Piracy From the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century AD, the “White Sea”, as the Aegean was named by the Ottomans, was a “turbulent archipelago”. Muslim and Christian pirates and corsairs were active in its waters. The latter were in the service of combative powers interested in damaging the enemy’s shipping and trade […]

The long 19th century In the 19th century, the Mediterranean was at the fore center of international commerce. The ships traveled from the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea to the West carrying grain, wool, cotton, linseed and animal fat, and returned from there laden with coal and industrial products. The Black Sea was the […]

We cannot ascertain when Man ventured in the open sea; this question will never be plausibly answered. The great navigator and pioneer in nautical experimental archeology, Thor Heyerdahl rightly said that: “Man learned to use a paddle and a sail well before he rode on an animal back and made a saddle”. Man’s venture on […]

The sources for our understanding of the ancient ship For the Paleolithic and Mesolithic there are no written sources or representations of water-crafts, nor do we have any archaeological finds that can help us understand the type of crafts used and the methods of construction of our ancestors. We only rely on learned guessing and […]

With the spreading of the use of bronze tools the shipwrights kept improving their techniques and performance and the evolution of ship-construction culminated with the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean surprising planked vessels that date from the 16th to the 12th century B.C. The earliest representation of Early Bronze Age vessel date from the 3rd millennium […]

The Polyremes of the Geometric period From the Geometric, and the archaic periods some superb examples of vase painting with representations of beautiful sleek ships have been preserved. This is the period of the development of the longship which is pictures with a mpaddingultitude of oars and sometime with more than a bank of oarsmen. […]