Seagoing Ships in the & Seamanship Bronze Age Levant

DOKOS. In 1975 P. Throckmorton discovered quantities of Early Helladic pottery adjacent to the southern side of Cape Myti Komeni at the northeast corner of the Bay of Skindos on the island of Dokos.² During a 1977 survey, three distinct concentrations of pottery dating to a late phase of the Early Helladic II period were found at depths ranging from eight to twenty-six meters.

Vessel shapes found at Dokos include jugs, bowls, amphoras, cups, jars, askoi, and pithoi, along with supports for household clay spits, braziers, and clay hearths. Cycladic elements have been noted in the pottery. The site also contained grinding stones and fragments of a lead bar (ingot?) that may also be related to this complex. Bowls, amphoras, and spouted sauceboats in a variety of shapes and sizes predominate at the site. Apparently cultic in nature, these terra-cotta vessels are believed to have originated in Attica. Interestingly, Dokos is located on the presumed sea route between south Euboea and the Saronic and Argolid gulfs, one end of which is at Lerna.

To date, no timber has been reported from this site, raising the question of whether this is indeed a shipwreck. Furthermore, additional Early Helladic pottery was recovered from offshore on the northern side of Cape Myti Komeni. It is difficult to interpret the concentrations of pottery on both sides of the cape as resulting from a single shipwreck. Complete excavation and publication of the Dokos site will hopefully supply answers to this and other questions.

CAPE IRIA. A collection of pottery, primarily of Cypriot origin and dating to the end of the thirteenth century B.C., was located at Cape Iria, south of Asine, in the Argolid Gulf.³ First surveyed in 1974 by Throckmorton and a team of Greek divers, the site, which is located at a depth of seventeen to twenty-five meters and over a length of thirty meters, contained three pithoi and many pottery sherds. Most of the sherds belong to coarse-ware domestic types: pithoi, amphoras, deep basins, a pitcher, and a Mycenaean stirrup jar. The Cypriot ceramics raised from the Cape Iria site may constitute one of the largest assemblages of Late Cypriot transport containers found to date in the Aegean region. A stone anchor was discovered near the site at a depth of six meters.⁴

SHEYTAN DERESI. In 1973 a Bronze Age wreck site was found at a depth of thirty-three meters off Sheytan Deresi on the southwestern coast of Turkey.5 The site was excavated in its entirety, but no remains of a ships timbers were found, although the sand was sufficiently deep to preserve hull fragments had the cargo covered it. This led G. F. Bass to conclude that the craft may have capsized or perhaps that it was made of skins. The close proximity of the jars and the presence of stones that could have been ballast may indicate that the cargo was not jettisoned. A study of pottery distribution suggests that a number of artifacts had drifted away from the surface intact, perhaps meaning that they had been empty when the ship sank.

The Sheytan Deresi pottery, which has been dated to ca. 1600 B.C., has a mixture of Aegean and Anatolian characteristics. The modest amount of cargo and the total lack of personal items suggest that the craft may have been a small vessel that transported pottery between neighboring villages. There are no known contemporary habitation sites in the cargo’s vicinity.

ULUBURUN. Uluburun is a cape several kilometers east of the Turkish town of Kaş.⁶ A wreck was first sighted there by Turkish sponge diver Mehmet Çakir, who described the piles of copper “oxhide” ingots on the seabed to the authorities as “metal biscuits with ears.”⁷

In 1983 C. M. Pulak surveyed the site, which begins at a depth of forty-three meters. Excavation began the next year. The site originally was thought to end at fifty-one meters, but it soon became apparent that spillage from the shipwreck continues farther down-slope.⁸ The lower end of the shipwreck is the bow, the higher end is the stern.⁹ The deepest part of the wreck excavated is located between fifty-three and sixty meters, a depth far beyond that of normal sport diving. This factor made the excavation a protracted and potentially dangerous project. The eleventh and final season of excavation took place during the summer of 1994 (Fig. 9.1).¹⁰

The Uluburun ship was a merchantman with a valuable cargo. Detailed site plans help to reconstruct the manner in which the cargo and other items were stored in the hull (Fig. 14.1). The hull is of pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery, pushing back by a millennium our knowledge of the use of this ship construction technique on seagoing Mediterranean ships.¹¹

Concerning the date of the ship’s demise, Bass and Pulak note a Late Helladic IIIA: 2e kylix found on the wreck. They emphasize, however, that it may have been in use for some time before the ship sank. The Mycenaean pottery found on the wreck dates to the Late Helladic IIIA2 period, about the time of Akhenaton’s reign—but no later than that of Tutankhamen.¹² The excavators originally suggested a date around the end of (or just after) the Amarna period. On the basis of a gold scarab of Nefertiti and a cut gold ring found on the wreck, J. Weinstein argues that the ship sank after the Amarna era.¹³ He prefers a date in the last quarter of the fourteenth century or the opening years of the thirteenth century.¹⁴ Most recently, a date of 1315 B.C. has been assigned to the shipwreck on the basis of dendrochronological analyses of a branch carried onboard, perhaps intended as firewood.¹⁵

Concerning the origins of the vessel, Pulak notes that a Near Eastern origin for the ship is quite likely.¹⁶

Of particular interest in regard to the identity of the Uluburun shipwreck is the cast-bronze female figurine found during the 1992 expedition.¹⁷ Her extremities are covered with gold foil. She wears a fillet in her hair, and a multistranded necklace adorns her neck. Although no exact parallels to this figurine are known, Pulak notes the similarities that it shares with other bronze artifacts from the Syro-Canaanite littoral, as well as to a unique gold plaque from Lachish.¹⁸ He tentatively concludes that the Uluburun figurine originated from that region and that she may be one of a pair of a divine couple. Alternately, she may have been a “traveling god,” similar to the “Amun-of-the-Road” that accompanied Wenamun on his journey.¹⁹ In this case, the figurine may have belonged to a passenger.

A third possibility is that the statuette may have been the ship’s tutelary goddess. In pre-Classical times, the protective deities of ships appear to have been primarily (if not exclusively) feminine.²⁰ The figurine was found in Square G24, near a stone ceremonial ax head that had originated in the Black Sea region (Fig. 14.1).

Among many cultures throughout history the bow was the abode of the guardian goddess, protectress of the ship.²¹ J. Hornell notes that in Gerzean ships, the bow was the location of the deity.²² Later Egyptian depictions of ships showing offerings at the bow suggest that it remained the site of the deity (Fig. 2.9). Such was apparently also the case on Syro-Canaanite ships during the Late Bronze Age. Men offer incense while standing before the mast and facing the bow on two of the ships depicted in the tomb of Kenamun, presumably in thanks for the completion of a safe journey (Figs. 3.3, 5).

CAPE GELIDONYA. Another important shipwreck had been found earlier by a sponge diver off Cape Gelidonya, on the southern coast of Turkey.²⁵ In a landmark excavation that marked the beginning of true scientific archaeological research on the seabed, the site was explored in 1960 by an expedition from the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania under Bass’s direction (Fig. 9.2).

The ship apparently sank after hitting the nearby cliff. The extant cargo consisted mainly of copper oxhide and bun ingots (Figs. 9.3–4). The lay of the cargo on the seabed suggests that the craft had not capsized before coming to rest on the seabed. Because of a lack of sedimentation in the area little, if any, of the vessel itself was found.²⁶

Bass considered artifacts not related to the cargo, most of which were located in one area, the crew’s personal possessions. He proposed that these defined the crew’s living quarters. As cabins are normally located in the stern on seagoing ships, it followed that the find area was the craft’s stern. The goods on board the Gelidonya wreck indicated that the vessel had voyaged from the Levant and in the direction of the Aegean when she sank. Identifying the ship’s ethnic origins proved more problematic, however. Was she built and used by Syro-Canaanites, Cypriots, Mycenaeans, or people of some other nationality? Bass notes that the ship’s origin was directly related to that of the crew.²⁷ Based on a study of the personal finds, he suggests that the Gelidonya wreck was North Syrian.

This opinion did not go unchallenged. The personal gear found on the wreck, it was argued, was common throughout the Near East; the artifacts could have come from Cyprus or from farther south along the Syro-Canaanite littoral.²⁸ Bass later acknowledged the possibility that the ship may have been Cypriot.²⁹ G. Cadogan and J. D. Muhly identify the wreck as Mycenaean.³⁰

Radiocarbon tests of twigs from the dunnage gave a dating of 1200 B.C. ±50.³¹ Was the shipwreck from the thirteenth century (Late Bronze Age) or the twelfth century (Iron Age)? Bass, concluding that the manufacture of oxhide ingots had ceased at the end of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 B.C.), suggests that the ship sank in the thirteenth century.³² H. W. Catling dates the bronzes, and the ship along with them, to the twelfth century.³³

On visits to the site in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1994, Bass and a team from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology found a number of artifacts that had been overlooked during the 1960 excavation: two stone balance-pan weights, a zoomorphic head, metallic tin (the first such find on the site), several bronze knives, fragments of copper ingots, and a bronze plowshare. A bronze sword was found in a crevice on top of a boxcar-like boulder located in the center of the site, implying that the boulder had rested on the sea floor when the ship sank.³⁴

Pottery found during the 1960 campaign was fragmentary at best.³⁵ Perhaps the pieces raised then were broken fragments of earlier cargoes that had been left in the ship’s bilge, while the intact items may either have been moved from the site by the strong local current or tumbled out when the ship sank. Two large Late Helladic IIIB stirrup jars found about fifty meters to the southeast of the wreck site during the 1988 survey seem to have suffered this fate.³⁶ These jars, along with the scarabs found on the wreck, appear to confirm a thirteenth-century date for it.³⁷ A single stone anchor was found near the site in 1994(Fig. 12.48: C).³⁸

The Israeli coast has yielded evidence of Late Bronze Age wrecks and cargoes. Because of the shallow coastal profile and the primarily open coastline, however, most ships that sank in this area exist only as scattered cargo sites, making their interpretation difficult.

CARMEL COAST. In 1981 a group of metal artifacts was discovered on the seabed off Kibbutz Hahotrim, south of Haifa. The artifacts were scattered around two large stone anchors to which they may or may not be related (Fig. 12.54).³⁹ These consist primarily of scrap metal intended for remelting: a plowshare of a type common at Cape Gelidonya, pieces of broken horse bits, chisel(s?) and small fragments of oxhide, and other ingot types.⁴⁰ A lead bun ingot and pieces of several others were found. Two of these bear signs, possibly of Cypro-Minoan origin; a third lead ingot fragment from Hahotrim is of a variety previously known solely from Eighteenth Dynasty Theban tomb paintings.⁴¹ Subsequently, additional lead ingots with holes at their apexes were found opposite Kfar Samir.⁴²

A well-preserved oxhide ingot was found together with five amorphous tin ingots opposite Hishulei Carmel, north of Hahotrim.43 The excavators believe that the ingots, as well as a group of four stone anchors that were found fifty meters away, belong to a single ship that sank in the vicinity.⁴⁴ The Carmel Coast abounds in stone anchors found in groups and singly, however, making the relationship of the anchors to the ingots tenuous at best. I find no compelling reason to assume that the anchors are related to the metal artifacts. There is also nothing to suggest that the four anchors were tied to a ship and were thus carried closer to shore. At Uluburun, about half of the ship’s anchors were carried in the hull as spares.⁴⁵

A third group of metal ingots was discovered opposite Kfar Samir.⁴⁶ This is the northernmost of the three sites and is about three kilometers from the Hahotrim site, which marks the southern border of the locations containing holed lead ingots. The metal artifacts of both sites may have come from the cargo of a single ship that, for whatever reason, left her cargo spread out along the Carmel Coast. Since Hishulei Carmel is located between these two sites and contains compatible material, it may also belong to the same context. The reason for this spread into the sea is unclear. Lightening a ship’s load was normal procedure in storms, but this was certainly not the only reason for “deep-sixing” merchandise.⁴⁷

Solitary finds on the Mediterranean seabed hint at the possible existence of additional Bronze Age wrecks that have as yet eluded discovery. A wreck site containing pottery of the Capo Graziano culture, ca. eighteenth century B.C., has been reported off Lipari at a depth of forty meters.⁴⁸ Oxhide ingots found off Euboea, and in Turkey in the Bay of Antalya and at Deveboynu Burnu (Cape Krio), also suggest the existence of additional wrecks (Fig. 13.1: d and g).⁴⁹ Middle Bronze Age II pottery found in Tantura Lagoon, the ancient harbor of Tel Dor, raises the tantalizing possibility of a shipwreck buried in the cove’s sand, while a Late Bronze Age dagger and a Canaanite sickle sword found in the sea near Beit Yannai, north of Netanya on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, may indicate a Late Bronze Age wreck site there.⁵⁰

Identifying a wrecked ship’s home port is particularly difficult.53 The nautical excavator can date the craft and chart its final voyage, based on the ship’s cargo, but the freight gives no indication of the craft’s origin. Only if the ship’s ownership is validated, however, can the craft and its cargo of information be placed in the correct economic-historical background.⁵⁴

Documents found on a wreck are of particular value in this regard. Writing on the now-missing wax of a wooden diptych found at Uluburun, for example, could have answered a number of questions still pending on that wreck.⁵⁵ Just the identity alone of the script used on the wax could have helped to identify the traders.

Ideally, one might hope for a name-device, like the epismon or parasemon of the Classical period.⁵⁶ Alternatively, shipwright marks, like those on the Cheops ship and the Punic wreck at Marsala, could help pinpoint the ethnic identity of the carpenters who built the craft.⁵⁷ On a wreck found in the Mediterranean, however, even this has limited value, for shipwrights could work in foreign dockyards.

Assuming a lack of written evidence, how can a vessel’s final home port be determined? The emphasis here is on the word final. The original construction site may not have been the ship’s home port. Ships were bought and sold, captured and waylaid in the Bronze Age. A ship could have been built at Byblos, sold to Ugarit, and then prized by Egyptian forces. All these actions were possible in the Late Bronze Age. How would the excavators of such a wreck identify its home port?

Figure 9.4. Divers fill lifting bag to raise artifacts to the surface during the Cape Gelidonya excavation (photo by P. Throckmorton; courtesy University Museum, Philadelphia)

On the remains of a small ship in which all of the personal items are of a more or less homogeneous nature (as at Cape Gelidonya), it seems valid to accept Bass’s identification via personal items found. This approach cannot be applied to a wreck that contains personal goods of numerous cultures, as at Uluburun.

The Mycenaean seals, the globed pin, and pottery articles of everyday use suggest the presence of two Mycenaeans on board.58 This raises an important question: what constitutes “evidence beyond reasonable doubt” that a person or persons of a given nationality were on board a ship at the time of sinking? Can this be determined solely on the basis of nontextual artifacts found on the wreck? On a shipwreck, this question is crucial. The Uluburun ship carried personal memorabilia of at least five different cultures when it went down: Assyrian (Mesopotamian), Egyptian, Kassite, Mycenaean, and Syro-Canaanite. How are these to be interpreted?

There are several reasons that persons of varied ethnic origins might have sailed on the same ship:

• Egyptian tomb paintings give the impression that the crews of foreign ships were monolithically ethnic—as if Egyptian ships had only Egyptian crew members and Syro-Canaanite ships had only Syrian or Canaanite mariners. This is probably misleading, resulting more from a tendency toward artistic stereotyping than from a reflection of contemporaneous realities. Then, as now, sailors of various nationalities could join, or be conscripted, onto a single ship. This fact of seafaring life is admirably illustrated in the story of Jonah, when the sailors in their desperation pray to different gods: “But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god; and they threw the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, ‘What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we do not perish.’”⁵⁹

The personal memorabilia found at Uluburun may represent the archaeological expression of this phenomenon. Apart from the different cultural identities represented by these artifacts, they had numinous significance for their owners. That is, they represent faith in different gods and beliefs and may, in general terms, be indicative of persons of varying ethnic and religious backgrounds on board the ship during its final voyage.

It would be unwise, however, to equate any specific object with an owner of like ethnic identity: objects having prophylactic significance could have been acquired by anyone. Furthermore, these objects may simply have been collected by crew members during their travels and have no significance at all vis-à-vis the ethnic identity of the persons on the ship when it sank.

• Throughout history, merchant ships carried paying foreign passengers: “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Yaffo and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”⁶⁰ The king of Alashia refers three times to his messenger and an Egyptian messenger traveling together between the two countries, presumably by ship.⁶¹ Whatever the nationality of their ships, at least one of the messengers would always have been a “foreign passenger.” Similarly, Amanmasha sailed to Egypt, presumably on a Byblian ship, and Wenamun used a Syro-Canaanite ship (home port not stated) on his outgoing trip and a Byblian craft on the first part of his return voyage.⁶²

• Kidnapping and slaving were additional reasons for foreign ethnics to have been on board a ship.⁶³

The problem of defining a seagoing ship’s ownership remains perplexing. One form of evidence that may reveal a Bronze Age ship’s final home port is her anchors. This is because, in the Bronze Age, the various countries and states used diagnostic forms of stone anchors. Regardless of where along the ship’s route the anchors were made, they would have been cut to the same characteristic shape. The Karnak anchor is a good example of this phenomenon.⁶⁴ Unfortunately, it is not always possible to correlate anchors found in the sea with those found in stratified land sites.⁶⁵