Ancient Galley
ATHENS AND SPARTA
The type of bow most people are familiar with is the âpost Corinthianâ bow. Previously, triremes had a âhollowâ bow. See Connollyâs reconstruction of this type, p.265 âGreece and Rome at Warâ, and the coin reverses on p.264 giving a good âbefore and afterâ idea of the old and modified bows. What Thucydides says can be translated thus: âThey shortened…
Most Recent
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN NAVY
Egyptian warship circa 1200 BC Egyptian squadrons composed of speedy keftiu, kebentiu from Byblos and Egyptian transports patrolled the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike the later Greeks who developed special naval techniques (used also by Late Period Egypt), maritime battles by New Kingdom Egyptians and their opponents, the Sea Peoples, were fought…
The Age of the Supergalleys
The Age of the Supergalleys Download PDF
ENTER THE RAM
For centuries the pentecontor, the âfifty-manâ ship with a single bank of oars, was the standard Mediterranean warship. This vessel was very long and slender, expensive to build, hard to manoeuvre and not very seaworthy, especially when using the great technological innovation of ninth-century naval warfare, the ram. The ram,…
THE PERSIAN INVASIONÂ FLEETS
Battle of Marathon by Brian Palmer. The Battle of Marathon 490 BC during the Persian Greek Wars. King Darious I of Persia sent his son in law Mardonius to invade Greece in 492 BC. The Persian Forces conquered Thrace and Macedonia before their fleet was devastated by a storm. Mardonia…
ROMAN NAVY
The powerful, efficient fleets built and men trained by the Romans in order to maintain their world dominance. Unlike the Etruscans, the Romans were not a great seafaring people and maintained an aversion to such activities right until the last years of the Empire. For this reason the development of…
Egyptians and Ships
Because sails were made of easily perishable material, it is not known exactly when they were first used, but this is the oldest known picture of a ship with a sail. It is from an ancient Egyptian vase dated to about 3200 B.C. (From Studies in Early Pottery of the…