Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SHIPS AND SAILING

Phoenician hippos ships with horsehead-shaped prows, transporting lumber from Lebanon for construction of Sargon II’s palace at Dur-šarrukin. Alabaster relief from Khorsabad; Louvre (Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites/S.P.A.D.E.M.)

As the historic era dawned in the Bible lands, ca. 3000 b.c.e., blue-water sailing on the Mediterranean (and perhaps the Red Sea) already had a venerable tradition. Although the advent of maritime travel and the identity of the first mariners who bravely sailed beyond sight of the shore remain unknown, archaeological evidence from Greece, Cyprus, and Crete indicates that such voyages commenced at least 10 thousand years ago. Very likely the beginning of humankind’s adventure with the sea is far older than our evidence currently suggests. For now, the scanty archaeological data for this prehistoric era allow little more than broad generalizations.

Water transport on the great river systems of Egypt and Mesopotamia most likely predated seafaring, but the geographical origins of riverine travel in the Middle East remain uncertain. Does the nod for this great transportation breakthrough belong to the early inhabitants of the Nile corridor or to their counterparts who inhabited the banks of the Euphrates or the Tigris? Wherever primacy of invention belongs, the earliest river boats were probably made from reeds lashed together or were skins stretched taut over wicker. Wooden boats, originally canoelike in appearance, appeared later. Construction techniques for vessels built of planks evolved later to accommodate more goods and passengers. Sumerian craft may have been built with edge-to-edge planking, with fastening achieved through the use of mortise-tenon joinery. In predynastic Egypt, plank boats may have been lashed together with ropes.

The first seagoing vessels were structural cousins or clones of early riverine craft, but the greater rigors of sea travel and the distances to be sailed encouraged the development of more durable wooden boats. The early use of reed rafts, skin craft, and dugout canoes gave way to sturdy plank-built hulls sometime in the Neolithic Age, although when or where this technological advance occurred or if it preceded or followed the appearance of similarly constructed riverine craft cannot be determined.

In the Mediterranean, the ships of antiquity eventually evolved into extraordinarily sophisticated machines, each featuring mortise and tenons to secure the edge-to-edge planking. At present, all ancient wrecks recovered from the Mediterranean that have been dated from the Roman period or earlier were constructed in this fashion. Today, this type of joint is not common in wooden boats, but rather in the most expensive wooden furniture.

Pharaonic Egypt, however, seems to have followed and then modified its nautical tradition of rope lashings to strengthen its wooden ships for the challenges of blue-water sailing. While Egyptian vessels performed superbly on the Nile, their capabilities in deep water were another matter, particularly for trade with Punt down the Red Sea. The failure of Egyptian shipwrights to develop or copy the use of mortise-tenon joints assured a continuing structural weakness in their hulls.

Propulsion of antiquity’s ships was limited to wind power, oars, or a combination of the two. Paddles may have been used for riverine craft, but would not have been practical for larger blue-water vessels. By modern standards, ancient vessels did not carry much sail and were not very efficient. One large linen square sail was common, meant to sail before the wind. Sailing windward was far more difficult, but not impossible, particularly after an innovation dating from the late Bronze Age. Sometime late in the 2nd millennium the lower boom of the mainsail, commonly used in earlier vessels, fell from favor and was removed. Brailing lines took place. By adjusting these ropes, which ran through lead rings up the sail and over the yard, the sail’s shape or size could be altered to better accommodate prevailing winds.

With such ships, the ancients transformed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea from barriers to highways. The evolution of blue-water sailing was a great step forward. Seafaring played a major, if not completely understood, role in advancing the development of civilization. The ancient seas became communication and transportation conduits for the transfer of culture, commodities, and ideas. Certainly land travel between the Bible lands occurred routinely, but the sea offered a better transportation alternative. Travel by ship was faster, easier, and probably safer.

Although mention of ships dispatched to the Levant to obtain cedar trees appears in some of the earliest Egyptian records, the national origin of the ships that carried this trade is unknown. These early merchants may have been Egyptian or Syro-Canaanite in origin. Later Cypriots, Phoenicians (e.g., Solomon’s Red Sea activities with sailors from Hiram of Tyre; 1 Kgs. 10:22; 2 Chr. 9:21), Greeks, and finally Romans dominated waterborne trade to and from the Middle East. Not every civilization that arose around or controlled a part of the littoral of the eastern Mediterranean, however, became a maritime power. The Hittites, e.g., never developed a thalassocracy.

While it is certain that maritime trade began deep in humankind’s collective past, its organization, motivation (profit as we understand that term today or “gift” exchanges between rulers and/or societal elites), evolution, and extent at different periods of ancient history remain some of many questions for which there is no scholarly consensus.

Warfare at sea appears in the earliest records as well. Ships were first used as troop transports and fighting platforms. The earliest extant depiction of a naval battle appears as a relief on the wall of Rameses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. There the pharaoh’s artists portray his triumph over the invading “Sea Peoples,” raiders and/or pirates who had ravaged lands throughout the eastern Mediterranean before meeting their defeat in the Nile Delta (ca. 1190). But was this proclamation of victory truth or hyperbole? Scholars continue to debate the significance of this important monument.

In the Iron Age, specialized warships appeared equipped with a unique weapon. The bronze battle ram, fitted at the waterline of the prow, distinguished a new class of vessels designed specifically to utilize its potential fully. These new instruments of war, the battering ram and the warship equipped with it, became the dominant naval weapon system of the day. Battles at sea became far more common and often decisive for the fate of states and specific rulers. International aspirations and dreams frequently disappeared beneath the sea along with the warships that failed in naval combat, as Mark Antony learned at Actium in 31 b.c.e.

Although artistic depictions of ships and maritime themes like Medinet Habu and literary sources are limited in number, a new and promising window to the ancient maritime past has opened in recent decades. Marine archaeology has begun to realize the potential of the Mediterranean and, to some extent, the Red Sea as archives of unique information about ancient seafaring and ships.

This avenue of research has already confirmed its promise with some remarkable discoveries. George Bass and his team of diving archaeologists have uncovered two early shipwrecks off the Turkish coast. The oldest, found off the headland known today as Uluburun, dated from the later 14th century b.c.e. The other, discovered at Cape Gelidonya, foundered ca. 1200. Together these two excavations have provided invaluable and often unique data about the nature of ship construction and size, cargoes carried, and the geographical scope of maritime trade in the Bronze Age.

Much underwater work is being done in Israel. Shelley Wachsmann headed a team that recovered the hull of a fishing boat from the Sea of Galilee dating from the early Roman Empire. He also has explored a veritable graveyard of ancient ships in Tantura Lagoon near the site of Dor. Kurt Raveh and Sean Kingsley have also excavated at the same site with extraordinary results. Ehud Galili, Avner Raban, and Elisha Linder have also added to our understanding of ships and seafaring along this section of the Levantine coast.

Bibliography. L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1991); Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (1971, repr. Baltimore, 1995).

Robert L. Hohlfelder

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SHIPS AND SAILING

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)