Sail
AN EXEMPLARY MARITIME REPUBLIC: VENICE AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES PartĀ IV
Venetian carrack Bernard Doumerc By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the reconciliation of economic policy with the constitution as well as with the defence of a colonial empire was no longer appropriate. Then, it was said, āthe whole navy is devoured by the armyā and numerous voyages of merchant galleys cancelled at the last moment or diverted from their…
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ISLAMIC SHIPS ANDĀ SHIPBUILDING
A felucca is a traditional wooden sailing boat used in protected waters of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean including Malta, and particularly along the Nile in Egypt. Its rig consists of one or two lateen sails The ship occupies a unique position in the Islamic tradition. The Qurāan counts…
Egyptian Papyrus Boat
Egyptian ship made of papyrus is one of the ancient in the world. Firstly it represented itself only a papyrus raft and to about 3500 year B.C. it became already a real ship. The ship was used only for navigation on the river Nile. Her bow and her stern were…
The Ottomans and Their Rivals, Galleys and Galleons, Portolan Charts andĀ Isolarii,
Ā Svat Soucek, āThe Ottomans and Their Rivals, Galleys and Galleons, Portolan Charts and Isolarii,ā from his Piri Reis & Turkish Mapmaking After Columbus: The Khalili Portolan Atlas, Nour Foundation, 1995, pp. 10-33. THE OTTOMANS AND THEIR RIVALSTurkey is a country blessed with long and beautiful coasts along three seas:…
VIKING RAIDS
No one knows the reason for the Viking raids on the coastal areas of western Europe. They certainly took advantage of political instability and division in France, Britain and Ireland but such divisions were not new and in some ways the areas were stronger and better governed than they had…
ENTER THE RAM
For centuries the pentecontor, the āfifty-manā 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,…
DROMON
The standard Byzantine warship that employed both sails and oars. A typical 10th-century dromon had two banks of oars employing 200 rowers, in addition to a battering ram on the prow, and enough heavily armored marines to board an enemy ship if necessary. In other words, it looked and acted…