Archive Results For: Antiquity
Book Review-‘The Sea in History: The medieval world’ ed. by M. Balard
This is the second of four massive volumes, the product of Oceanides, the extraordinary five-year international (but primarily French) research project which brings together hundreds of the world’s leading scholars of maritime history, and attempts to answer some of the very largest questions of how the sea has impacted on human history, from ancient times […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Administration | Archaeology | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review -‘Thonis-Heracleion in Context’ by Matthew A. Cobb
The Egyptian port city of Thonis (called Heracleion by the Greeks) served as an important strategic, commercial and religious centre from the seventh to mid-second centuries bc, but appears to have dwindled in significance after this date. This was in large part the consequence of a natural disaster taking place around the mid-second century […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology | Harbours & Dockyards
Book Review-‘The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the story of the Flood’ by I. Finkel
Any reviewer dreams of the availability of a work of haute vulgarisation which offers a concise yet detailed account of a complex yet highly significant subject and makes it publicly available at an entirely reasonable price. Such delight is to be compounded if the work is centred around the life story of a recognized television […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity
Subjects include: Archaeology
Book Review-‘The Medieval Nile: Route, navigation and landscape in Islamic Egypt, by J. P. Cooper
Herodotus (History, 2.5) named Egypt as the ‘gift of the river’. Cooper (p. 1), believes that Herodotus’ description suggests a rather passive Egypt, while in reality it was an active society interacting with the environment — the Nile, in which the main component was river navigation. Therefore the title and subtitle of this book convey […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Other (Early Modern) | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Science & Exploration
Book Review – ‘The Maritime Landscape of Roman Britain: Water transport on the coasts and rivers of Britannia’ by James Ellis Jones
Water transport was an important part both of Roman army logistics and of the civil economy of Roman Britain. Given that Britain was an island, and one not only with many accessible shore areas, but also with rivers allowing access far inland, this appears to be rather self-evident. Yet even so, water transport has not […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | English Channel | Irish Sea | Internal Waterways
Subjects include: Archaeology | Ship Handling & Seamanship
Book Review – ‘Navigation et géographie dans l’antiquité greco-romaine’ by Jean-Marie Kowalski
Kowalski begins by discussing how the Greeks imagined the sea. It was the realm of pirates; it separated lovers, and nurtured shady merchants. Plato compared the Greeks to frogs never far from water and lamented the sea’s corrupting influence on Greek civilization. But Kowalski’s main purpose is to analyse the works of the Greek geographers […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Miscellaneous | Ship Handling & Seamanship
The Battle of Marathon and the Persian Navy
In the summer of 490 bc the Athenians secured their freedom and that of the European Greeks by defeating a Persian army in the battle of Marathon. Herodotus gives a sketchy description of the battle without any material information on the size of the respective armies but states that the Persians arrived at Marathon with […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Logistics | Navies
Vegetius and Taccola: Was medieval writing on war at sea of any practical use?
For much of the medieval period little time was devoted to the discussion of how war should be waged at sea. Discussion on war was often based on the writings of Flavius Vegetius Renatus, from the late fourth or early fifth century. His short treatise De re militari is based on the works of earlier […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Strategy & Diplomacy | Weapons
The Case of the Roman Transom Bow
The discovery of a Roman boat with a transom end during the construction of a Metro line in Naples has reopened the discussion about whether this end is the bow or the stern of the boat. This issue was debated through the twentieth century and still continues today. Discussion so far has mainly been focused […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology | Shipbuilding & Design
Did Vessels Beach in the Ancient Mediterranean? An assessment of the textual and visual evidence
The practice of beaching seafaring ships in the ancient Mediterranean is a widely accepted phenomenon. This paper examines the evidence for beaching and outlines the various methods, tools and technology employed. While habitual beaching for seafaring vessels is testi ed for the Geometric Period Aegean, for later periods the evidence is primarily negative. With the […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Ship Handling & Seamanship