|
| roman
naval design |
Date:
Sun, 4 Feb 1996
From:
John Purtell
Subject: Roman Naval Design
I would like to ask any members on the list who may have expertise
in this field if they can tell me the following or point me towards
up to date bibliography on it:- 1. Overall dimensions, cargo
carrying capacity, draught etc of Roman ships. 2. Details
particularly of the North Sea and Danube fleets. 3. Whether there
were any basic changes in naval design or size between 1st cent. AD.
and beginning of the 3rd cent. AD. 4. Are there any known instances
of Roman bridges allowing navigation past them, eg what happened on
the Danube?
Date:
Tue, 6 Feb 1996
From:
MARK SNEGG O
Subject:
Re: Roman Naval Design
I
have a copy a book that gives some of the details you are looking
for. It is _Warfleets of Antiquity_ by R.B. Nelson. All dimensions
are in feet:
|
beam |
|
length |
hull |
outriggers |
draft
|
capacity |
| Libernian
(1st Cent. |
120 |
12 |
15 |
3 |
- |
| Trireme
(100 A.D.) |
140 |
16 |
20 |
3 |
- |
| Bireme
(Britain 250 A.D.) |
65 |
10 |
15 |
3 |
- |
| Merchantman
(1st Cent.) |
100 |
25 |
- |
10
|
100-150
tons |
|
Supply Lighter (Danube) |
72 |
20 |
- |
7.5 |
50
tons |
Date:
Tue, 6 Feb 1996
From:
Brendan McDermott
Subject:
Re: Roman Naval Design
Roman
merchant ships could range from quite small to the enormous. The
largest were the grain ships that travelled back and forth between
Rome and Egypt and did nothing but transport hundreds of tons of
grain for the estimated one million strong population of Rome. A
good general source for seafaring in antiquity is Lionel Casson's
Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (2nd edition Princeton
1986). You can also find a more detailed survey of Roman
shipbuilding technology in the dissertation of Michael Fitzgerald
(Ph.D. Texas A&M 1995), who excavated a small, sunken merchant
vessel in the harbor of Caesarea in Israel. The dissertation should
be available on microfilm from University Microfilms International
in Ann Arbor, or you may try to obtain the book directly from Texas
A&M, since they will loan out their theses and dissertations (in
case you're wondering, I used to work at that library). An earlier
version of Fitzgerald's work can also be found in the British
Archaeological Reports (BAR) series in the volume on Caesarea
edited, I think, by Avner Raban. This would only cover Roman
shipbuilding within the Mediterranean. When it comes to the North
Sea and the Danube, however, we cannot restrict ourselves to
speaking of "Roman" shipbuilding, since there may be
numerous influences from the native population as well. It is also a
little misleading to speak of a "fleet" since the large
majority of watercraft on the rivers appear to have been smaller
than the long-distance, deep sea vessels of the Mediterranean, Black
Sea or the North Sea. The Romans did maintain several fleets of
warships to keep the peace. I seem to recall that there were two
fleets for the Mediterranean, one for each half, and a squadron for
the Red Sea. There may well have been another squadron for the Black
Sea. For the Danube, there are only a few bits of evidence on what
the watercraft looked like, and much of that comes from Trajan's
column which he constructed after his conquest of Dacia in AD 113.
The depictions of tubby watercraft on the column are summarized and
described in "Roman ships on the lower Danube (1st-6th
centuries) types and functions," by Mihail Zahariade and
Octavian Bounegru. This article is in Crossroads in Ancient
Shipbuilding: Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on
Boat and Ship Archaeology. Edited by Christer Westerdahl (Oxbow
Monograph 40, 1994) pp. 35-41. This book should still be in print.
We are still at a disadvantage as to actual examples of these
vessels. I have but one passing reference to a Roman ship reportedly
dug out of the Danube delta at some time and now in the museum at
Constantza, Romania. The ship may have been recovered some time ago,
since it is said to have been conserved with paraffin, a
preservation treatment used in the 20's and 30's. The vessel may
have had a sail as well, since a sail pulley is said to have been
recovered as well (in V. Canarache, The Archaeological Museum of
Constantza, my photocopy does not seem to have either publication
date or publisher, but I think it dates to the 1960's). For the
North Sea, the most recent article that I have seen is Sean
McGrail's "Romano-Celtic boats and ships: characteristic
features." in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
24(1995): 139-145. There is another conference proceedings titled
Maritime Celts, Frisians, and Saxons from 1992 or 1993, but I can't
remember who the editor is. This is also from Oxbow Books, I
believe. The volume including the Danube article also has several
articles on the watercraft found in the Rhine. In sum, what I think
you will see is that rivercraft of the Rhine, Danube and other
european rivers had both Roman and native construction features.
They were typically barge-like and flat-bottomed in the Rhine
region, and reportedly tubby for the Danube. For getting underneath
bridges, I can imagine (I have no sources to confirm this) that 1).
the bridges were constructed high enough for vessels to pass
underneath without trouble, 2). the bridges may have had moveable
sections, I do not recall when the drawbridge came into fashion 3).
the vessels themselves either had no sails or what masts they had
for sails were able to be taken down to facilitate bridge passages.
For small boats this probably would not have been much of a problem.
There is a book entitled A History of Seafaring based on Underwater
Archaeology by George Bass that devotes a chapter to small harbor
and rivercraft, but it was published in 1972 and is relatively out
of date for many of the finds from the Rhine region, but it may
still serve as a good starting-off point. |
| Culled
from the
UMich
archive of ancien-l. |
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