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Seagoing Ships & Seamanship in the Bronze Age
Levant
by
Shelley Wachsmann
During the Bronze Age,
the ancient societies that ringed the Mediterranean, once
mostly separate and isolated, began to reach across the great
expanse of sea to conduct trade, marking an age of immense
cultural growth and technological development.
Details:
These intersocietal lines of communication and paths
for commerce relied on rigorous open-water travel. And,
as a potential superhighway, the Mediterranean demanded much
in the way of seafaring knowledge and innovative ship design
if it was to be successfully navigated.
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In Seagoing
Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant Shelley
Wachsmann presents a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive examination
of how the early eastern Mediterranean cultures took to the
sea - and how they evolved as a result.
The author surveys the blue-water ships of the
Egyptians, Syro-Canaanites, Cypriots,
Early Bronze Age Aegeans, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Sea Peoples
and discusses known Bronze Age shipwrecks. Relying on
archaeological, ethnological, iconographic, and textual
evidence, Wachsmann delivers a fascinating and intricate
rendering of virtually every aspect of early sea travel - from
ship construction and propulsion to war on the open water,
piracy, and laws pertaining to conduct at sea. This
broad study is further enhanced by contributions from other
renowned scholars. J. Hoftijzer and W. H. van Soldt offer new
and illuminating translations of Ugaritic and Akkadian
documents that refer to seafaring. John R. Lenz delves
into the Homeric Greek lexicon to search out possible
references to the birdlike shapes that adorned early ships?
stem and stern. Frederick Hocker provides a useful
appendix and glossary of nautical terms, and George F. Bass?s
foreword frames the study?s scholarly significance and
discusses its place in the nautical archaeological
canon. This book brings together for the first time the
entire corpus of evidence pertaining to Bronze Age seafaring
and will be of special value to archaeologists, maritime
historians, philologists, and Bronze Age textual scholars.
Offering an abundance of line drawings and photographs and
written in a style that makes the material easily accessible
to the layperson, Wachsmann?s study is certain to become a
standard reference for anyone interested in the dawn of sea
travel.
SHELLEY WACHSMANN
is Meadows Assistant Professor of
Biblical Archaeology at the Institute of Nautical Archaeology,
Texas A&M University. He is the author of several books on
ancient seafaring and trade, including The Sea of Galilee
Boat, and has published numerous articles in
archaeological journals.
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