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Under the Mediterranean I: Studies in Maritime Archaeology

2022; Penn State University Press; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.10.2.0210

2166-3556

John Peter Oleson,

Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History

This is the first volume in the Honor Frost Foundation (HFF) Research Series, which will publish themed sessions from the foundation’s Under the Mediterranean conference program, as well as monographs, theses, and edited volumes, all peer reviewed. The foundation also supports a non-peer-reviewed General Series that will present collections of articles from seminars or round tables, reprints of Honor Frost’s articles, and other works relevant to archaeology underwater. Online versions of both these series can be read for free on the publisher’s website (www.sidestone.com). The volume under review is a collection of 19 articles in three sections reporting on recent research concerning the archaeology of shipwrecks (six), harbors (seven), and maritime landscapes in the Mediterranean region (six). These articles, with anywhere from one to ten co-authors, are expanded versions of papers presented at a conference with the same title held in Nicosia in October 2017, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Honor Frost’s birth (deceased 2010). Because of the large number of authors involved with individual articles, their names will not appear in the discussion. They can be found on the publisher’s website. This review will, however, provide a précis of all the articles, with some elaboration for those of particular interest.Of the original 143 presentations at the 2017 conference, 13 dealing with Frost and her legacy have already been published in the first volume of the HFF General Series. Although a relatively small percentage of the original conference papers appears in this Research Series volume, the introduction by the overall editors Stella Demesticha and Lucy Blue provides an interesting analysis of the patterns of submission of all the original conference papers by geographical location, chronology, subject matter, and the presenter’s country of origin. Nevertheless, the editors experienced “frustration” (16) at the small number of revised submissions submitted for publication, attributing it largely to a devaluation of published conference papers by academic institutions. Quite rightly, they point out the value of personal presentations and group interactions at conferences and promote a search for ways to preserve and distribute the resulting information. An Appendix at the end of the book lists all the presenters at the conference and the titles of their presentations. Fifty of the original conference papers concerned ships or shipwrecks, 34 focused on harbors, 43 involved the marine cultural landscape, and 16 explored other issues such as conservation and management, digital applications, connectivity, or new technologies. In the absence of chapter numbers in the resulting book, I simply follow the order of the papers and highlight the significant issues raised.The shipwrecks section of the volume examines excavated vessels from Modi Islet near Poros, Mazotos off Cyprus, the harbor of Naples, Narbonne, the port of Rhodes, as well as a sailing reconstruction of the Ma‘agan Mikhael ship. The presentations are all workmanlike and well documented, and each provides useful data on ship design, function, and site analysis. The water depth and configuration of the sea floor made excavation of the scattered remains of the LHIII B-C Modi ship very difficult, but careful reconstruction of the ceramic vessels—virtually all that remains of the wreck—has thrown new light on a critical historical period. Painstaking excavation of the fourth-century BC Mazotos wreck off Cyprus, combined with careful use of 3D digital tools, has allowed reconstruction of the method for stacking the cargo of Chian amphoras in the hold, the peg feet of the upper levels supported by the shoulders of the amphoras below. This conclusion is not surprising since it replicates the results of investigations of Roman amphora wrecks in the western Mediterranean, for example the Madrague de Giens and Spargi wrecks. Nevertheless, the careful recording of excavated material and use of 3D computer reconstructions provide useful examples of techniques for future wreck excavations.The four wrecks found abandoned in the Naples harbor, in contrast, were devoid of cargo but could be dated by stratigraphy to the late second century BC and to the third century AD. Wreck G, the most noteworthy because of a well-preserved transom at one end, is a rare example of a small harbor service boat or fishing craft. The other wrecks are fairly standard, although physically well preserved, examples of Roman cargo ships. Farther north, an early fifth-century AD barge found in the canal leading to Narbonne harbor is interesting largely for repair planks fastened to the hull with nails, and for a mast step in the forward third of the hull, suggesting a towing mast, cargo boom, or spritsail rig. A very large (L ca. 35 m) cargo ship of the late twelfth century found in Rhodes harbor provides welcome new evidence for frame-first hull construction techniques at this period, and for cargo ships of large size. The final paper in this section provides a fascinating account of the problems involved in the construction of a full-scale sailing replica of the Ma‘agan Mikhael ship, a modest but well-preserved trading ship of about 400 BC. Very few compromises were made in technique and design during the reconstruction, and even the fiddly mortise and tenon fasteners were recreated accurately, although with some use of modern electric tools. The overall attention to precision in the selection of materials was extraordinary, including the use of the same species of trees as in the original boat, and of naturally bent branches for the frames and other curved elements. This project was made possible by a “generous donation.” It would be interesting to know what the total cost of the project was, both for vicarious interest, and as a warning to potential ship reconstruction projects. The reconstructed Ma‘agan Mikhael II appears to be seaworthy. Some data on sailing characteristics would have been useful, but presumably the research team plans this for the future.The harbors section includes articles on sites from the Levant to Seville, looking at a variety of harbor defense systems and dockyards dating from the Hellenistic period to the twelfth century AD. The first article traces the evolution of the harbor of Patara in Lycia, founded around 600 BC and transformed into a closed military harbor (limen kleistos) in the fourth century BC, probably with shipsheds. The evolution of the harbor design and function are instructive. At ancient Torone in the Chalkidike, in contrast, the location of the harbor basin is still uncertain despite several campaigns with electrical resistivity survey equipment. There may have been a local shipbuilding center here, exploiting the thick forests of the region. The premodern harbors of Akko, ancient Ptolemais, have been the object of archaeological investigation for decades, but it was only consolidation of the medieval city wall from 2009 to 2012 that finally allowed exposure of the remains of the Hellenistic harbor: a quay, mooring stones, and a shipshed. Presumably these initial results can be followed up in the future. In the Gulf of Fos, adjacent to the Rhone River delta, survey and excavation have exposed several very large structures in or next to the harbor at the termination of the fossae Marianae, a detour around the hazardous delta waters constructed by the Roman general Caius Marius in the early first century BC. The harbor basin and adjacent terrestrial structures now occupy a shallow bay 40 ha in area. Although the original functions remain to be determined, a square monumental complex 100 m on a side has been mapped, along with a 100 m long series of 12 masonry pilae (piers or pillars), both testifying to the importance and wealth of the Roman port. In a remarkable contrast, the city of Ashkelon on the southern Mediterranean coast of Israel is known to have been an important trade center from the Middle Bronze Age through the thirteenth century AD, but no harbor facilities could be identified along the featureless sandy shoreline. In 2002 and 2004, however, two installations of wooden pilings were found driven into the sea floor 130 m offshore in 5–7 m of water. Dated to the third or fourth century AD by radiocarbon, these structures may have assisted ships in anchoring offshore to allow transfer of cargo to and from the city by lighters, or access to moveable slipways allowing ships to be moved onto the beach for storage or maintenance. Featureless coastlines prevented economic development at many coastal settlement sites prior to the development of Roman marine concrete in the first century BC, but apparently there were ways of coping with the situation. In the same region, a survey of the 700 km Levantine coastline from Alexandretta to Gaza reviews the architecture and function of more than 20 fortified harbors constructed by the Frankish crusaders in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. While many of the physical remains have disappeared, for this period there are numerous literary descriptions and visual representations that provide important documentation. The final article in this section reviews the changes in the design of the Islamic harbor of Seville between 712 and 1248 AD, mainly in response to the major geomorphological and hydrological transformations that are typical of the Iberian coastline.Articles in the third section, concerning maritime cultural landscapes, combine data sets to examine human interactions with the sea: navigation from the perspectives of the accounts of early geographers, the skills required by the earliest sailors, and the contextual reconstruction of sea routes; coastal survey and resource use; and geoarchaeological evidence used to analyze the choice of harbor location. The engaging first article documents the transfer of people, new animal species, and crop plants to Cyprus from the Levant and Anatolia during the Neolithic period. Strong affinities in aspects of material culture, symbols, rituals, and social institutions continued to link the settlements on the island and the mainland. The authors infer that the mariners serving as the facilitators of these interchanges became increasingly specialized as a result of the profits and status, providing feedback for technological development. The second article attempts to reconstruct the landscape of anchorages and harbors around Akko as it evolved over the long period of the tell’s occupation. Siltation has changed the original landscape significantly. Next is a fascinating discussion of the reason for the accumulation of more than 50 shipwrecks around the small island of Fournoi, located south of the Fournoi Pass, the channel between the larger islands of Ikaria and Samos in the eastern Aegean. The island was not itself involved in significant sea trade, but the geography and sailing conditions of the Aegean led large numbers of ships to make use of the adjacent pass, a navigational choke point that often experiences difficult wind and wave conditions. Ships that took refuge in the bays around Fournoi Islet from dangerous conditions in the strait remained in danger of floundering, explaining the concentration of wrecks. Back on land, a program of geoarchaeological research and coring around the important seventh-century BC Greek colony of Istros on the Black Sea has provided new evidence for the location of the silted-up harbor basin. A challenging article on “Navigating Perceptions” uses theoretical terminology and geographical considerations to propose that ancient mariners along the Levantine coastline depended on a “practical geography” during the Roman imperial period, reacting to the “diverse environmental and cultural dynamics.” Along the Levant, this often resulted in the twinning of a port and an inland settlement, or use of a river mouth. According to the author, ancient scholars, geographers, mariners, merchants, and travelers developed “multi-faceted world views that co-existed and advanced based on the dynamics between coastal and inland communities, the nature of these interactions, and their geopolitical sphere.” (335). Although pretentious jargon makes interpretation of the article difficult, it presents an interesting approach to analysis of maritime activity in the region. The final article recounts the difficulty of interpreting the original function of the large number of Roman and Late Roman rock-cut features along the shoreline of Dana Island off Rough Cilicia. The numerous cuttings, puzzling in their number and location, and previously interpreted as slipways for ships, are, in fact, more likely the remains of quarrying, a salutary warning against facile interpretation of rock-cut features along a shoreline.The book is attractive and well produced, with a generous number of crisp color or black-and-white illustrations. The availability of the text for online reading without payment is a generous concession, most likely paid for by the Honor Frost Foundation. I did not notice any major typos, although the page number for the beginning of Demesticha’s article is missing from the Table of Contents; also, Figure 3 in the introductory chapter is the same as Figure 4, and it does not correspond to its caption. This book presents current research on various aspects of the maritime history and archaeology of the Mediterranean region, and it will be of interest to students and archaeologists researching these specific topics, as well as to all those interested in the wide range of recent advances in maritime archaeology.