Lords of the Sea

[chickenfeet2003]

I've just finished reading John Hale's Lords of the Sea. It's one of those rare books that brings genuinely new light to a well worked over topic. In this case the topic is the various wars between Greeks and Persians and Greeks and Greeks in the two hundred years or so after Marathon. Probably few other historical subjects have a comparable

Comments

[gillo]

Serendipity. One of the other main movers and shakers in the building of the trireme was the uncle of a Durham contemporary of mine, and still good friend, coatesyukon who, as you may guess from his LJ name is now in Canada, though you are probably closer to me than you are to him!

Agreed totally about the sea, especially in Viking times - settlements in West Scotland and Ireland clearly had much stronger links between them than any of them had with, say, English towns.

[sollersuk]

When I was writing up the bones report for a Norse Orkney site, I drew a map with the Orkneys in the centre. It made it very clear how... shall I say "non-isolated" they were.

One of the things I've become increasingly aware of is that for the general Channel/North Sea area, the sea was a means of contact and communication, not a barrier.

I still don't believe the Saxons didn't have sailing ships; their raiding tactics seem to have been the same as the Vikings - make a base on an island, raid from there and then go home - and I absolutely cannot imagine them rowing all the way from the Low Countries to the Loire. And in terms of later vessels, the "Humber Keel" has a square sail, which could be of Viking origin, but the name itself is Old English.

[chickenfeet2003]

One of the things reproductions have shown is that ships can be rowed long distances surprisingly fast. Athenian fleets regularly rowed to the Hellespont and beyond so I think Frisia to the Loire is quite doable. Of course they used sails when possible but a single square sail rig isn't very flexible. Surely Saxon ships were built the same way everybody else's were around the North Sea and Baltic? Clinker built and stepping a single mast but designed mainly for rowing?

[sollersuk]

As far as I know the only surviving Saxon boat is the Nydam boat, which does not appear to have anywhere to step the mast, and from that it has been argued (I leave it to you to form your own opinions of the logic) that the Saxons did not have sailing craft. I don't believe that to be so. I'm more inclined to believe that they were part of the tradition that culminated in the Viking ships. I'd be very surprised if their nautical technology wasn't at least as good as the Veneti.

[chickenfeet2003]

A single square sail is such an obvious addition to any rowed or paddled craft that I can't imagine any seafaring people not coming up with it. Absence of a stepped mast doesn't really prove anything as a mast can be lashed to a thwart and stayed. I've done this in a canoe.

[sollersuk]

A thought on the trireme. If he rows he'll have had the same experiences as miapatrick, who says only an idiot would row with their arms and upper body alone. References in classical sources to oarsmen taking cushions with them suggested to one contributor to "Scientific American" (sorry, no reference but I think some time in the 90s) that they did have a "sliding seat" action so were able to use the whole body. Where does Hale stand (or sit!) on that?

[chickenfeet2003]

Hale wrote the Scientific American article! The rowers on Olympias used cushions. The price of the sliding cushion was an alarmingly high rate of anal fistula! Cushions are attested in northern Europe as well.

[sollersuk]

Aha! In that case I definitely must read!

[f4f3]

I know what you mean - growing up in the West of Scotland family holidays routinely involved ferries even on "mainland" trips. The Ballachulish ferry saved a 17 mile detour by single track road.

Even now, much of the West is still held together more by Cal Mac than road.