomenos, Vol. III: Die Keramik der frühen Bronzezeit [Munich, 1934], p.87, Fig. 43k), a plaque from Thebes (T. Spyropoulos, 'Plakidion meegkaraktous parastaseis ex Thēbōn', AD, 24 [1969], A, 48, Fig. 2), and a sherdfrom Phylakopi (Marinatos, 'Marine créto-mycénienne', Pl. XIII.12) aretentative inclusions.

21. The Phylakopi sherd is technically related to the 'frying pans', but the bow hasbeen lost. The present approach to ancient ship imagery stipulates that thecrucial distinction of the extremities can only be envisaged from an argumentbased on the presence of a steering-oar. Appeals to other factors, such asanimal-headed posts, projections just above, at, or below water-level, the shapeand angle of the extremities, apparent regularities in orientation on the surface,the orientation of the oars, superstructures, or decorative appendages, cannotprovide the initial directional determination. Unless the cluster contains one ormore individuals with a steering-oar, the travel direction cannot be determinedon primary evidence. Comparison with other clusters constitutes a legitimate,but secondary approach. If the Phylakopi sherd depicts a craft identical to thatof the Syran 'frying pans', the raised extremity is established as the stern.

22. Type II population: Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 98-9, I-3, B4a, B5-8; p.100, B9, BI1; pp. 102-3, D2, D4-6, D9; AR, 1987-88, 71, 100; P. Yule, 'Einigeägäische Siegel aus dem Metropolitan Museum', Kadmos, 19 (1980), Pis. II.9and III.17; J.-C. Poursat, L. Godart, and J.-P. Olivier, Fouilles exécutées àMallia. Le Quartier Mu. Vol. I. Introduction générale. Ecriture hieroglyphiqueCrétoise (Etudes Crétoises, Vol. XIII) (Paris, 1978), p. 83; Marinatos, 'Marinecréto-mycénienne', PL XVI.65.

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contexts (thus raising the lower limit by a century).23 At least two areequipped with one or more steering-oars, establishing the raised, bi-,tri-, or quadrifurcated extremity as the stern.24 Consequently, the bowexhibits a keel-like extension beyond the oblique stempost (Fig. 5).This shape approximates that of the Syros cluster, suggesting that it isan evolved form, capable of being rowed and sailed (the Syran craft aremost probably paddled). If this is so, the directional determination forthe earlier type appears assured. The cluster (Type II) is named after theseal from Plátanos (Fig. 4). It should be noted that all members aredepicted on sealstones.

From the generally flat hulls of the first two types the shape bestrepresented by the Kolonna pithos (Type III) evolves to a constantcurve from bow to stern (Fig. 6).25 The directional determination isassured by at least five of the nineteen members (three tentative) havinga steering-oar.26 This indicates that the stern is bifurcated, the bowpointed or terminated by an arrow-head (Figs. 7, 8). The stern mor-phology relates the Kolonna cluster to two of the Plátanos cluster'smembers; furthermore, several instances in the earlier type show atendency towards an increased rocker — although an evolution from aflat to a curved keel cannot be demonstrated by a seriation of specificdocuments. Chronologically, the Kolonna cluster is placed immediatelyafter the Plátanos cluster, with some overlap: Middle Minoan I to III(the two ships dated to III may be earlier), that is, 2160/1976-C.1700

23. The vessels in Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 102-3, D6 and D9, are dated to'Middle Minoan II or III'; p. 100, B9, to 'Middle Minoan III'. Both D6 and D9are of unknown provenance, and cut on a four-, respectively three-sided steatiteprism, a shape typical for the Protopalatial Period, that is, prior to MiddleMinoan IIIB. B9 is a stamp seal, also a Protopalatial shape, and comes from agrave.

24. Type II vessels with steering-oars: Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 102, D4—5 (thelatter not visible as illustrated, but confirmed by examination under microscopeof an impression in Marburg).

25. H.B. Siedentopf, Alt-Ägina, Vol. IV.2: Mattbemalte Keramik der MittlerenBronzezeit (Mainz, 1991), frontispiece, pp. 24-5, 62, Pls. 35-8.

26. In addition to the Kolonna ships: Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 100, B10; p. 101,C9, C13; p. 102, D1, D3 (= p. 103, D8); p. 103, D7, E2; p. 105, G1; p. 106, G3;Yule, 'Einige ägäische Siegel', Pl. III.16, CMS II.2.177b; Poursat, Godart, andOlivier, Fouilles exécutées à Mallia, pp. 84, 88; Marinatos, 'Marine créto-mycénienne', Pls. XVI.60, 61. The three Kolonna bow fragments and Basch'sB10 are depicted with steering-oars.

27. The two ships in question, see Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 100, B10; p. 101,C9, clearly belong to the earlier pre-Neopalatial tradition.

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Intimately related to the Kolonna shape is the Akrotiri cluster (TypeIV), named after the ships on the wall painting from Thera.28 The soleapparent difference is the pointed stern. Steering-oars appearfrequently, and a number of features (the ikrion [a cabin-likeconstruction], the stern-appendage, the decorated bowsprit, et cetera)can be related exclusively, or almost so, to the one or the otherextremity. The shape is that of a crescent or attenuated crescent, withthe Akrotiri vessels, due to their greater resolution, exhibiting a slightlysharper angle of curvature at the stern. Fifty documents can, withvarious degrees of certainty, be attributed to the cluster (Figs. 9, 10),ranging in time from Middle Minoan III to Late Minoan/Helladic III,although the chronological emphasis lies in the Late Minoan I period.29

This is, in absolute dates, from c.1800 down to 1570/1540, continuingtoc.nOOBC.

Although separately classified, the so-called Minoan talismanicships are intimately connected with Type IV, constituting a compressedrepresentation of a ship akin to the large vessels on the Akrotiri wallpainting: the image is reduced to a bow with the characteristic birdsymbol upon which is placed the ikrion, by definition associated withthe stern (Fig. II). 3 0 The type-designation, VII, indicates a positionoutside the development of significant ship architecture.31

28. S. Marinatos, Thera, Vol. VI (Athens, 1974), pp. 34-57, and Color Plates andPlans, Col. Pl. 9; id., Archaeologia Homerica, Bd. I, Kap. G (Göttingen, 1974[= Gray, 'Seewesen']), pp. 140-51; Doumas, Oi Toikhographies tēs Theras'(Athens, 1992), pp. 58-83. The ships have been treated frequently elsewhere.On the wall painting in general: L. Morgan, The Miniature Wall Paintings ofThera: A Study of Aegean Culture and Iconography (Cambridge, 1988), and C.Televantou, Akrotēri Thēras. Oi Toikhographies tēs Dutikēs Oikias (Athens,1994).

29. Eighteen ships on the wall paintings of the West House, and the following:Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 100-101, C1-C8, p. 103, F1; pp.104-5, F7,F10,F15;p. 116,Fig.224;p. 133, Fig.273;p. 141, Figs. 292, 293.1;p. 144, Fig. 301 (lower).

30. On the ikrion, cf. Marinatos, Archaeologia Homerica, p. 148; M. Shaw, 'ShipCabins of the Bronze Age Aegean', UNA, 11 (1982), 53-8; Morgan, MiniatureWall Paintings, pp. 137-42, and Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics', Ch. 4.12.

31. On the 'talismanic' ship, cf. A. Onassoglou, Die 'talismanischen' Siegel, CMS,Beiheft 2 (Berlin, 1985), pp. 28-35, 219-22, Pls. XII-XIII, and Wedde,'Canonical, Variant, Marginal'. The present author disagrees with Onassoglouon whether the sailing ships (her 'SS 1-7') should be termed 'talismanic'. Cf.Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics', Ch. 4.13.

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Conterminous with the latest phase of the Akrotiri cluster are twoMycenaean shiptypes. They are both characterized by the verticalstempost, generally decorated with an animal- or bird-head terminal.32

Internally they are distinguished by the presence/absence of a bowprojection continuing the line of the flat keel. The Skyros cluster (TypeV),33 numbering six members, is devoid of the projection (Figs. 12,13),present on the eight-member Tragana cluster (Type VI; Figs. 14,15) —one instance being the bow of a fragmentary model.34 A further fiveimages on sherds clearly belong to either the one or the other cluster,but cannot be securely classified due to the loss of the diagnostic bowmorphology.35 Whether the Skyros cluster begins as early as LateHelladic IIIA-B is uncertain;36 the bulk of the material is dated to LateHelladic IIIB-C. In historical terms: 1340/1330-1065

32. The bow figure has been treated by S. Wachsmann, 'Bird-head Devices onMediterranean Ships, Tropis IV; id., Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in theBronze Age Levant (College Station, Texas), pp. 539-72.

33. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 141, Fig. 293.2; p. 142, Fig. 295; p. 148, Fig. 311;Ph. Dakoronia, 'War-ships on Sherds of LHIIIC Kraters from Kynos', Tropis II,p. 122, Figs. 1-3 (cf. also the corrected images in id. 'War-ships on Sherds ofLHIIIC Kraters from Kynos?', Tropis III, pp. 147-8, Figs. 1-3).

34. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 132, Fig. 272; p. 142, Fig. 298C; p. 145, Figs.302B, 303; pp. 146-7, Figs. 304, 309; p. 150, Fig. 317; Johnston, Ship and BoatModels, p. 30, Fig. BA21; K. Kilian, 'Ausgrabungen in Tiryns 1982/83. Berichtzu den Grabungen', AA (1988), 140, Fig. 37.8. Whether Basch, Muséeimaginaire, p. 147, Fig. 308, belongs to the Tragana cluster cannot bedetermined. Its inclusion in the listing published in Laffineur and Basch (eds.),Thalassa, p. 86, n. 55, No. 8, is here retracted. The same listing erroneouslycontains the model from Agia Irini (No. 9) on the basis of J.L. Caskey,'Excavations in Keos, 1960-1961", Hesperia, 31 (1962), Pl. 99f; W.W.Cummer and E. Schofield, Keos, Vol. III. Ayia Irini: House A (Mainz, 1984),Pl. 46, clearly indicates that the model is far removed from the cluster inquestion.

35. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 147, Fig. 307; T.D. Atkinson et al., Excavations atPhylakopi in Melos, JHS Suppl., Vol. IV (London, 1904), Pl. XXXII.12; andtwo unpublished sherds from Kalapodi and the Athens Akropolis, kindly madeavailable to the author by Dr M. Felsch-Jacob and Dr P.A. Mountjoyrespectively.

36. The smaller Tanagra model (Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 141, Fig. 293.2)comes from a grave dated to 'Late Helladic IIIA-B' (K. Demakopoulou and D.Konsola, Archaeological Museum of Thebes [Athens, 1981], p. 87, Case 1,bottom shelf), but need not depict a large ship.

37. The lower limit rises slightly since none of the extant images date to IIIC late,the bulk being from the IIIC middle phase.

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The six clusters forming the backbone of the Bronze Ageclassification are characterized by. internal coherence, statisticalvalidity, and external consistency. Morphologically, the membersadhere to a single concept, although, occasionally, marginal individualsdepend on reference to the more canonical representations for theirinclusion. No cluster has fewer than ten members, if tentativeinclusions in the Skyros and Tragana clusters are accepted. These lowertotals are partly caused by these two shapes appearing only in modelsand on ceramics, two find categories with a far lower intact survivalrate than the seals, which form the bulk of Types II, III, and IV. Eachcluster is clearly demarcated against all other clusters, exception beingmade of one or two putative transitional individuals between thePlátanos and Kolonna clusters (classified with the former).38

The Iron Age/Early Archaic material does not provide the basis foras confident a narrative as the Bronze Age documents due to theabsence of clear-cut types for the periods 1100-750 and 730-550

down to the Athenian Black-figure clusters. A thin trickle ofimages cover the timespan from the Protogeometric to and includingthe Middle Geometric period, insufficient to generate clusters, barelyacceptable for an attempt to trace the development. The MiddleGeometric data, again too few to permit clustering, indicate whither theevolution is tending, serving, with the Tragana cluster, to anchor thethin trail at each end in the evolution. As these few finds are crucial toan understanding of early Aegean shipbuilding, and as they have rarelybeen discussed as a group, it behoves well to consider them in greaterdetail .39

The earliest post-Bronze Age ship representations to date are thetwo vessels on a Proto-Geometric krater from Tomb VI at Fortetsa(Fig.16).40 There has been some controversy as to whether the oblique

38. Many of the Type II individuals exhibit a distinct rocker, similar to that of TypeIII, and thus move away from the flat keel of the earliest Type II instances.Since all have the two-part bow, projection and post, none can be divorced fromthe cluster as illustrating a genuine 'transitional type'.

39. There has been no coherent discussion in the literature of the Middle Geometricto transitional Middle Geometric/Late Geometric I documents enumeratedbelow since Morrison and Williams, Greek Oared Ships, pp. 31-3, Geom.25-8, and Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 159-61 and Fig. 323; pp. 174—9, andFigs. 368, 369, 372, 374, have placed them in the Late Geometric II period. Thecorrect dates, followed here, are given by Coldstream, Greek GeometricPottery, pp. 22, 26, 95.

40. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 159, Fig. 320.

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line at the left extremity is a steering-oar or an extension of the keel atthe bow, but the tenor of the evidence favours the second reading.41 Itis dated to c.900 An early Sub Proto-Geometric sherd from thegully fill of the Skoubris cemetery in Lefkandi is somewhat later(c.850-825 and depicts the bow of a small oared galley.42 Thestraight stem and small bow projection relates it directly to the Traganatype Mycenaean craft and to the Fortetsa ships.

Ancient Halikarnassos has produced an Early Geometric krater witha small image of a galley under one of the double handles.43 The shipon a Middle Geometric I spherical pyxis from Lefkandi-Toumba Tomb61, dated c.850-825, possibly closer to 825, is one of the mostsignificant recent additions to the corpus (Fig. 18).44 The triplehorizontal lines may be compared to the thick deck on the large PyrgosLivanaton vessel (Fig. 13), and to the similar feature on the LateGeometric I Dipylon ships (Fig. 20). The stem is vertical, the bowprojection small.

The two decked vessels on the Metropolitan Museum Attic krater34.11.2 constitute equally important Middle Geometric II links to theDipylon cluster (Fig. 17).45 In terms of bow morphology, they embodythe first step towards the concave line of the Dipylon stempost. Theprojection thus becomes more pronounced, more 'ram'-like. The twoKhaniale Tekke ships, from a very fragmentary pithos dated to the endof the period, provide Cretan corroboration for the Attic development,although they are clearly open-hulled.46

Finally, a group of six Middle Geometric, some transitional to LateGeometric I, images offer evidence of the single-level, open craft: the

41. To speak of a merchantman in the first case, a ram in the second, isanachronistic. A more detailed analysis must be undertaken elsewhere. For areading as steering-oar, cf. Kirk, 'Ships on Geometric Vases', 118-19 (v);Casson, Ships and Seamanship, p. 36, and caption to Fig. 60 (asmerchantman); Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 159; as 'ram', cf. Morrison andWilliams, Greek Oared Ships, p. 12, Geom. 1; F. van Doorninck,'Protogeometric Longships and the Introduction of the Ram', UNA, 11 (1982),282. Comparison with the Mycenaean model from Oropos (Basch, Muséeimaginaire, p. 150, Fig. 317; also suggested by van Doorninck) is instructive inadopting the view espoused here.

42. P. Kalligas, 'Early Eubean Ship Building', Tropis II, p. 83, Fig. 2.43. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 190, Fig. 400. Cf. van Doorninck, 'Protogeometric

Longships', passim.44. Kalligas, 'Eubean Ship Building', p. 83, Fig. 1.45. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 178, Fig. 374.46. Ibid., p. 160, Fig. 323.

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skyphos from Eleusis (Fig. 19),47 two vessels on a one-handled cupfrom Anavyssos,48 the hydriskos from the same source,49 the AgioiTheodoroi/ Moulki oinochoe,50 and two craft on krater fragments fromMerenda.51

The Late Geometric I Dipylon cluster is among the most populous:38 documents, from near-complete to insignificant fragments.52

Abstraction made of minor adaptive changes as required by the artistswhen employing the type for spécifie narrative purposes, the membersexhibit pictorial uniformity to a greater degree than any other clusterincluded here. Although their interpretation is contentious, it will beargued below that they represent oared galleys with the rowers arrangedin two levels, the first diereis in the history of Mediterraneanshipbuilding (Fig. 20).

In the Late Geometric II period, the Dipylon canon breaks down,and the material is again scattered through a number of depictionsrepresenting either different types or variant idioms. None can besufficiently focused to merit a type designation, yet all are ofimportance for the narrative, and must be called upon to witness. Theone exception is provided by the Boiotian fibulae, although datingc.700-650 depicting a small single-levelled craft of Geometriccharacteristics (Fig. 23).53

The Late Geometric II material exhibits a number of tendencies,ideally requiring in-depth analysis, here summarized as follows. TheDipylon moneres continues, as attested to by the bowl 1899.2-19.1 inthe British Museum, and is further developed through the addition ofsidescreens to protect the rowers, as seen on two sherds from theAthenian Akropolis (Fig. 21) and on one from Phaleron, dated to theearliest phase of Early Protoattic, that is, some time around 700.54

47. Ibid., p. 177, Fig. 372. Date: Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery, p. 26.48. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 176, Fig. 368. Cf. Tzahou-Alexandri,

'Contribution to the Knowledge of 8th-Century B.C. Ship Representations',Tropis II, pp. 334-5. Date: Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery, p. 22.

49. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 176, Fig. 369. Date as in n. 50.50. Tzahou-Alexandri, 'Contribution', p. 352, Fig. 2. On its date, cf. ibid., p. 334,

and Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery, p. 95.51. I. Vichos, 'Three Unknown Representations of Ancient Ships (from Early

Helladic II to Geometric Period)', Tropis V.52. Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 166-7, 171-3, Figs. 333-40, 349-59, constitute,

for the present purpose, a useful selection.53. Ibid., pp. 191-5, Figs. 401-15, are representative.54. Ibid., p. 164, Figs. 328-9; pp. 182-3, Figs. 384-6.

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Most of the images are of single-level hulls, but due to half beingfragmentary one cannot speak of a cluster. The ships on the Munich8696 and Berlin 3143 (Fig. 22) oinochoai clearly continue the MiddleGeometric II moneres, whereas idiomatic problems with the Hobart 31,Copenhagen 1628, and Argos craft preclude entire certainty.55 Acontinuity of the moneres in Late Geometric I is assured by a smallgroup of images, again idiomatically disparate.56 A second group ofLate Geometric II ships can be distinguished on the basis of the bowmorphology, but the treatment varies too much to speak of a cluster.57

The Toronto bowl C.199 is related, yet it depicts a dieres.5S

Representative of the later images defying classification are thecomplete Pithekousai vessel, the fragments from the Argive Heraion,and Agrapidokhori, the graffito of a ship on a sherd from Eretria, andthe Sub-Geometric Boiotian krater from Perakhora with a mostrudimentary image of a vessel.59 They all appear to be moneres.

A similar absence of clusters is also observed in the seventh andearlier sixth centuries down to the appearance of significant numbers ofAthenian Black-figure ship representations. The seventh-centurymaterial, of interest here, may be summarized as follows. The Souniongroup consists of the well-known plaque (Fig. 24) and four sherds fromthe Athenian Akropolis and Agora, all to some extent interrelated.60

They all date to the earliest part of the century. Two significantmonuments cannot be readily classified, the Aristonothos krater, withtwo different vessels (Figs. 25, 26),61 and the ivory plaque from the

55. Ibid., p. 177, Figs. 370, 371, 373; p. 188, Fig. 395; Tzahou-Alexandri,'Contribution', pp. 360-61, Figs. 23-4.

56. Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 174-5, Figs. 360, 362-4; E. Brann, The AthenianAgora, Vol. VIII. Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery, Mid-8th to Late 7thCentury (Athens, 1962), Pl. 43.277.

57. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 177, Fig. 373 bis (A and form one ship, partof another; cf. H. Tréziny, 'Navires attiques et navires corinthiens à la fin duVIIIe siècle. A propos d'un cratère géométrique de Mégara Hyblaea', Mélangesde l'Ecole Française de Rome. Antiquité, 92 [1980], 17-34), 181-2, Figs.380-82.

58. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 184, Figs. 387-8.59. Ibid., pp. 188, Fig. 394; 190, Figs. 398-9; A. Andromenou, 'Geometrikē kai

hupogeōmetrikhē keramikē ex Eretrias V , AE, 1983, Pl. 64e; O. Tzahou-Alexandri and E. Spathari (eds.), A Voyage into Time and Legend Aboard theKyrenia Ship (Athens, 1987), p. 81, No. 47.

60. Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 202-3, Figs. 421-4; Brann, Athenian Agora, Pl.22.383.

61. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 233, Fig. 482.

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sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta.62 Both Aristonothos craft aredecked moneres, the Orthia vessel of the undecked variant. Finally,there is a scatter of images, of which may be mentioned the following:a Boiotian ship-shaped rhyton, and three Rhodian plates with single-levelled craft.63

The nine statistically significant assemblages account for c.48 percent of the entire available data base.64 In terms of brute figures, thismay be deemed insufficient. Yet, when the Bronze Age clusters arecontrasted with the non-classifiable material, they appear coherent. Thesame is valid for the two later clusters, with the added observation thatthe non-classified representations do not constitute scraps and scatter,as in the Bronze Age, but frequently do not merit a type designation forstatistical reasons alone, despite being formally well defined. With fewexceptions, little reference need be made to the non-clustered BronzeAge data, while the narrative cannot be envisaged without carefulexamination of the later homologues.

The resulting reconstruction will not represent the full range ofvessels in use in the Aegean during the timespan 2500-600 Thedata base does not include small craft or merchantmen, and only rarelyhulls employed in areas outside the cultural dominance of theCycladites, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Athenians.65 In addition, theimportant development leading up to the Syros cluster does not appearin the record.

In terms of systems theory, the eight clusters form part of atrajectory. At the upper end, the Iron Age and Early Archaic develop-ment can be charted by reference to the available, albeit unclustered,

62. Ibid., p. 241, Figs. 506-8.63. Ibid., p. 234, Fig. 484; pp. 242-3, Figs. 510-12.64. The clusters included, on the basis of a morphology common to all members,

are the Bronze Age Types I (18 individuals), II (23), III (19), IV (50), V (6), VI(8) — plus a further 5 related to either V or VI — and VII (45), and the IronAge Groups (38) and E (24). The total amounts to 490 entries, 358 from theBronze Age, 132 of Iron Age date. It should be kept in mind that furtherclusters, statistically discreet, can be sensed although not ratified. The term'group' is applied to the Iron Age data to indicate that further work is necessarybefore a cluster-designation can be finalized (occasionally in the text, 'group'can be employed as a synonym for 'cluster' due to stylistic reasons).

65. Due to the Athenocentricity manifest in the later data, it is, with few exceptions,not possible to attempt an overview valid for all of Greece. To what extentshipbuilding differed elsewhere cannot be ascertained on the basis of theimagery.

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evidence. At the lower end, there is nothing more than faint traces in thedata which must be complemented by the hypothetical reconstructionof the previous, largely undocumented, state. An analysis concentratingon phases of technological development serves to position the visibleshapes as distilled from the data within a theoretical evolution of shiparchitecture based on observations of archaeological and ethnographicmaterial. Despite the frequently minute size of the images, it is possibleto draw simple conclusions concerning the construction techniques,and the hullshapes as these relate to the construction, to the modes ofpropulsion, and to the postulated function. Speculative though theapproach is, it can be secured against the vagaries of imagination bybeing placed within a continuum.66

V. PHASES IN SHIPBUILDING

The data base, as noted above, provides incomplete coverage of theseveral millennia at sea which led to specific designs. To fullyunderstand each type, its position within the history of earlier Aegeanshipbuilding, as attested to and as it can be reconstructed, must bedetermined. Such an attempt to reconstitute the absent and partiallydocumented phases suggests five major periods, covering the evolutionfrom the simplest to most complex craft putatively or attestedlyemployed for movement on water in the period under study (thediscussion may be followed on Fig. 27).

This framework is generated from an understanding of the BronzeAge material, onto which is grafted the Iron Age continuation. Thepresentation of the six clusters hints at three pairings, the Syros andPlátanos (Types I and II), Kolonna and Akrotiri (III and IV), and Skyrosand Tragana (V and VI) clusters. Each pair exhibits notable similaritiesin terms of silhouette, suggesting significant moments in the history ofnaval architecture: the earlier vessels ultimately derivative of simplecraft, the advanced more or less crescent-shaped hulls, and the firstgalleys. The first pairing implies a long prior development, here

66. Thus the author places the present study within an overall framework ofevolutionary change; cf. the criticism of this concept in Aegean Bronze Agestudies by J. Cherry, 'Evolution, Revolution, and the Origins of ComplexSociety in Minoan Crete', in O. Krzyszkowska and L. Nixon (eds.), MinoanSociety, Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium, 1981 (Bristol, 1983), pp.33-45.

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summarized in a single precursory phase, at the end of which stands theSyros cluster, and a subsequent phase constituting the first true hulls.The post-Mycenaean material is partly subsumed by the fourth phasesince it is essentially an extension in time and refinement in design, andpartly the beginnings of a new phase, the fifth: the multi-level hull.

By interpreting the pre- and post-Dipylon groups as imperfectlydocumented types within the framework, an expected behaviour for theabsent data can be posited, and thus a coherent narrative, capable ofbridging the lacunae, can be constructed — and criticized.

Phase I: Dugouts and Related CraftThe Syros type is characterized by a flat hull with a high stern and a lowbow, propelled by such a large crew that paddling appears the mostlikely mode of propulsion.67 The hull would, then, be long and narrow.The bow has a projection beyond the stempost, suggesting that thecentral dorsal member was allowed to continue beyond the scarf. Theflat hull, the stempost scarf in retreat, the angular join at the stern arecharacteristic of vessels at or near the stage of the dugout. Several cluessuggest a more advanced design than a simple dugout: the linerendering the lower edge of the hull exhibits a curve, impossible toachieve if the dugout has not been shaved down to a hog; the stempostindicates that a garboard strake is attached to the hull and brought to apointed or squared-off end a short distance from the extremity; zigzaglines down the side of two members of the cluster could, if not merelydecorative, also argue for the addition of at least one more strake bystitching.68

A further instance of posts scarfed to a central member somedistance back from the ends is provided by the large Early Minoan IIterracotta model from Mokhlos (Fig. 2).69 Whereas single instancesrarely lend themselves to the formulation of significant statements, thesize and workmanship of this model invites closer scrutiny as the soleextant image of a putative distinct type. Flat-bottomed, either by designor by static necessity, the craft has, at each extremity, a post leaningoutwards over a projection.

67. On the stern of the Syros craft, cf. Roberts, 'Windpower and the Boats fromthe Cyclades', UNA, 16 (1987), 309-11.

68. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 86. For an artist's reconstruction, cf. B.Landström, Das Schiff (Gütersloh, 1961), p. 26, Fig. 44 (quoted from theFinnish edition, Laiva [Helsinki, 1961]).

69. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 133, Fig. 276.

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A subsequent development of the dug-out appears depicted in thefour lead models believed to have originated from a single grave onNaxos (Fig. 3).70 Further objects purported to derive from the samesource place these models in the Early Cycladic II period.71 All four aremade from three pieces of hammered lead, with the central stripflattened along part of its length, unhammered at one end. The solecomplete model exhibits a distinct transom stern, and all four have arising, pointed bow. Published cross-sections72 suggest — it beingassumed that lead is sufficiently malleable to permit a tolerably closeapproximation of the subject depicted — a shaved-down hog with asingle attached strake. This would indicate an advanced state of wood-working techniques, capable of producing sculpted boards — asuggestion supported by finds of bronze tools in the Cyclades.73

The Syros type shares traits from both the Mokhlos and the Naxosmodels: the bow projection and scarfed stempost from the former, therising bow and abrupt stern from the latter. The height of the Syranstern relates it to the subsequent Minoan Plátanos cluster, perhapssuggesting that the Naxos models represent a somewhat earlier stage inthe development from the extended dugout. The shape of the Mochlosmodel, on the other hand, is ageless: the identical extremities and thetwo sets of tholepins evoke a small fishing craft, clearly a dugoutderivative, and need not find a place within a coherent development.74

On the other hand, it may well constitute a traditional hull, shaped byspecific local requirements and conditions.

The system trajectory back into the Early Cycladic I and Neolithicperiods would involve less advanced forms of extended and basic

70. Ibid., p. 79, Figs. 153-6.71. Renfrew, 'Cycladic metallurgy', 5, by the reputed association of the sole

complete model with two Keros-Syros culture (Early Cycladic II) marblefigurines.

72. Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 79, Fig. 156 (based on Renfrew, 'Cycladicmetallurgy', Pl. I).

73. On Cycladic metal tools, see Renfrew, 'Cycladic metallurgy'. For Crete, see K.Branigan, Copper and Bronze Working in Early Bronze Age Crete, SIMA XIX(Lund, 1968).

74. It is interesting to note that one of the few certain representations of a smallfishing craft on a Middle Minoan I seal from Malia (Basch, Musée imaginaire,p. 104, Fig. F4), exhibits a continuation of the central dorsal member beyondone extremity (here believed to be the stern).

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dugouts.75 Due to the working environment, it is likely that extensionof the basic dugout was undertaken through the addition of a garboardstrake, not by splitting the dugout down the middle and inserting boardsto widen the craft (a process which would diminish the keel-like effectof the central member).76 The trajectory can only be detailed byreference to non-Aegean archaeological and ethnographic data, andwould thus be solely hypothetical.77

Phase II: Evolutions of the Dugout FormulaClosely related to the Syros type in terms of shape is the Plátanoscluster. The earliest members are characterized by the straight keel-linecontinuing into the projection beyond the scarfed stempost, to whichthe strakes may be thought fastened, and a high, near-vertical stern witha forked extremity. The image presented is largely that of the Syroscluster, although with a short and broad-beamed hull78 — given thepresence of a mast and forestays, and a number of lines descendingbelow the hull, thought to render oars. Thus, as documented by the

75. For an overview of possible evidence, see C. Marangou, 'Maquettesd'embarcations: les débuts', in Laffineur and Basch, Thalassa, pp. 21-42; id.,'From Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age: Tentative Identification of EarlyBoat Models', Tropis IV, pp. 277-93; id., 'Evidence about a Neolithic Dugout(Dispilio, Kastoria)', Tropis V.

76. For a good account of primitive craft, see S. MacGrail, Ancient Boats in N.W.Europe: The Archaeology of Water Transport to AD 1500 (Harlow, 1987).

77. For an argument favouring the raft as the origin of planked craft, cf. G. Kapitän,'Thoughts on the Origin of the Early Mediterranean Plank Boat', Tropis II, pp.227-44; id., 'The Origin of the Early Mediterranean Plank Boat — Additions',Tropis III; id., 'What was the Early Bronze Age Seacraft Shipwrecked atDokos?', Tropis V.

78. The argument which interprets the Syros type as paddled and the Platanos typeas oared is, it must be admitted, insecurely based in absolute terms. A widebeam may be assumed for the latter unless it is postulated that it took the windstrictly abaft only. It is supported by the minimum requirements of two banksof oarsmen in terms of athwartship dimensions, and is founded on theassumption that a low number of strokes under the hull is commensurate witha reading as oars. The corollary, that a large number of strokes indicatespaddles, follows only from the fact that attempts to apply the standard formulafor calculating the overall length from the size of the crew to the members ofthe Syros type generates unacceptably large hulls if oars are assumed. It is thustwo uncertainties which appear to support a coherent development. Denial ofeither postulate removes any possibility of interpreting the evidence along theterms employed above.

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earliest members, the Plátanos shape appears to be a development ofthe Cycladic vessels.

The exact position of either the Syros or the Plátanos clusters in thecontinuum cannot be determined but it seems probable that the centraldorsal member of the latter has been reduced to a width little more thanthat of the bow projection. As it is unlikely that it would have been wideand shovel-like on a seagoing vessel, the Plátanos shape probably hadwhat may be termed a proto-keel.79 The development into the followingKolonna shape appears linear, suggesting no major rethinking of thecentral dorsal member. The dimensions of this feature on the Syros typeprobably was superior to that of the Plátanos shape, given the lessevolved picture it evokes, but as the number of attached strakes cannotbe determined, further specification is futile.

The Plátanos type covers a range of variants, differing sternterminals, rates of curvature of the hull, and bow configurations. Thestern is crowned by a forked extremity, with either two, three, or fourprongs. The hull varies from rigorously flat to markedly curved. Therelationship between the bow projection and the stempost is defined bythe angle, ranging from an open 90° to a closed 33°. Given thesubsequent Kolonna type, and the evolutionary optic, it would bewarranted to expect an ordered succession from flat hulls with wide-angled bow and multiple prongs to curved hulls with closed-angledbow and bifurcated stern. The data do not support such areconstruction: various combinations of the three major parameters canbe observed.

Rather than refuting an evolutionary approach as defined above, therepresentations appear to illustrate a decisive stage in Aegean BronzeAge shipbuilding: the transition from an angled to a roundedarchitecture, from clearly detached stem- and sternposts to hullsdescribing, in profile, a single line from end to end. Due to fully halfthe members of the Plátanos type being unprovenanced, thisdevelopment, which took place in the Early Minoan III to MiddleMinoan II periods, cannot be situated geographically. The typepopulation suggests widespread experimenting within the narrowbounds set by .ingrained conservatism.80

79. The early forms of the keel have been treated by L. Basch, 'Carènes égéennesà l'Age du Bronze', in Laffineur and Basch, Thalassa, pp. 43-54, and by F.Hocker, 'Keels, Keelplanks, and the Development of Backbone Timber in theBronze Age', Tropis V.

80. See Wedde, 'Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery', passim.

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Phase III: The Attenuated Crescent-Shaped HullThe shape towards which the Plátanos type tends is clearly illustratedby the comparatively large Kolonna cluster, dating to the MiddleMinoan I and II phases: a hull with a continuous curve from bow tostern, a pointed bow, and a bifurcated stern. It is clear that very little, ifanything, remains of the dugout origin of these craft. The members ofthis cluster represent fully-fledged seagoing vessels propelled by oar orby sail. Advances in construction technique can be postulated byreference to the size of the ships: whereas the Plátanos type vessels are8-12m. in overall length, and the smaller Kolonna type members10-14m., the ships on the eponymous pithos from Kolonna (Fig. 6) areso closely related to the large Type IV ships on the Akrotiri wallpaintingthat a similar size, 30-35m., must be assumed.81

The Akrotiri cluster is no more than an evolution of the previoustype, the sole distinction being, in a profile view, the pointed stern. Interms of size, the members depicted on seals and vases are generallylarger, 20-30m. in length. As the available evidence betrays no furtherdevelopment of the attenuated crescent-shaped hull, it may be surmisedthat the shape had reached its apogee. The relatively rare instances ofthis shape in later Mycenaean times merely confirm what is knownfrom the Late Minoan I period. Analyses by modern naval architectssuggest a sleek sailing vessel, capable of impressive speed.82

This type of hull, the 35m. rapid sailer, appears to have constituteda dead end. It is replaced by the oared galley. When a vessel conceived

81. The overall length is calculated by multiplying the number of oars by 0.92 toattain the length of the motor-section of the hull, which is compared to the bowand stern overhang in terms of a percentage of the hull. All three values areadded. If the propulsive force is paddles, the multiplier is reduced to 0.75. SeeMarinatos, Archaeologia Homerica, p. 151; Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics',Ch. 4.4.

82. On the Akrotiri ship as sailed craft, see T. Gillmer, 'The Thera Ship', MarM, 61(1975), 321-9; id., 'The Thera Ships — A Re-Analysis', MarM, 64 (1978),125-33; id., 'The Thera Ships as Sailing Vessels', MarM, 71 (1985), 401-16.Cf. also id., 'The Capability of the Single Square Sail Rig: A TechnicalAssessment', in S. MacGrail (ed.), Medieval Ships and Harbours in NorthernEurope, BAR-BS 66 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 167-81; O. Roberts, 'Rigging theAthenian Trireme', Tropis II, pp. 287-300; id., 'The Development of the Brailinto a Viable Sail Control for Aegean Boats of the Bronze Age', in Laffineurand Basch, Thalassa, pp. 55-60. L. Casson, 'Bronze Age Ships: The Evidenceof the Thera Wall Paintings', UNA, 4 (1975), 6, and id., Ships and Seafaring inAncient Times (Austin, 1994), p. 38, errs in seeing the Theran vessels asgalleys.

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primarily for propulsion by sail reappears, it is the slow, wide-belliedmerchantman of Archaic and Classical times.83

Phase IV: The Birth of the LongshipThe first three phases of Aegean ship architecture exhibit a slowdevelopment with an obvious interrelationship between the types. Inthe tumultuous final periods of the Bronze Age there is sudden change.Although the attenuated crescent-shaped hull was capable of beingrowed, the motor-section restricted to less than half the overall lengthand the substantial overhangs at bow and stern had an appreciableimpact on the size of the rowing crew and the velocity attained.84 Theprimary mode of propulsion was the sail. With the birth of the longship,this dependence on shifting wind conditions ended.

Although the data do not provide a clearly delineated picture interms of chronological phases of the development from the attenuatedcrescent-shaped hull to the longship, the available material suggests ahypothetical reconstruction. The stern remained curved, although thecurvature was increased and the overhang thereby reduced. Theoverhang at the bow was totally eliminated by the adoption of a clipperbow: a vertical stempost attached at right angles to the central dorsalmember. Whether this change produced a hull capable of carrying anincreased complement of rowers remains uncertain since the imagesincluded in the Skyros cluster frequently lack oars (Fig. 12). The largeship from Pyrgos Livanaton (Fig. 13), however, approaches 20 rowersper side.85

83. H.T. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War: TheAncestry of the Ancient Trireme (Leiden, 1993), p. 2 and Ch. 3, correctly writesthat the merchantman is a late invention. On merchantmen see C.H. Ericsson,Navis Oneraria. The Cargo Carrier of Late Antiquity: Studies in Ancient ShipCarpentry (Åbo, 1984). A paper by the present author on the merchantmanwill appear in Tropis VI.

84. Three of the vessels on the Akrotiri wall painting permit calculations designedto suggest the number of rowers the hulls could seat. The motor-section (theproportion of the hull employed to seat the motive force) amounts to about halfthe overall length (46-52 per cent), being between 14.25 and 17.25m. in reality.Taking the interscalmium at 0.92m., this would allow 15-18, perhaps 19 rowersper side. The motor-section on Type V and VI vessels consumes 80-90 per centof the overall length, thus seating up to 25 rowers per side for a slightly inferiorlength, and a significant reduction in the dead weight of the unpropelledoverhangs. Cf. Wedde, 'Towards a Hermeneutics', Ch. 4.4.

85. Dakoronia 'Warships . . . from Kynos', pp. 119 and 120, Fig. 2.

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The pivotal development was the return of the bow projection.86

This continuation of the keel permitted placing rowers right into theeyes of the bow without causing it to dig into the water due to the shiftin the centre of buoyancy. Moreover, it permitted a stronger scarf at thepost, which could be supported both fore and aft: forced beachingsbecame viable, cutting the time required for an amphibious landing. Ause as a ram, however, should be excluded: the post on the Mycenaeanand early Iron Age craft rises vertically from the keel and the projection(Figs. 14-16,18), not in the sweeping curve exhibited by later hulls forwhich there is documentary evidence attesting to ramming. By theMiddle Geometric II period the projection is integrated into the bowmorphology, but the hull remains light in design, scarcely capable ofwithstanding the shock of impact and absorbing the energy releasedbackwards into the attacking craft (Figs. 17, 19).87

A further, crucial factor was the incorporation of the deck into thedesign.88 The identification of a deck in a profile view is conditional toindependent proof, such as warriors moving along it. That the deck firstappears in the Late Mycenaean period is obvious from the Enkomi andPyrgos Livanaton (Fig. 13) representations, but it is not possible todetermine how widespread its adoption was due to the absence of thenecessary indicators. Between the above-mentioned images and theMiddle Geometric II period (Fig. 17), the presence of a deck can onlybe argued in one instance (Fig. 18) by comparison with the one Pyrgosvessel and the later Dipylon ships. Given the scarcity of images on thewhole for the time phase, a hypothetical bridging argument is requiredin any case.

Support for an attempt at reconstruction can be sought in a numberof factors: the concept of the Mycenaean galley is identical to that ofthe earliest Iron Age galleys, the bow morphology as rendered by theartists is extensively the same, the idiom employed by the artists oneither side of the Bronze/Iron Age divide exhibits similarities, and,finally, the textually attested size of the largest Iron Age vessels, thepentekontoros, is duplicated by the Tragana and Gazi vessels — the 25per side 50-man galley makes its entry into Aegean shipbuilding historyin the Bronze Age.

86. A continuation of the Type II bow projection across the 400 year gap to TypeVI is hardly likely.

87. On ramming, and the sole extant ram, cf. J.R. Steffy, 'The Athlit Ram: APreliminary Investigation of its Structure', MarM, 69 (1983), 229^17; L.Casson and J.R. Steffy (eds.), The Athlit Ram (College Station, Texas, 1991).

88. Cf. M. Wedde, 'Decked Vessels in Early Greek Ship Architecture', Tropis V.

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Phase V: Introducing Multi-Level DesignsOnce the deck had been integrated into the design of oared galleys, itbecame a matter of time before it was employed to seat an additionallevel of rowers, with all the problems and advantages associated withthis development. A second level superposed on the existing allowedgreater flexibility in design while attaining equal or superior speed atgreater structural integrity. Whereas a hull seating 25 rowers per sidereaches the maximum overall length permissible when building asimple single-skinned hull, the addition of an upper level doubles thepropulsive force at equal hull length and an increase in weight inferiorto the net gain in power. Despite the additional weight, a two-levelledhull is quicker than its single-levelled homologue since it seats a largercrew.

By shortening the hull, greater manoeuvrability was attained at ahigher speed than the single-levelled variant. The evidence suggeststhat this was the route taken, rather than creating 100-oaredbehemoths.89 To what extent the hull was widened to compensate forthe higher centre of gravity and decreased stability cannot beascertained. It is, however, clear that half a century after the intro-duction of the upper level, a quantum leap forward was achieved whenthe lower level, hitherto rowing over the gunwale, was placed in thehull, and ports pierced through the skin below the gunwale for the oars,thus lowering the upper level to an extent corresponding to therequirements of the rowers in the hull.90

This narrative, as it stands, results from a rejection of the traditional,and dominant, reading of the Dipylon style of Geometric vase painting.In a very narrow focus on the data, scholars have posited a complexprocess of image deconstruction and paratactic reassembly: surfaceswhich, in a silhouette view, would disappear into the non-existent depthof two-dimensional depiction, were, this hypothesis argues, raisedvertically so as to appear above the profile rendition of the object. Thefloor of the chariot box becomes a square above the wheel (or wheels),

89. The exception is provided by the Boiotian 120-oared ships in the IliasII.509-10.

90. The earliest ships with oarports are that from Til Barsip, a moneres, dating to747-737 those of King Luli, c.700, and the left ship on the Aristonothosvase (Fig. 25), first half of the seventh century: Basch, Musée imaginaire, p.308, Fig. 649; p. 316, Fig. 666; p. 233, Fig. 482. For early ports on Greek ships,cf. ibid., p. 208, Fig. 429; p. 211, Fig. 438; pp. 221-2, Figs. 460-63; pp. 226-7,Figs. 470B, 472-3; p. 238, Figs. 498-9; p. 240, Fig. 503, all sixth century.

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the charioteer stands on its upper edge. The further-side wheel isbrought into view next to the hither-side one, • creating the falseimpression of a two-axled wagon. The surface of the bier upon whichrests the deceased is raised, the corpse placed on its upper edge. Theshroud covering the body becomes a checkered backdrop above thebier. And the further side of the hull is raised into view above the hither,and the rowers, when depicted, are shown rowing on the further side.

When examining the full range of images painted in the Dipylonstyle, the traditional view emerges as capable of explaining only aproportion:91 charioteers are shown standing behind the purportedfloor,92 single-axled chariots in exactly the same idiom as the two-axled'wagons' appear,93 the bier exhibits far greater complexity,94 and the

91. The germ of the idea is taken from the 'aspektive Kunst' of ancient Egypt. Fora concise account, cf. E. Brunner-Traut, Frühformen des Erkennens amBeispiel Altägyptens (Darmstadt, 1990), pp. 7-40. For the erroneous claim thatAttic Geometric vase painters employed the same technique when depictingships, cf. the authoritative account of Morrison and Williams, Greek OaredShips, pp. 12-17, and also Basch, Le Musée imaginaire, pp. 161-2. In a rathernegative review of Wallinga, Ships and Seapower (JHS, 114 [1994], 206-8),J.S. Morrison restates the view that there are no diereis in Greek shipbuildingbefore 700 BC. W.M. Murray, reviewing Wallinga in UNA, 22 (1993), 360-61,better understands the impact this book will — or should — have: 'on everypage, the reader is challenged to reassess long-held beliefs.' For an attempt atrefuting some of these 'long-held beliefs', cf. M. Wedde, 'Rethinking GreekGeometric Art: Consequences for the Ship Representations', in Tropis IV,pp. 573-96, and id., 'Towards a Hermeneutics', Ch. 5.7. An in-depth study iscurrently in preparation.

92. G. Ahlberg, Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art (Göteborg, 1971),Figs. 13a, 13b (upper left), 13c (charioteer only), 4a-b (the feet are behind theside piece). Cf. also J. Davison, Attic Geometric Workshops, Yale ClassicalStudies, 16 (New Haven, 1961), Fig. 14. The second one is by the DipylonMaster himself, the first assigned to his workshop (Ahlberg, Prothesis andEkphora, pp. 25-6). Notice also that the so-called floor is frequently reduced toa long narrow rectangle.

93. Ahlberg, Prothesis and Exphora, Figs. 14a, c, 16b-c, 20; Davison, Workshops,Fig. 101.

94. The treatment of the bier shows no consistent pattern which could support thetraditional view. The narrowness of the horizontal surface below the corpsefrequently suggests the frame, particularly obvious on Ahlberg, Prothesis andEkphora, Figs. 2a-b; 4a, c; 8b; 13a, c; 14a, d; 15a-b (all early, when theDipylon style was taking shape). Cf. also ibid., Figs. 18; 19; 27a; 28 (the lattertwo showing constructional details indicating that the frame is depicted, not theentire surface), 29a, c; 32. The additional legs — a late feature — do not

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shroud can be shown to be held aloft by mourners.95 Moreover, the LateGeometric IA imagery — as treated by the traditional reading — fallsentirely outside a pictural continuum stretching from the Minoans andMycenaeans to the Classical Greeks. Alternative arguments can beadvanced to account for each feature employed as proof by theconsecrated conception. Rather than foisting an ill-conceived idea ofwanting to explain more than depict onto the Attic Geometric vasepainter, it appears preferable to read the Dipylon material system-atically as profile views.

If approached in this manner, the Dipylon ships find their place inan evolution from the first decked moneres towards the more fullydeveloped, and surely more viable, dieres with the lower level rowingthrough ports, the vital requirement for the creation of the trieres.96

VI. FORGING A NARRATIVE

The present paper cannot, for obvious reasons, offer an extensiveinterpretation of how the pictorial data and their classification relate toa historical reality — the subject of a book-length, albeit foreverincomplete, study. Although much is known about the economicsubsystem in which the ships are to be placed, such issues as carryingcapacity and performance under sail, can, due to the nature of theevidence, receive only very rough approximations, based on what isgenerally known about wooden vessels, and on what can be postulatedif specific mathematical reconstructions are attempted.97

The discourse will be restricted to four issues: the small data base,the evolutionary framework, the selectiveness manifest in the data, andthe reflection of a historical situation which might be contained in theclassificatory system and its extension through time and space. Muchof what follows cannot avoid being speculative, but it is believed thatit can be shown to follow from the opening considerations, and,perhaps more importantly, to respect the evidence.

invalidate this reading, as illustrated by ibid., Figs. 31a, 36c, 37c, 41c, 42a, 43e,46b. In each case, the cross-hatched, or otherwise, decorated, surface isassociated with the uppermost part of the leg, where it thickens to accomodatethe frame.

95. Ibid., Figs. 2b; 4a, c; 8b.96. Casson, Ships and Seamanship, pp. 53-60, and Wallinga, Ships and Seapower,

Ch. 3, offer similar readings to that espoused here but do not face the problemscreated by the traditional approach.

97. Cf. the writings of T. Gillmer on the Thera ships, cited in n. 82.

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Concerning the scarcity of ship images: among the thousands offigurative representations in Aegean art, boats and ships constitute aminute proportion. Despite the obvious necessity of watercraft fortravel within the area, the vessels employed were but rarely depicted.98

Whereas the Cycladic art was rapidly eclipsed by that of the Minoans,and figurative art is a late occurrence on the mainland, the situation onCrete, with such a long tradition, is particularly noteworthy.

A related dearth of ship images becomes evident when grave andsanctuary inventories, as well as the cultboats, are studied. Despite thepopular conception of an Aegean belief in a maritime journey to theAfterworld, there is little naval material evidence to be cited in itsfavour." A brief review of the Cycladic evidence is instructive. EarlyCycladic civilization is primarily known from cemeteries. Numerousgraves have been excavated, yet only one contained boat models, andonly ten 'frying-pans' from the Khalandriani cemetery were decoratedwith ships. The later Cycladic, as well as Cretan and mainland, datarepeat the story: few ships were found in funerary contexts.100 Theexample of Egypt comes to mind as an entirely different situation.

98. It need hardly be stressed that a rich tradition of small craft remains almostentirely invisible. Models may depict such vessels, but the absence of sizeindicators precludes certainty. For certain instances of small(er) craft, cf.Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 104 F4; 133, Fig. 276, as well as the paddledskiff on the Akrotiri wall painting, ibid., p. 119, Fig. 232, to the right of ship7. For a good close-up, cf. Morgan, Miniature Wall Paintings, Fig. 160.

99. On the marine element in Aegean religion, cf. Boulotis, 'The Aegean Areain Prehistoric Times: Cults and Beliefs about the Sea', in A. Delivorrias (ed.),Greece and the Sea (Athens, 1987), pp. 20-34; id., 'La déesse minoenne à larame-gouvernail', Tropis I, pp. 55-73; R. Laffineur, 'La mer et l'au-delà dansl'Egée préhistorique', in Laffmeur and Basch, Thalassa, pp. 231-8; F.Vandenabeele, 'Le monde marin dans les sanctuaires minoens', ibid., pp.239-52; M.P. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival inGreek Religion (Lund, 1950), pp. 619-33. For boats in cult and a connectionwith honey, cf. Davaras, 'Minōiko kērioforo ploiario', 72-92. J.Vanschoonwinkel, 'La barque dans le culte et la religion créto-mycéniens',RALouvain, 15 (1982), 20-56, errs in arguing that the presence of a shipimage in a ritual context designates the vessel as cultic in nature. Unless thecraft exhibits specific traits, no more than a punctual religious use can bepostulated. Cf. also V. Watrous, "The Origin and Iconography of the LateMinoan Painted Larnax', Hesperia, 60 (1991), 285-307, esp. 296-303, 305with n. 116. Regrettably, the issue, by virtue of its complexity, can receive but.a very summary treatment here.

100. The Bronze Age data base, being 358 entries, contains some 74 individuals,that is C.20 per cent, from a funerary or ritual context. The figure is no more

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To remain within the ideational sphere: among the over 100 Minoanand Mycenaean finger-rings and sealstones thought to depict culticactivities, only 14 include watercraft.101 None can be read with anydegree of confidence.102 Unless the radical suggestion that all AegeanBronze Age ship representations are more or less cultic in nature isaccepted,103 feasible when considering the symbolic content of thelarge 'talismanic' ship cluster, and the ritual use of the vessels in theprocession on the Akrotiri wall painting, there remains a curious lacunain the evidence. Three sea-faring cultures leave little trace, in the formof depictions of watercraft, of a far-reaching symbiosis with the sea.The presence of maritime animal and plant motives on pottery andother objects creates a shrill contrast. The incidence of ship imagerydoes not reflect the ideational world.

This state may be contrasted with the Geometric evidence. By farthe largest proportion of images, particularly the Dipylon vases, derivefrom funerary contexts. The ships form part of the decoration of largefunerary monuments prominently displayed on the grave as a marker.The craft depicted are, themselves, not funerary in nature, but those ofquotidian use — as should be argued for such Bronze Age vessels to bediscovered in ritual contexts, exception made of the few manifestlynon-quotidian cultboats. Finally, the post-Geometric evidence is

than indicative for the following reasons: (1) the second category is difficultto define precisely, and contains instances which are less than clear-cut; (2)script signs are not included although an argument for heightened meaningcan be constructed; (3) the large number of unprovenanced seals, 72 out of141, falsify the statistics.

101. For a selection, cf. Basch, Musée imaginaire, pp. 104-5, F7-8, F10, F12-15,F18.

102. There is no authoritative study of Aegean Bronze Age ritual craft.Vanschoonwinkel, 'La barque dans le culte', is based on an erroneous premise(see n. 99 above), while A. Göttlicher, Kultschiffe und Schiffskulte imAltertum (Berlin, 1992) is disappointingly brief on the Aegean material.Major studies on Aegean religion, such as Nilsson, Minoan-MycenaeanReligion, and N. Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol(Columbia, SC, 1993), largely avoid the issue. For a small contribution, cf.Wedde, 'The "Ring of Minos" and Beyond', and id., 'Towards aHermeneutics', Ch. 6.

103. J. Betts, 'Ships on Minoan Seals', in D. Blackman (ed.), Marine Archaeology,Colston Papers, 23 (London, 1973), p. 334. Cf. also Vanschoonwinkel, 'Labarque dans le culte', whose argument, if applied to clusters (not done so byhim), results in a similar position.

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exceedingly slim until the appearance of the next evidentialconcentration, the Attic Black-figure craft on the inside rim of kratersand on drinking cups. No statistically relevant concentrations around aspecific shape, no patterns in the distribution, can be discerned.

The evolutionary framework, the second issue, rises from theobvious interrelatedness observed between the Kolonna and theAkrotiri clusters, and the number of common points uniting theKolonna and the Plátanos clusters. These three types form a nucleusthought to mirror reliably Minoan shipbuilding over almost a thousandyears. Although the earlier members of the Plátanos cluster appear todiffer (Fig. 5), the aggregate of the later (Fig. 4), partly contemporarywith the first Type III (Kolonna) craft (Figs. 6-8), suggest a geneticconnection.

The Syros cluster (Fig. 1), the first fixpoint in the history of AegeanBronze Age shipbuilding, can be approached in two ways: either byattempting to relate later types to the Syran craft, or by arguing that noconnection can be proven, and thereby necessitating the creation of anew fixpoint, and a postulate stating that the Plátanos type (Figs. 4, 5)either derives from a pre-Syran prototype nowhere to be found in thedata, or from an external source. To do so ignores the formal iso-morphism existing between the two shapes (considering it to beunlikely that the Cycladites built a high-bowed craft, whichsubsequently was copied by Minoan builders but reversed, thedirectional determination of the latter being assured), and the absenceof concrete evidence for an alternative view.

It is clear that the Mycenaean ship types (Figs. 12-15) are not directevolutions from the Akrotiri cluster (Figs. 9, 10). They represent amajor rethinking of the bow morphology and the effect of the primarymode of propulsion on hull design. The data base contains no adequatealternative predecessor, but it must be noted that Mycenaean art doesnot become pictorial until just prior to the appearance of a specificallyMycenaean ship type. Nor can such a candidate be found outside theAegean. It would appear that the Mycenaeans adapted the prevailingMinoan hullshape to their needs of rapid propulsion regardless of windconditions, of strength in the bow for beaching at speed without loss ofstructural integrity, and of a certain but restricted load capacity. Thesame imperatives appear to have prevailed in the Iron Age as there arefew significant differences between the Tragana-type craft (Figs. 14,15) and the single-levelled Geometric hulls (Figs. 18, 19). Theinvention of the dieres tends to underline the above designrequirements (Fig. 20). The seventh- and early sixth-century evidencefinds its place in the history of the moneres, but the period is

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overshadowed by the chronological and structural uncertaintiessurrounding the earliest trieres.104

The postulated linear evolution is also a product of the third issue,the suspected gaps in the evidence. A single type prevails at any givenpoint in the Aegean chronology: the picture thus generated appears tooordered when compared, for example, to the profusion of regionallyspecific vessels in the modern Aegean tradition of kai'ki-huMmg,105 orto the attested presence of different ship types in Greek and Romanantiquity.106 If unchallenged, the ensuing narrative would stress fourpoints: the Cycladites ceased to build sea-going craft in the EarlyBronze Age;107 the Minoans completely dominated shipbuildingthroughout the Middle and earlier Late Bronze Age; their shipbuildingindustry was under centralized control imposing single designs; and theMycenaeans began their rise to pre-eminence employing Minoanbottoms and did not introduce a hulltype of their own until they did soin response to local requirements, suggesting that unstable politicalconditions preceded for some time the upheaval of the Late HelladicIIIB and early IIIC periods.108 The Attic bias in the Iron and EarlyArchaic Ages is striking, but can be balanced by archaeological andtextual evidence (to be reviewed elsewhere) suggesting a differentpicture.

104. Given the complexity of the issue, no attempt will be made to address it here.Even a short bibliography is eschewed as insufficient to do justice to thevarious modern positions involved — none of which are entirely satisfactory.

105. Köster, Antike Seewesen, p. 60, notes that in the 1920s every Greek island hadits own type of kaïki, readily recognizable. On a profusion of types, cf. also,for instance, E. McKee, Working Boats of Britain: Their Shape and Purpose(London, 1983).

106. Torr, Ancient Ships, pp. 105-24, catalogues and discusses the various termsfor specific and generic shiptypes in use during Graeco-Roman times.

107. There is reason to wonder to what extent restricted access to timber on theislands may have had a negative impact on Cycladic shipbuilding.

108. A persistent strain of thought in eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age studiesattempts to place the inter-regional trade in the hands of a single seafaringpeople, frequently based on the respective scholar's personal agendas. It isunlikely that trade in a specific area was solely the domain of the locals,although goods moving down the line from one extreme point to another maywell have been transhipped at some point(s). Diplomatic gifts, such as thosebrought by the Keftiu to Egypt, were hardly left to the vagaries of travel inforeign bottoms. Marsa Matruh is good evidence for direct contact betweenextreme points, in this case the Aegean and Egypt. Cf. D. White, 'Excavationof Bates' Island: A Late Bronze Age Egyptian Trading Station', AJA, 90(1986), 205-6.

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A number of factors suggest a more complex reconstruction. Theearlier Bronze Age exhibits an apparent multiplicity of shapes, but thepattern is created by two well-attested types (the Syros and Plátanosclusters; Figs. 1,4,5), one small group (the Naxos lead boats; Fig. 3),and single instances (the models from Mokhlos [Fig. 2] andKhristós).109 The prominent role played by Syros stems from theincised ship images on the 'frying pans' in a context of otherwiselargely non-figurative art.110 Without these documents, the clusterwould be restricted to a model, two sherds, and two stone plaques. Thisweighting of the evidence is a recurrent phenomenon: four lead modelsfrom a single grave on Naxos, seven ships on a jug from Argos,111 11ships from the Malia glyptic workshop and palatial administration,112

24 complete and fragmentary vessels on the Akrotiri wall painting,numerous sherds with ship representations and fragments of modelsfrom Pyrgos Livanaton,113 the comparatively massive appearance ofship images at the Dipylon cemetery.

The Malia workshop provides an interesting comment on theproduction of glyptic images: the style is frequently archaic, as if thegemcutters perpetuated established techniques and motifs while moreprogressive artists had updated their repertoire.114 When compared withthe sudden statistical flourishes at specific geographical points, singleartisans or schools may have partly determined the appearance of thedata base. This is also illustrated by the Late Geometric IA Atticmaterial: a single type prevails, the early dieres, against the rareinstance of a moneres.

109. Cf. n. 69. For the Khristós model, cf. Johnston, Ship and Boat Models, p. 22,Fig. BA 7.

110. Exception is made of the marble idols. For a good overview, cf. Thimme (ed.),Art and Culture of the Cyclades.

111. E. Protonotariou-Deïlaki, 'Ship Representations from Prehistoric Argolis(MH Period)', in Tropis II, pp. 123-6.

112. On the Maliote seal production, see J.-C. Poursat, 'L'atelier des sceaux et leQuartier Mu de Mallia: Etude comparée des sceaux découverts', in I. Pini(ed.), Studien zur minoischen und helladischen Glyptik, CMS, Beiheft 1(Berlin, 1981), pp. 159-64. The seals are catalogued with bibliography inCMS, II.4, Nos. 86-198. On the hieroglyphic signs, cf. Poursat, Godart, andOlivier, Fouilles exécutées à Mallia.

113. Cf. Dakoronia, 'Warships . . . from Kynos'; id., 'The Kynos . . . Fleet', inTropis IV, pp. 159-71; id., 'Representations of Seabattle on MycenaeanSherds from Kynos', in Tropis V.

114. Poursat, 'L'atelier des sceaux', p. 160.

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The contrast between ceramics and glyptics in Aegean art isinstructive. Pottery decoration throughout the Bronze Age is primarilynon-figurative or restricted to vegetal patterns with the occasionalanimal or bird.115 Representations of man and his environment appearrarely. With the loss of so much of the wall paintings, the explosion ofglyptic images depicting cultic scenes, chariots, hunts, and ships inMiddle Minoan III becomes so much more remarkable.116 Yet the smallsize of the support induced the gemcutters to adopt stereotyped images,reproducing patterns rather than detailed studies (exception made of thegold rings and some of the cult scenes). When a ship is depicted on avase, or in the related technique of larnax decoration, it is frequently amajor event for the naval historian: each instance is unique, howeverrudimentary the image may be. The members of the Skyros andTragana clusters (Figs. 12-15), dated to a time when gemcutting hadceased, manifest the personal expression of a ship by an individualartist. Two different types appear concurrently. On the restricted surfaceof a stone, features which may have warranted separate classificationdisappear.117

A more modulated picture of early Aegean shipbuilding can only behinted at. As the iconographie evidence stands, the historical recon-struction, the fourth issue, must be restricted to general considerations.

115. This is best illustrated by referring to the motifs in P.P. Betancourt, A Historyof Minoan Pottery (Princeton, 1985), passim, and generally to the figures andplates. A. Furumark, Mycenaean Pottery, Vol. I, Analysis and Classification(Stockholm, 1941) bears this out for Mycenaean pottery: of 78 patterns, 17are not vegetal or abstract, being the human figure, various animals, maritimesubjects, and some inanimate objects, many of which become abstracted intopatterns. E. Vermeule and V. Karageorghis, Mycenaean Pictorial VasePainting (Harvard, 1982), and E. Slenczka, Figürlich bemalte mykenischeKeramik aus Tiryns, Tiryns, Vol. VII (Mainz, 1974) indicate how restrictedthe well-represented repertory is: man, horse, bull, birds, and chariot scenespredominate.

116. Figurative scenes in Protopalatial glyptic are rare. In the figurative repertoireof Neopalatial glyptic, various animals are far more numerous than scenesinvolving human beings, yet, again, vegetal, abstract, or semi-abstract motifsare most common. Ship images are, on the whole, exceptional occurrences.

117. A wide idiomatic spread can be noted in Types V and VI, althoughclassification is not impaired. This should be contrasted to what could be seenas a mechanical reproduction of single patterns in glyptic art — ifcorroboration against painted images on pottery had been available. It isdifficult to contrast the apparent Minoan uniformity against the Mycenaeandiversity due to the difference in techniques.

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It was noted above that the six major Bronze Age types reflect theperiods of cultural pre-eminence in the Aegean, the Cycladites in EarlyCycladic II, the Minoans in Early Minoan III to Late Minoan II, theMycenaeans in Late Helladic III, while the two clearly emerging IronAge types appear in areas outside the centres of power at theirrespective time. The nature of the craft employed mirror the economicand political situation. The Syran longboats were suitable for trade overshort distances, essentially island-hopping, within a village economy,not for long-distance contacts necessitating prolonged absences by thecrew.118 The Plátanos type carries a sail and oars, implying a broaderand, if the number of oars is in any way related to a past reality, ashorter hull. These vessels could achieve greater distances at lowerspeeds compared to the dragonboat-like119 short-distance staying speedwhich appears likely for the 'frying-pan' vessels. It would also carrygreater cargoes, particularly when under sail. And it could be handledby a smaller crew, decreasing the running costs, even if the initialoutlay for construction would have been higher.120 The Plátanos type isthe workhorse of the expanding Minoan economy.121

The evolution towards the Kolonna and Akrotiri types increasedboth the capacity and the speed. If these shapes are connected with the

118. C. Broodbank, 'The Longboat and Society in the Cyclades in the Keros-SyrosCulture', AJA, 93 (1989), 319-37; id., 'Ulysses without Sails: Trade,Distance, Knowledge and Power in the Early Cyclades', in J. Oates (ed.),Ancient Trade: New Perspectives, World Archaeology, 24.3 (1993), 315-31.

119. Cf. P. Johnstone, The Seacraft of Prehistory (London, 1980), p. 193, Fig. 14.7.120. If running with a full complement of oarsmen, a Type II vessel would require

11-15 men, with the possibility of rest while under sail. A complete crew wasnot necessary, if locomotion by sail was preferred. In other words, a Type IIship could be operated by a small community, in which only a few men wereinvolved in the daily chores, once the craft was constructed. A Type I vessel,depending solely on human force for movement, required a full complementwhen at sea. Construction costs may have been lower, but the running costswould have been, at all times, substantial, since a crew consisted of anythingfrom 30 to as many as 60 or more men. On the problems involved withmanning a Syros longboat, cf. Broodbank 'The Longboat and Society',327-32, who argues that a 'single minimum longboat of 25 paddlers' wouldabsorb between a third and half the active male population of an island suchas Melos (330-31).

121. The most plentiful evidence for Minoan shipbuilding, sealcutting, a palatialart, does not appear until Early Minoan III, leaving the earlier Prepalatialperiod, leading to the great upswing of the Protopalatial period, in the dark.

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 155

so-called thalassocracy in the later Middle to earlier Late Minoanperiods,122 two suggestions might be made. Firstly, that the'thalassocracy' goes further back in time than generally admitted sincethe situation in the Aegean, in terms of ship architecture, remainsconstant at least from Middle Minoan I onwards.123 Secondly, that ifvalid for the Minoan dominance in this period, to claim 'thalassocracy'ought also be permissible for earlier Cycladic and later Mycenaeantimes.124 Both are characterized by a material presence outside thenuclear area of the culture.125 And both suggestions, if rejected, mayalso serve to modulate a too radical espousal of the Minoan'thalassocracy': shipbuilding, as short-distance trade, unite a number ofinter- and intra-regional parameters, minor changes and evolutions,many perhaps too small to be picked up by the available data and thetechniques employed to study them. Prestige goods are high profile,both in the excavations and the museums, institutions whichconcentrate on the mediatic rather than the quotidian. So, too, haveAegean ship studies been bedevilled by the single exceptional finds,particularly the Akrotiri wall painting.126

The two Mycenaean types answer to the requirements of theirbuilders: sustained speed, rapid beaching, high troop carrying capacityallied with reduced cargo space. The appearance of the deck in the Late

122. On the Minoan 'thalassocracy', cf. the papers collected in R. Hägg and N.Marinatos (eds.), The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality, Proceedingsof the Third International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens(Stockholm, 1984), and references therein.

123. Both J.-C. Poursat and P.P. Betancourt raise the possibility of an earlierMinoan 'thalassocracy' in Hägg and Marinatos, Minoan Thalassocracy, pp.85-7 and 89-92.

124. On a possible Mycenaean 'thalassocracy', cf. Wedde, 'Aegean Bronze AgeShip Imagery', pp. 91-2 and n. 69. B. Knapp, 'Thalassocracies in Bronze AgeEastern Mediterranean Trade: Making and Breaking of a Myth', in Oates(ed.), Ancient Trade, pp. 332-47, argues against the concept.

125. Sufficient amounts of Cycladic objects have been found in Attika and Creteto suggest a human presence. Likewise, the Mycenaean expansion can betraced from the Argolic nuclear zone both westwards to Italy, and eastwardsto Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt — at least in terms of artefact scatter.

126. The Theran wall painting had a significant impact on Aegean Bronze Age shipstudies in the 1970s and early 1980s, including a claim as 'the earliest rationalrepresentation of a seagoing ship of Western culture' (Gillmer, 'The Theraship', 321), to the extent of almost obscuring the bulk of the material. Despitethe many scholarly papers produced, a number of issues remain disputed.

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Helladic IIIC period127 mirrors the upheavals connected with thecollapse of centralized authority and the population movements at thistime in the eastern Mediterranean. The dichotomy of the Minoans aspeaceful traders versus the Mycenaeans as barbarian warmongers sopopular in the 'Minoanizing' literature may be reflected in the simplereconstruction permitted by the evidential situation. However,regardless of the postulated use made by the Mycenaeans of theircontribution to early Greek shipbuilding, the Mycenaean 50-oaredgalley remains the single most important invention in ancient shiparchitecture.128

Much the same picture, but without the centralized power, emergesfrom the Iron Age data. The upheavals bringing about the end of theBronze Age may gradually have receded, but the shipwright did notreturn to constructing hulls which would at least nominally beclassifiable as roundships. Unless there is an important but entirelyinvisible strain of ship design which continues the later Minoan typesacross the Iron and Early Archaic Ages into the Classical merchantman,the unarmed trader constitutes a new invention when it finally appears.It remains but to posit that the oared galley, whether capable oframming or not, constituted the main long-distance cargo-carrier untilsuch a time as it was possible to move across the Aegean and easternMediterranean without constant fear of attack.129

127. The thickness of the horizontal beam and the warriors on it suggest that thelarge Pyrgos Livanaton ship (Fig. 13 here; Dakoronia, 'Warships . . . fromKynos', p. 122, Fig. 2) is decked. The warriors on the smaller Pyrgos ship(ibid., Fig. 1) argues for a similar reading. On the problems of identifyingdecked vessels in the early Greek ship imagery, cf. Wedde, 'Decked Vessels'.

128. On the evolution of the galley, see J. Morrison and J. Coates, The AthenianTrireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship(Cambridge, 1986), esp. pp. 25-48; Wallinga, Ships and Seapower; Casson,Ships and Seamanship, pp. 43-76; id., Ships and Seafaring, pp. 47-59. Alllargely ignore the Bronze Age achievement, which, admittedly, has onlyrecently become apparent. For an attempt to redress this imbalance, cf.Wedde, 'Rethinking Greek Geometric Art'; id., 'Decked Vessels'; and id.,'Towards a Hermeneutics', Ch. 5.

129. A more detailed treatment of the Mycenaean oared galley and its impact onsubsequent developments will be undertaken on another occasion.

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 157

VII. IMAGERY AS A MIRROR

The imagery of the earlier periods of Aegean ship architecture is arecord of major developments as rendered visible by a method whichprescribes a certain mesh to the filter employed to determine the size ofthe clusters, compounded by the frequent small size of the documents.A typology of silhouettes ensues, constituting the macro-level of thedevelopment, a series of sweeping statements covering the majorphases and shapes. Unless hypothetical arguments are resorted to asmeans of integrating single but well-defined instances into thediscourse, the micro-level, regional particularities, the skiffs andworking craft, remain unaccounted for in the narrative. At this levelmuch work remains to be done.

Crucial to such an undertaking is transparency, the specification offraming assumptions around which an analysis is constructed: much ofwhat has been said above is a direct tributary to the theoretical stancetaken. Rival visions must be judged both on the marshalling of theevidence, and on the basis of the background material pertaining to theintellectual clime, either through direct indications or laborious siftingof the text. Yet as rigorous as the methodological side of the study maybe, sufficient room must be accorded the many unknowns inherent inarchaeology.

For instance: a postulated but unconfirmed presence of regionalismsin the ship architecture remains a valid assumption, not by directobservation from images, but by conceptual argument, and byanalogues in pottery, architecture, and glyptics, as well as by referenceto texts.130 The radical positivist stance whereby 'what exists existed',and its negative corollary, has no place in an archaeological discourseby virtue of the very nature of the data upon which it is founded. Muchinformation can be, and often is, hidden behind the available evidence,to be sought among the shadows left behind. It is thus suggested thatthe ship representations are capable of providing worthy evidence forelucidating components of likely historical reconstructions, to betreated as hypotheses, and open to revision. The analysis suggests thepresence of three major conceptions: the asymmetric craft with dug-outantecedents, originally paddled, but then transcribed into plank-builttechnology and adapted to sail and oars as propulsive force; the

130. For an attempt to filter regional traits out of the six main clusters identifiedfor the Bronze Age, cf. Wedde, 'Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery'. Cf. alson. 105 above.

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crescent-shaped, as the second stage in developing sailing craft,essentially applying Neopalatial perfection to Middle Minoantechnology; the galley, as the third stage in perfecting the sail (use ofthe loose-footed brailed sail), but primarily the search for speed underoars, and the first step towards specialized architecture. Furthermore,the data indicate an important role of the Cyclades in the earliest phaseof the visible ship architecture, and possible also in the invisibleprelude by virtue of a geographical necessity to traverse expanses ofwater in the search for raw materials. This outward look, derived fromthe Cycladic example and combined with sufficient local resources,allowed the Minoans to take the first step towards an advancedcivilization, nurtured considerably, so it is argued here, by shipsadapted both to local and extra-regional sailing conditions. The vesselswere incessantly improved upon, resulting in the Kolonna and theAkrotiri types.

Although, and contrary to the view which has prevailed in theliterature, the Minoans hardly were the peaceful people Sir ArthurEvans perceived — 'thalassocracy', in Thoukydides' understanding ofthe word,131 is empire, and empires are created and maintained byshedding blood (witness the Melian dialogue)132 — the politicalconditions in their heyday appear to have been different to those of theMycenaean dominance, if judged by the ship architecture. The verticalbow allied with the projection, and the hypothetical reconstruction ofits function, suggest a different use of the vessels, and different modesof interaction between groups of people, some less than courteous — acomment valid for the Iron and Early Archaic Ages. A glance back tothe Cycladic longboats could foster a related argument, as well asthrowing the argument back to the pax minoica.

The mirror of imagery has flaws in the glass causing an encounterwith absence and distortion. Theory and method become correctivefactors provided that the discourse is made to reflect the nature of theevidence, and the framing assumptions. A history of shipbuilding in theAegean area founded on an apparent factual account providing noaccess to the intellectual process subjacent to and dominating it has nofuture. What is required is a narrative which provides its own user'smanual.

131. Thoukydides, The Peloponnesian War, I.8.132. Ibid., V.84-116.

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*Note:The author wishes to thank Prof. I. Malkin for the opportunity to contribute thispaper to the journal, and Mrs E. Wedde, Prof. WM. Murray, and the twoanonymous reviewers for reading and criticizing the manuscript in its variousphases. As much of the subjacent research was done while a doctoral student atUniversity of Mannheim, a debt to Prof. W. Schiering and Prof. R. Stupperich ishappily acknowledge. The author is grateful to Prof. I. Pini for access to thecollection of seal impressions at the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischenSiegel, and to Prof. S. Wachsmann for insight into his forthcoming doctoraldissertation, 'Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant'.Generally, the footnotes have been kept succinct. Whenever possible, reference ismade to the illustrations in L. Basch, Le Musée imaginaire de la marine antique(Athens, 1987). Periodicals are abbreviated as laid out in the American Journal ofArchaeology, 90 (1986), 384-94, and 92 (1988), 629-30. Further abbreviations:

MarM The Mariner's MirrorTropis /, //, ///, IV, V, VI H. fzalas (ed.), 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

International Symposium on Ship Construction in Antiquity, Tropis (Athens, 1985,1987,1989,1991,1993,1996, the first four published).

LIST OF FIGURES

Abbreviations:NM (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)HM (Archaeological Museum, Herakleion)

1. Syros 'frying pan' vessel; NM 4974. Drawing by author from G.Papathanasopoulos, Neolithika-Kukladika (Athens, 1981), pp. 102-3.

2. Mokhlos terracotta model; HM 5570. From O. Höckmann, Antike Seefahrt(Munich, 1985), p. 39, Fig. 8.

3. Lead boat model from Naxos; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1926.26. FromRenfrew, 'Cycadic metallurgy', PI. I.

4. Seal from Plátanos Tholos Tomb B; HM 1079. Drawing by author from Gray,'Seewesen', p. 43, Fig. 8b, modified in accordance with Betts, 'Ships onMinoan Seals', p. 326, Figs. 1 and 2, and personal observations at the Corpusder minoischen und mykenischen Siegel in Marburg.

5. Seal said to come from 'Adromyloi'; HM 588. From CMS, II.2, No. 276b.6. Painted ship on pithós from Kolonna; Aigina Museum 2458. Drawing by author

from S. Hiller, 'Pax Minoica versus Minoan Thalassocracy: Military Aspects ofMinoan Culture', in Hägg and Marinatos, Minoan Thalassocracy, p. 29, Fig. 2.Since the pithos depicts three identical vessels, the elements in Hiller's Fig. 2are reorientated to create a single hull (neither of the other two stern fragmentscan be identified as the one belonging to the extant bow).

7. Seal of unknown provenance; Liverpool, City Museum B211. From CMS, VII,No. 254a.

8. Seal of unknown provenance; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1938.760. FromGray, 'Seewesen', p. 41, Fig. 6i, modified in accordance with impression atCMS in Marburg (see note to Fig. 4 above).

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9. Seal of unknown provenance; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 63.482. FromCMS, XIII, No. 14.

10. Seal from the Knossos area; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1938.965. From A J.Evans, The Palace of Minos, Vol. IV (London, 1935), p. 828, Fig. 807.

11. Seal of unknown provenance; formerly H. & M.-L. Erlenmeyer Collection,Basle (sold at Christie's, London, 5 Junel989). Drawing by the author fromCMS, X, No. 99.

12. Painted ship on stirrup jar from Skyros; Skyros, Archaeological Museum A77.Drawing by author from L. Parlama, E Skuros stën epokhë tou Khalkou(Athens, 1984), PL A.

13. Painted ship on krater from Pyrgos Livanaton; excavation. Drawing by authorfrom Dakoronia, 'Warships . . . from Kynos', p. 122, Fig. 2.

14. Painted ship on pyxis from Tragana; NM 6098. Drawing by author from G.Korres, Anaskaphe Boidokoilias Pulías (Athens, 1983), p. 207, Fig. 3(reconstruction of stempost figure takes bird on forecastle from Sakellarakis,'Elefantinonploion', p. 210, Fig. 9).

15. Painted ship on miniature stirrup jar from Asine; Nauplion, ArchaeologicalMuseum 3319. Drawing by the author from Casson, Ships and Seamanship,Fig. 29.

16. Painted ship on krater from Fortetsa Tomb VI; HM VI.8. From J.K. Brock,Fortetsa: Early Greek Tombs near Knossos (Cambridge, 1957), PI. 135(bottom).

17. Painted ship on krater; Metropolitan Museum 34.11.2. Drawing by the authorfrom Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 178, Fig. 374 (top).

18. Painted ship on pyxis from Lefkandi-Toumba Tomb 61; Eretria, ArchaeologicalMuseum. From Kalligas, 'Early Euboean Ship Building', p. 83, Fig. 1.

19. Painted ship on skyphos from Eleusis; Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 741.Drawing by the author from Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 177, Fig. 372.

20. Painted ships on kraters from Athens; Louvre A527, A534, and NM. FromBasch, Musée imaginaire, p. 166, Figs. 335, 333; p. 171, Fig. 352.

21. Painted ship on sherd from the Athenian Akropolis; NM 266. From Basch,Musée imaginaire, p. 183, Fig. 385.

22. Painted ship on oinochoe from Thebes; Berlin 3143. From Basch, Muséeimaginaire, p. 188, Fig. 395.

23. Ship engraved on bronze fibula from Thisbe; Berlin (Antiquarium) 31013a.From Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 192, Fig. 404.

24. Ship painted on terracotta plaque from Sounion; NM 14935. Drawing by theauthor from Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 202, Fig. 421 A.

25. Ship painted on krater from Southern Italy; Rome, Palazzo dei Conservator!.From Basch, Musée imaginaire, p. 233, Fig. 482.

26. As Fig. 25.27. Schematic rendition of the development of Aegean shipbuilding from c.2500 to

C.700 (drawings by the author).

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 161

- / /

Figures 1-11

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12

14

13

15

—.:•- 17

18

Figures 12-19

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A HISTORY OF EARLY AEGEAN SHIPBUILDING 163

Figures 20-26

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Hypothetical Evolution of Early Aegean Ship Building

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4 - Open

1Continued developmentPossible continuationEvolutionary deadend

1

Phase 4 - Decked

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