The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times. - Second Edition

By Lionel Casson

Written by the renowned authority on ancient ships and seafaring Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners has long served the needs of all who are interested in the sea, from the casual reader to the professional historian. This completely revised edition takes into account the fresh information that has appeared since the book was first published in 1959, especially that from archaeology's newest branch, marine archaeology. Casson does what no other author has done: he has put in a single volume the story of all that the ancients accomplished on the sea from the earliest times to the end of the Roman Empire. He explains how they perfected trading vessels from mere rowboats into huge freighters that could carry over a thousand tons, how they transformed warships from simple oared transports into complex rowing machines holding hundreds of marines and even heavy artillery, and how their maritime commerce progressed from short cautious voyages to a network that reached from Spain to India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: May 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9780691212999

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The Ancient Mariners

The Ancient Mariners

SEAFARERS AND SEA FIGHTERS

OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

IN ANCIENT TIMES

Lionel Casson

Second Edition

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1991 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

Originally published by the Macmillan Company, © 1959 by Lionel Casson

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Casson, Lionel, 1914—

The ancient mariners : seafarers and sea Fighters of the

Mediterranean in ancient times / Lionel Casson. — 2nd ed.

p.   cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-691-06836-4 (alk. paper) —

ISBN 0-691-01477-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Mediterranean Sea—Navigation—History. 2. Shipping—

Mediterranean Sea—History. 3. Mediterranean Region—History,

Naval. I. Title.

VK16.C37 1991

387.5’093—dc20 90-47717

ISBN-13: 978-0-691-01477-7 (pbk.)

eISBN-13: 978-0-691-21299-9

ISBN-10: 0-691-01477-9 (pbk.)

R0

To my girls

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface

CHAPTER ONE

Down to the Sea in Ships

CHAPTER TWO

International Trade Begins

CHAPTER THREE

Excavating Under Water

CHAPTER FOUR

War on the Sea

CHAPTER FIVE

Raiders and Traders

CHAPTER SIX

The Dawn of Maritime Exploration

CHAPTER SEVEN

Westward Ho!

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Wooden Walls

CHAPTER NINE

The Merchants of Athens

CHAPTER TEN

Beyond the Pillars of Hercules

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Age of Titans

CHAPTER TWELVE

Landlubbers to Sea Lords

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

East Meets West

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

New Light on Ancient Ships and Shipping

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Pirates of Cilicia

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rome Rules the Waves

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

All Routes Lead to Rome

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

An End and a Beginning

Table of Dates

Notes

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

1. The Mediterranean and the Black Seas

2. The Eastern Mediterranean

3. Africa and Western Europe

4. The Near and Far East

FIGURES

1. Hatshepsut’s fleet at Punt. After A. Mariette, Deir-el-Bahari (Leipzig 1877) pl. 6.

2. Arrival of a fleet of Levantine vessels in an Egyptian port. After Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 33 (1947) pl. vii.

3. Joining strakes by means of mortises and tenons. After P. Gianfrotta and P. Pomey, Archeologia subacquea (Milan 1981) 238.

4. Ramses III’s fleet defeats invaders from the north. After Medinet Habu i (Publications of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 8 [1930]) pl. 37.

5. Reconstruction of Ptolemy IV’s forty.

6. Reconstruction of the corvus. After H. Wallinga, The Boarding-Bridge of the Romans (Groningen 1956) fig. 11.

7. Reconstruction of the sailing maneuvers pictured in Pl. 45.

PLATES

(following p. 142)

1. The earliest example of a sail. Vase of late Gerzean period (ca. 3200 B.C.). After H. Frankfort, Studies in Early Pottery of the Near East i (London 1924) pl. 13.

2. Clay model of probably a skin boat found at Eridu in southern Mesopotamia. Ca. 3400 B.C. Photograph by Frank Scherschel, reproduced by courtesy of Life Magazine; copyright 1956, Time, Inc.

3. Egyptian seagoing vessel of the mid-third millennium B.C. Relief from the pyramid of Sahure at Abusir (ca. 2450 B.C.). Photo courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

4. Minoan Galleys in procession. Wall painting found at Thera (ca. 1600 B.C.). After International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 4 (1976) 3.

5. Minoan galleys in action. As Pl. 4 above. After International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 4 (1976) 6.

6. Sailor fighting a sea monster. On a Minoan seal (ca. 1600 B.C.). After A. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (London 1921–1935) i, fig. 520.

7. Divers excavate within a plastic grid frame the remains of a wreck found off Kyrenia on Cyprus (310–300 B.C.). Photo by John Veltri, reproduced by courtesy of the Kyrenia Ship Project.

8. The Ulu Burun wreck: a diver clutching an amphora clambers over a mound of copper ingots; note the identification tags (ca. 1350 B.C.). Photo courtesy of George Bass.

9. Shipwrights add a plank to the hull of an exact replica of a wreck found off Kyrenia (cf. Pl. 7 above). A line of mortise and tenon joints holds the planks together. Photo by, and reproduced by courtesy of, Ira Bloch.

10. Galleys on Minoan seals (left 1600–1200 B.C., right 1300–1200). After Evans (see Pl. 6 above) ii, fig. 139 and iv, fig. 807; cf. J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (London 1970) 106.

11. Galley on a cylindrical clay box found at Pylos (1200–1100 B.C.). After Praktika tes en Athenais Arkhaiologikes Hetaireias (1977) pl. 145. The horseshoe-shaped feature before the mast is puzzling; it seems to be a sail in profile, but artists of this period invariably show sails full face.

12. Galley on a vase from Asine (1200–1100 B.C.). After O. Frödin and A. Persson, Asine. Results of the Swedish Excavations 1922–1930 (Stockholm 1938) fig. 207. 2.

13. Galley on a frying pan from Syros (third millennium B.C.). Photo by, and reproduced by courtesy of, Josephine Powell.

14. Galley on a cup from Eleusis (850–800 B.C.). After A. Köster, Das antike Seewesen (Berlin 1923) pl. 30.

15. Warship cruising. On a fragment of a vase from Athens now in the Louvre (ca. 750 B.C.). After Köster, pl. 18.

16. Warship, probably fifty-oared, preparing to leave. On a bowl from Thebes now in the British Museum (750–700 B.C.). After Köster, pl. 19. The vessel actually has but one bank of oars; the artist, wanting to include both port and starboard rowers but unable to handle the perspective, portrayed the one above the other.

17. Forward part of a warship showing the keylike tholepins. On a fragment of a vase from Athens now in the Louvre (ca. 750 B.C.). After Köster, pl. 21.

18. After part of a galley in action. On a fragment of a vase from Athens now in the Louvre (ca. 750 B.C.). After Köster, pl. 24.

19. Galley, probably twenty-oared, cruising. On a bowl from Athens now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (520–480 B.C.). Photo courtesy of the museum.

20. Galley, probably fifty-oared, cruising under sail and oars. On a bowl from Athens now in the Louvre (550–530 B.C.). Photo Giraudon.

21. Galleys cruising under sail. On a cup from Athens now in the Louvre (ca. 530 B.C.). Photo Hirmer.

22. Two-level Phoenician warship. Relief from the palace of Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.) now in the British Museum. Photo courtesy of the museum.

23. Dionysus with satyrs and maenads cruising in a two-level warship. On a pitcher from Tarquinia (ca. 510 B.C.). Photo Anderson.

24. Hemiolia, fifty-oared, overtaking a merchantman traveling under shortened sail. From an Athenian cup in the British Museum (ca. 510 B.C). Photo courtesy of the museum.

25. Detail of a second scene from the cup in Pl. 24. The hemiolia has secured the upper oars abaft the mast preliminary to lowering it (it already leans slightly aft). The merchantman now has all its canvas drawing in the effort to escape.

26. Sailing ship on a Hebrew seal (eighth-seventh centuries B.C). Private collection; cf. N. Avigad, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 246 (1982) 59–61. Photo courtesy of Nahman Avigad.

27. Two-masted sailing ship. Reconstruction of a wall painting in the Tomba della Nave, Tarquinia (early fifth century B.C). Photo courtesy of Mario Moretti.

28. The Olympias, replica of a fifth-century Athenian trireme, under way. Photo by Paul Lipke, reproduced courtesy of the Trireme Trust.

29. Interior of the Olympias showing the arrangement of the three levels of rowers. Photo by Paul Lipke, reproduced courtesy of the Trireme Trust.

30. The Kyrenia II, replica of a Greek merchantman of the late fourth century B.C., under way. Photo by Susan Womer Katzev, reproduced courtesy of the Kyrenia Ship Project.

31. Hellenistic galley on the Nile. Detail of a mosaic in the Palazzo Barberini at Palestrina (early first century B.C). Photo L. Casson.

32. Warship’s ram found off Athlit, Israel (probably first half of second century B.C.). Photos courtesy of William Murray.

33. Victory on the prow of a galley blowing a trumpet. Coin of Demetrius Poliorcetes, minted ca. 300 B.C. to commemorate his victory at Salamis. After G. Hill, Select Greek Coins (Paris 1927) pl. 44.4.

34. Amphoras from one of the Grand Congloué wrecks (early second century B.C.) on display at the Château Borély, the archaeological museum of Marseilles. Photo L. Casson.

35. Stevedores unloading a cargo of wine jars. On the quay are the shipping clerks, one of whom hands a tally piece from a pile in front of him to each stevedore, while another makes entries in a ledger. Relief found at Portus and now in the Torlonia Museum, Rome (third century A.D.). Photo Fototeca Unione, Rome.

36. Pile of amphoras marking the site of the Kyrenia wreck (cf. under Pl. 7). Photo by, and reproduced by courtesy of, Michael Katzev.

37. Wreck off Cape Dramont, east of St. Raphaël, showing how the cargo of amphoras has preserved the bottom of the hull (first century B.C.).Photo by, and reproduced by courtesy of, Y. Girault.

38. Two-level Roman galley, perhaps a quadrireme or larger. In the boxlike niche on the bow is a head of the deity after whom the vessel was named. Relief found at Palestrina and now in the Vatican Museum (second half of first century B.C.).Photo Alinari.

39. Roman warships approaching a port. In the center is a trireme carrying the artemon. To port and starboard are two-level galleys, probably liburnians; the one to port has its sailing rig lowered and resting on crutches. Relief from Trajan’s Column in Rome (A.D. 113). Photo German Archaeological Institute, Rome.

40. Roman warships carrying marines race across the waters of a harbor. Wall painting from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii and now in the National Museum, Naples (first century A.D.). Photo Fototeca Unione, Rome.

41. As a seagoing merchantman sails into port, a hand on deck hauls on the brails and two hands aloft prepare to furl the canvas. Relief on a tombstone at Pompeii (ca. A.D. 50). Photo L. Casson.

42. Scene at Portus, the harbor of Rome. At left, a seagoing merchantman sails past the lighthouse into the entrance; the artemon has been removed and hands are hauling on the brails to shorten the mainsail. At right, a sister ship (or perhaps the same ship) moored to the quay, with sails furled, is unloading a cargo of amphoras of wine. Relief found at Portus and now in the Torlonia Museum, Rome (ca. A.D. 200). Photo Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome.

43. Seagoing merchantmen of two different types sailing past the lighthouse at Portus. Mosaic from the office of the shippers of Syllectum, Tunisia, in the Foro delle Corporazioni, Ostia (ca. A.D. 200). Photo L. Casson.

44. Merchant galley with a deck load of amphoras. Mosaic at Tebessa, Algeria (second or third century A.D). Photo L. Casson.

45. Scene at the entrance of the harbor of Portus. Three sailing vessels maneuver in an attempted rescue. Relief on a sarcophagus probably from Ostia and now in the Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen (third century A.D.). Photo Alinari.

46. Shipwright, having completed a hull, adzes a frame to insert in it. Relief from the tombstone of P. Longidienus found at Ravenna and now in the Archaeological Museum, Ravenna (late second or early third century A.D.). The inscription reads, Longidienus pushes ahead on his work. Photo Fototeca Unione, Rome.

47. Galley unloading beasts transported for the gladiatorial games. Mosaic from a villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily (fourth century A.D.).Photo L. Casson.

48. Merchantman in an Adriatic port. Relief from Trajan’s Column in Rome (A.D. 113). Photo German Archaeological Institute, Rome.

49. Lateen-rigged craft. Relief on the tombstone of Alexander of Miletus. Found near Piraeus and now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (second century A.D.).Photo courtesy of the museum.

50. Sprit-rigged craft. Relief on the tomb of Demetrius of Lampsacus in the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul (second or third century A.D.). Photo L. Casson.

51. Detail of the center ship in Pl. 45 showing the sprit. Photo L. Casson.

52. Small freighter being loaded with sacks of grain. The name of the vessel is Isis Giminiana. Farnaces, the commander (magister), stands at the steering oars. Stevedores carry the sacks aboard and empty the goods (res) into an official measure under the eye of the vessel’s owner, Abascantus, and of a government inspector (holding an olive branch). A stevedore who has emptied his sack (marked feci, I’m done) rests in the bows. The mast is stepped far forward; the ship was probably sprit-rigged. Wall painting found at Ostia and now in the Vatican Museum (second or third century A.D.). Photo Anderson.

53. Skiff warping a vessel. Note the towline that goes from the stern presumably to the prow of the vessel being pulled. Note the oversize steering oar to provide leverage to direct the clumsy tow. The mast, stepped right in the bow, must have carried a sprit-rig. Relief on a tomb in the Isola Sacra, Portus’ cemetery (third century A.D). Photo Fototeca Unione, Rome.

54. Dromon in the fleet of Emperor Michael II (A.D. 820–829) using Greek fire. Illustration in a manuscript of Ioannes Scylitzes in the Bibliotheca Nacional, Madrid (fourteenth century A.D). Photo courtesy of the Bibliotheca.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

SINCE The Ancient Mariners first appeared, much has happened to enlarge, change, and add detail to the picture it presented. Marine archaeology has provided a ceaseless flow of invaluable firsthand information about ships and their cargoes, even about their crews; new pictorial evidence of ranking importance has come to light; and authoritative new studies of various aspects of maritime history have been published. As a result, this book represents an overall exhaustive revision. Some sections are entirely new, many have been radically revised, and there is hardly a page that has not been altered in some way. The illustrations have been increased to include important discoveries of the past three decades (I am grateful to George Bass, Michael Katzev, and John Coates, who kindly supplied photographs). And the maps have been refashioned, by Paul J. Pugliese, to provide more detail.

The original edition supplied documentation for citations in the text and a selected bibliography for each chapter. To enhance the usefulness of the book for scholars, these have been replaced by a section (Notes) that furnishes comprehensive documentation keyed to the text by page numbers.

PREFACE

THE STORY of what the ancients accomplished on the sea has never been put between the covers of one book. A few episodes have been dealt with so often, in handbooks and histories, that they are as familiar as Caesar’s assassination. But once off these well-trodden paths, searchers for information are forced to make their way through a miscellany of scholarly publications, more often than not articles in obscure journals, in a variety of languages; and they will find that there are some topics that have never been treated at all.

The present book is an attempt to fill this lack. I have tried to sketch, in a continuous narrative, the impressive record of the ancient mariner: how he perfected his trading vessels until from little more than rowboats they grew into huge freighters whose size was not to be matched until the eighteenth century of our era; how he perfected his fighting ships until from little more than oared transports they grew into mighty and complex rowing machines capable of carrying over a hundred marines, even of mounting artillery; how his maritime commerce progressed from timid coastal voyaging to an integrated network that stretched from Spain to Malay; how much that is popularly believed of him to his detriment—that he manned his galleys with slaves, that he could not sail against the wind, and so on—is utterly wrong.

Probably this story could not have been properly told until now. Up to a half-century or so ago we had only the writings of ancient authors to supply information. Today we can draw on the findings of hundreds of archaeological investigations; these have laid bare maritime civilizations hitherto unknown, yielded an infinite variety of objects of trade, and even turned up priceless written documents, from the official records of the Athens Naval Base written on imperishable stone to a tattered fragment of a maritime contract between some obscure businessmen on fragile papyrus. Moreover, in the last decade, the new science of underwater archaeology has enabled us to explore the actual remains of ancient wrecks. There are still gaps in our knowledge, but far fewer than there were fifty years ago.

The Ancient Mariners is addressed first and foremost to the general reader. Yet, since there is no other book in any language that covers the field, I have tried to straddle the fence and make it useful for scholars as well. . . .

Many people helped me in many ways with this book; I have space to acknowledge only my most important debts. A fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, by providing a precious opportunity to travel abroad for over a year, enabled me to investigate the sites of scores of ancient Mediterranean harbors, to search obscure corners of museums and come upon evidence that I would otherwise never have known of, and to use the unique facilities of half a dozen European libraries. I took particular pains to secure apt and clear illustrations; a number of institutions and individuals were of great assistance and their help is acknowledged at appropriate points in the list of plates. I must mention in particular Ernest Nash of the Fototeca Unione in Rome; I owe much to his eager and fruitful cooperation and to the splendid resources of the archive he heads. A number of the chapters have benefited from the remarks of my good friends, Professor Saul Weinberg and Professor Naphtali Lewis. Chapter 3 owes much to the generous cooperation of Fernand Benoit, director of the Museum of Archaeology at Marseilles. But far and away my greatest debt is the one I owe my father. He passed a careful and critical eye over the language and phrasing of every sentence in the manuscript; as a result, there is hardly a page in the book that has not profited from his comments and suggestions.

The Ancient Mariners

Chapter 1

DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS

IN THE VERY beginning men went down, not to the sea but to quiet waters, and not in ships but in anything that would float: logs that could be straddled, rafts of wood or of bundles of reeds, perhaps even inflated skins.

But these were floats, not boats. The first true boat—something that would carry people upon water and at the same time keep them dry— was very likely the dugout, although experiments with bound reeds or with skins stretched over light frames must have taken place quite early too. And, when the desire or need arose for something bigger than what could be hollowed out of the largest logs available, the boat made of planks came into being. This was one of prehistoric man’s most outstanding achievements; the credit for it probably goes to the Egyptians of the fourth millennium B.C.

As long as they stayed in shallow waters, men could propel their boats with punting poles. Farther out they used their hands—and this led them to devise the paddle, a wooden hand, as it were, and soon afterward the oar. They made impressive trips with these limited means of propulsion: as early as the eleventh millennium B.C. they were crossing from the mainland of Greece to the island of Melos to bring back the distinctive obsidian which is found only there; no doubt they hopped from island to island, but even so the voyage involved at least fifteen miles over the open sea. Then they hit upon something that revolutionized travel over the water: they learned how to use the wind. For the first time they harnessed a force other than their own muscles, their servants’, or their wives’. It was a discovery whose effects reached down the ages: from this moment on, the easiest and cheapest way of transporting bulky loads over distances of any appreciable length was by water. This is the point at which the story of the ancient mariners really starts; the scene is again Egypt, or perhaps Mesopotamia.

In southern Egypt archaeologists have found a multitude of pictures of boats that, shortly before 3100 B.C., were drawn helter-skelter on rock outcrops or were included as part of the decoration on pottery. Among them are some that show, stepped amidships or forward of amidships, a mast with a broad squaresail hung upon it (Pl. 1).

No representations of sails discovered elsewhere come near to being as old as these. In Mesopotamia, a land where civilization began as early as in Egypt or even earlier, excavators digging in levels dating from about 3400 B.C. found a little clay model representing, to judge from its shape, what was probably a boat made of skins (Pl. 2). In the center of the floor, somewhat forward of amidships, is a sturdy round socket, and the hull at gunwale level is pierced by three holes. It is tempting to explain the socket as intended for a mast and the holes for a stay and shrouds, but, against this must be weighed the fact that sails are not otherwise attested in Mesopotamia until very much later. Perhaps the socket held a ceremonial pole and the holes were for cords by which the model was suspended.

Who first realized the potentialities of the sailing ship and dared to use it to strike out far beyond their own shores? For the age that predates history there is nothing to go on beyond what the archaeologists dig up, but this in most cases is ambiguous: save when islands are involved, you cannot be sure whether a prehistoric object of one country that turns up in another got there by land or sea. Yet, in the light of what follows (Chapter 2), it seems most likely that the first true sea voyages were made by Egyptians who worked northward along the coasts of Palestine and Syria or southward down the Red Sea, and by Mesopotamians and Indians who sailed between the Persian Gulf and the northwestern coast of India.

Egypt and Mesopotamia, then, had a head start over the rest of the world in the art of sailing as in so much else. But, as time passed, all along the coasts of the Mediterranean men started to go down to the sea. In the prehistoric age and long thereafter, these shores did not have the bare aspect they show today but in many places were mantled by forests that provided logs for the earliest dugouts and timber for the keels, ribs, and planks of their more complicated progeny.

How far did these primitive Mediterranean mariners sail? Did they by and large stick to their own shores or did they venture on long voyages? That their ships were probably quite frail need not have stopped them; Polynesian sailors covered impressive distances in boats that were very likely no more seaworthy. For long some archaeologists were convinced that certain beads and goldwork found in Britain came from Egypt and that a picture of a dagger carved in the rock of Stonehenge represented a type used in Greece about the middle of the second millennium B.C.; all this, they concluded, pointed to a trade route that led from the Mediterranean into far northern waters. Still others argued that doughty mariners of the age ventured to the northwestern coasts of Spain or even to Cornwall to bring back tin, that essential ingredient for the making of bronze, from the rich deposits there. But subsequent studies showed that all such claims are without solid foundation. So far as we know, the prehistoric sailors of the Mediterranean stayed by and large within the limits of their great inland sea.

Chapter 2

INTERNATIONAL TRADE BEGINS

BRINGING OF FORTY SHIPS filled with cedar logs. So wrote an ancient scribe in listing the accomplishments of Pharaoh Snefru, ruler of Egypt about 2600 B.C. This handful of words brings us across the threshold into the period of history proper. The dim tracks of potsherds and other like objects are still important—giving them up is a luxury that the student of the history of shipping cannot afford at any stage in the ancient period—but now there exists, for the first time, the strong light of written words to serve as a guide.

As in the case of so many phases of civilization, the record begins in Egypt. Very little wood grows in the valley of the Nile. Cedar most certainly does not, and to get it Snefru had to look overseas. So he sent to Phoenicia where there was a famous stand on the mountain slopes of Lebanon. Snefru was blazing no trail, for Egypt had been in touch with this area even before his time. Archaeologists have found in the tombs of pharaohs and nobles of earlier dynasties jars and flasks and pitchers that were made in Palestine and Syria, and they have dug up in the latter countries objects that unquestionably came out of Egyptian workshops. Were these carried overland or by boat? Before the time of Snefru there is no way of telling. But the words of his scribe remove all doubt: some three thousand years before the birth of Christ a fleet of forty vessels slipped their moorings, sailed out of a Phoenician harbor, and shaped a course for Egypt to bring there a shipment of Lebanese cedar. It is the world’s first articulate record of large-scale overseas commerce.

On the coast, not far north of where Beirut stands today, was the port of Byblos whose beginnings go back beyond recorded memory. It was here that, among other things, the timber of Lebanon in Snefru’s day and for centuries thereafter was brought to be loaded for shipment, and copper from the rich deposits in Cyprus was ferried in for transshipment. So constant was the trade between this city and Egypt that from earliest times seagoing merchantmen were called Byblosships whether they actually plied between there and Egypt or not, just as in the nineteenth century China clippers and East Indiamen were used on runs other than those they were named for. Hundreds of years later, when Egypt’s power had diminished and it could no longer maintain its overseas contacts, it felt the loss of this commerce keenly. No one really sails north to Byblos, wailed one sage some four or five centuries after Snefru’s time. What shall we do for cedar for our mummies, those trees with whose produce our priests were buried and with whose oil nobles were embalmed? It wasn’t only the Egyptian shipwrights and carpenters who needed Lebanese timber; the undertakers depended on it too.

There was another important region which figured early in overseas trade. East of the Mediterranean, and separated from it by mountains, lay Mesopotamia, the land watered by the two mighty rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Here the ancient and highly developed civilizations of the Sumerians and Babylonians arose. Cut off as they were, their Mediterranean contacts had to be made through middlemen, probably the merchants of the coast, including, no doubt, those of Byblos. But, to the south, the twin rivers that formed their chief artery of communication emptied into the Persian Gulf, and beyond that lay the open expanse of the Indian Ocean. As early as the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., Babylonian merchants were either sailing these waters themselves or dealing directly with traders who were.

By the second half of the third millennium, the rulers of southern Mesopotamia, as we learn from written records found in the archaeological sites there, were importing for their statues the handsome black stone known as diorite from a place called Magan, either Oman on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, or Makran on the Iranian side, or perhaps both. Since Magan had a reputation for shipbuilding, most likely its people provided the freighters and did the carrying. From the same area came timber and, most important of all, copper. By the end of the second millennium B.C., trade in the Persian Gulf was thoroughly organized on a businesslike basis. On the island known today as Bahrein, a full-fledged port of exchange had been created. Merchants from Mesopotamia sailed there, carrying cargoes of textiles, wool, leather objects, and olive oil, and returned with their holds laden first and foremost with copper ingots but also with finished objects of copper, precious stones, ivory, and rare woods. Bahrein itself is bare; everything shipped out of it had first to be brought there. The copper poses no problem: written records reveal that it came from Magan, and there are copper deposits in both Oman and Makran, especially the latter. But the source of the ivory opens up interesting speculations.

In the ruins of the cities of Mesopotamia of the third millennium B.C., excavators have unearthed certain large conchs with a snow-white shell. These are examples of the Indian chank, which is found only in the coastal waters of India and Ceylon. They have discovered, too, beads of carnelian and of lapis lazuli; the first surely came from India and the second from Badakshan in Afghanistan by way of India. The written records tell of a land named Meluhha, which supplied not only carnelian and lapis but also timber, gold, and ivory; Meluhha must be India, for all these materials can be found there. The implication is clear: even in this early period ships loaded with trade goods shuttled over the open waters of the ocean between the Persian Gulf and the northwest coast of India. The people on this coast who took part in the trade must have been the dwellers of the Indus Valley whose impressive ruins archaeologists have uncovered at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

A great many details are known about the businessmen of Mesopotamia, for they wrote their correspondence and kept their accounts on clay tablets that are just about indestructible; excavations have yielded a multitude of them. All Mesopotamian import-export transactions were in the hands of individuals, not the state. The chief problem of the merchants, as their records show, was the same that faces their modern counterparts: where and how to get the capital to finance a voyage. Generally, a group of partners went into a venture together. They borrowed from a moneylender the cash to buy a cargo and guaranteed to repay the loan at a fixed rate of interest. Except for the usual hazards of credit, the moneylender was completely protected: if the vessel went down, the partners shared the loss among themselves. But if it arrived safely, they divided all the profits; the financier received only his original advance plus interest. Occasionally a less conservative moneylender took a flyer and had himself included as one of the partners, thereby sharing in the profits—or the losses. The clay tablets have even produced what is probably the earliest letter extant from a dissatisfied customer, one that dates sometime between 2000 and 1750 B.C. Ea-nasir, a merchant of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, had delivered a consignment of copper from Dilmun, as Bahrein was then called. The consignee was outraged at the quality of the shipment. Who am I that you treat me in this manner and offend me? he writes. That this could happen between gentlemen as we both are! Who is there among the traders of Dilmun who has ever acted against me this way?

For some reason this amazingly far-flung and highly developed trade died out shortly after 1750 B.C. and did not come to life again until almost a thousand years later. We must go back to Egypt to continue the record of what was happening on the sea lanes.

Egypt required imports for which it had to turn to countries other than Phoenicia. It needed myrrh for unguents and embalming mummies and frankincense as well as myrrh to burn on its altars. These products come from trees that grow in only two places in the world: in southern Arabia and in parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. Egypt derived its supplies from a place that the pharaohs’ scribes call Punt; this probably was the belt of land that runs from the upper Nile eastward across northern Ethiopia to the Red Sea plus a strip that continued farther eastward across the northern coast of Somalia. For centuries transport was overland, taken care of by countless small traders who passed the merchandise along from hand to hand with, presumably, an increase in price at each exchange. The earliest pharaohs set themselves the job of cutting out these middlemen. In so doing they created one of the first great state-operated maritime enterprises.

The task was not easy. The only alternative to the overland route was by water down the Red Sea. But Egypt’s centers were all strung along the banks of her life-giving river, separated from the Red Sea at the closest point by an eight-day march across desert. On a barren coast bare of shade and roasted by an ovenlike sun the pharaohs had to set up shipyards, build a fleet, lay out harbors with all necessary facilities, and, when this was accomplished, maintain and protect what they had created. The easiest route from the Nile to the Red Sea was along a gorge in the desert called the Wadi Hammamat. On the rocks lining it at one point, Henu, minister of Pharaoh Mentuhotep III, some two thousand years before the birth of Christ inscribed an account of his services to the state. In a few bald sentences he reveals graphically the difficulties that faced the founders of such a trading venture. My lord sent me, he writes, "to dispatch a ship to Punt to bring him back fresh myrrh. ... I left [the Nile] with an army of 3000 men. Every day I issued to each a leathern bottle, two jars of water, 20 loaves of bread. ... I dug twelve wells. .

Reviews for The Ancient Mariners

[farrhon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well researched and well written. Fascinating history of - not landed empires - but sea-based ones.

[koalamom_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Twas actually a good book, a lot of history on seafaring but not so many minute details that you felt like you had to slog your way through it. Although it was written in 1991, it is still a good read today, nothing is lost or changed as often happens with historical non-fiction.