the Straits of Sic ily

with water, to tie the lan d masses tog eth er- at

and the Strait of Gibraltar.
ns of the ancient
Along the rims of the two basins, the civilizatio
but the Greek-
world arose. All the coast lines are irregular,
drowned mo unt ain
Turkish archipelago is especially so, being a
ngated ridges are
range whose tops form islands and whose elo
finger-like peninsulas.
In an are a of islands, mountainous back
country, and desert
ht possibly con tain
conditions along many coasts, all of which mig
abo ut by sea. Th e
hostile tribes, people found it practical to move
g straits or water
invention of some form of boa t capable of crossin
r must have com e
between islands that are visible one from anothe
nd years ago or
far back in man's history, possibly ten thousa
tery by boa ts goes
more. The direct evidence for movement of pot
likely this was the
back at least six thousand years, and it is not
actual beginning.
6 million squ are
Th e Mediterranean has a surface are a of 2.9
meters. Its main
kilometers and a volume of 4.2 4 million cubic kilo
one having a flat
basins are as deep as the oceans, the western
feet) deep, the
floor abo ut twenty-seven hundred meters (8, 856
th but not so flat.
eastern basin being about the same average dep
where an are a of
Th e deepest spots are southeast of Rhodes,
n four thousand
about one thousand square miles is deeper tha
ltiply meters by
meters. (Fo r a reasonable approximation, mu
for metric conver-
three to convert to feet. Also see Appendix 2
are a of abo ut the
sion factors.) Southwest of the Peloponnesus, an
82 meters (16 ,34 1
same size contains the maximum depth of 4,9
p, with nearly a
feet). The Ionian Sea is both broad and dee
n three thousand
hundred thousand square miles deeper tha

Figu re 3. Anc ient Greece

seas are very com plic ated .
The sho re Jines of the Aeg ean and Cre tan
Prin cipa l ship rou tes suc h as thos e from
Pira eus or Chi os to Rho des wen t
nds whe re a ship cou ld easi ly
thro ugh man y dan gero us passes betw een isla
~ cau ght by a stor m and driven ash ore or
ove rwh elm ed as it trie d to fight
are exc elle nt hun ting gro und s
its way to ope n wat er. The refo re thes e seas
for anc ient wrecks.
meters. ·l'he shallow areas are the Aegean, the Adriatic, and a
huge area south and west of Sicily where there is very little water
deepe r than five hundr ed meters.
Shallow, of course, means shallow to an oceanographer or to a
deep water salvage man, not to a diver. There are over a hundr ed
thous and squar e miles of the Medi terran ean that are between a
hundr ed and five hundr ed meters ( three hundr ed to fifteen
hundr ed feet) where ancient ships might well be found and in
which there are excellent target areas.
The kind of material on the botto m falls into two main classes:
calcareous muds or clays, and sand or rock. The former predo mi-
nates over 90 per cent of the Mediterranean where deep- sea con-
ditions prevail, while the rocky and sandy areas are more chara c-
teristic of the Aegean and other areas near shores with steep hills
and high erosion rates. Generally the sedimentation in the deep
basins is slow, being mainly a comb inatio n of wind-blown dust
and the shells of tiny calcareous animals. On the average, about
twenty centimeters ( eight inches) of sediment has been added to
the deep bottom since the beginning of our calendar.
The level of the sea relative to the adjacent land is changing in a
number of places. Slow tectonic movements in the earth 's crust
have adjusted the elevation of many ancient coastal towns upwa rd
or downward at rates of about one meter per thous and years, so
that some are now inland and others are submerged. These deep
geological processes are abette d by surface ones: erosio n of the
fine materials from the hillsides after the removal of trees in an-
cient times, soil losses from lowlands as the comb ined result of
plowing and flooding, and siltation in bays. Also, volcanoes have
suddenly belched out new islands and exploded to destroy old
ones. All these natur al forces are steadily changing the shore line.
The Mediterranean is a sea full of islands. Nearly everyone is
familiar with the large ones: Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Crete , and
Cyprus. But there are some fascinating smaller ones that also have
an illustrious history. The name s are well known, but not many
people know where Ibiza, Elba, Ithaca , Malta , Rhod es, Tbera ,
and Lesbos are located. There are hundr eds more, each of which
hoard s some bit of ancient histor y in a cave or cove or ruin and
which may well have ancient ships down offshore.
In discussing the Mediterranean, it is not iong before the subject
of the eruption of Santorin comes up. The explosion of this great
volcano in about 1500 B.c. changed the course of human history
by destroying a major center of culture. Before this great eruption,
the island of Thera must have been mainly a single volcanic
mountain. It was a garden spot, because things grew so well on the
rich, volcanic soil. Living was easy; the Minoan fleet gave protec-
tion from attack and the people had leisure time for attention to
such gentle arts as fresco painting.
Then came the disaster that is often compared with the eruption
of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies. The report of the Royal So-
ciety of London on that eruption contained some dramatic eyewit-
ness descriptions of Krakatoa. Think of Santorin while reading the
following account:
In 1883 the volcano Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits, Dutch East
Indies, erupted for four days with the most violent explosions of
recorded history. The entire northern portion of the island disap-
peared and in place of ten square miles of land with an average
elevation of 700 feet, there was formed a great depression with
its bottom more than 900 feet below sea level.
It is estimated that four and one-eighth cubic miles of rock was
blown away by subsequent explosions. The sea was covered with
masses of pumice for miles around and in many places it was so
thick that no vessel could force its way through. Two new islands
rose in the Sunda Straits and obstructed the principal ship channels;
the lighthouses were swept away; all the old familiar landmarks
were obscured by a vast deposit of volcanic dust and the sea bot-
tom became covered with a thick layer of rock debris.
The most damaging effect of the eruption was the initiation of
seismic sea waves which inundated the whole of the fore-shores of
Java and Sumatra bordering the Strait. Three villages were carried
away by water which reached heights of 60 to 115 feet. More than
36,000 people were drowned and many vessels were washed ashore
including a government steamer which was carried 1.8 miles in-
land and left 32 feet above sea level.
The eruption of Santorin was substantially larger than that of
Krakatoa, with estimates ranging up to four times the explosive
force. The caldera at Santorin is said to be five times larger, and
quarry excavations have disclosed that the ash blanket on Thera is
much deeper than that left around Krakatoa. If one takes the well-
documented tales of Krakato a and translates them thirty-four
hundred years backward in time, one can imagine the destruction
that took place around the Cretan Sea. The cities of Thera had ap-
parently been evacuated, since no bodies or valuables have been
found in the buildings, but some ships of the fleeing refugees must
have been sunk by volcanic bombs, others by waves from the
blast. Both these events may be helpful to the deepwater archae-
ologist. The volcanic ash from that dated eruption will be visible
in cores of Aegean sediments, and one can directly measure the
thickness of sediment above it to determine the sedimentation
rate. Ships sunk directly or sucked back offshore by the runoff
from waves striking the Cretan shore may be a valuable objective,
since little is known about Minoan ships.
The tsunami (tidal wave) created by the explosion would have
crossed the seventy-five-mile-wide Cretan Sea in 22½ minutes at
two hundred miles per hour. On moving into shallow water, it
would have formed huge, breaking waves ( the height depending
on the underwater configuration) that would have wrought
tremendous destruction on all ports, coastal cities, and ships on
the north side of the Minoan island. The run-up ( distance the
water moved inland) was probably not great, perhaps a few miles
in low valleys, but it seems to have been sufficient to destroy the
essence of Minoan civilization. The ancient world changed with a
single blast, and it was many years before their high standard s of
living were achieved again.
Santorin is not quite dead; it has erupted at least once in the in-
tervening years and may go off again someday. At present, the
only sign of activity is some bot springs that bubble from a small
crater off the island of Thera accompanied by sulphurous fumes.
The local fishing boats come there periodically to spend a few
leisurely days moored to the rocks while the toxic water kills the
weed on their hulls and the borers in them. Then, with clean bot-
toms, they go back to work.
Generally, the water of the Mediterranean seas is very clear and
very blue. It is so clear that a diver can often see thirty meters and
sometimes fifty or more. The sea dust, on being stirred, settles
A B C
- --Surfo.ce
-,. -,5 ____,
--,s-- --c--J6 - - - -
- ·14.S ---,f.s---

, _ _ - - - - 21JIJO,,,

Temperafure and Depth in the

Su of Cref~ 11nd Approac.hes
//JO: I verl. e.•ag.
Aller Medif~r,.anean Se.a. At/a•

Figure 4. Temperature and Depth in the Sea of Crete

The characteristics of these moderately deep waters are fairly uniform
and there is ample oxygen in the depths for all sea life. Le_gs B and C,
whose apex is near Thera, undoubtedly have a bottom composed largely
of volcanic ash under the more recent muds.
rapidly or slowly drifts away, leaving the diver suspended free in
"space." Photos made by marine archaeologists of work on near-
shore wrecks look much as though they were made through air in-
stead of sea water. When viewed from a coastal cliff, the water is
such an intense blue that it seems especially deep and mysterious,
setting the observer dreaming of ancient ships and legends.
The tides in the Mediterranean are generally very small, rarely
exceeding a few centimeters, so it is somewhat surprising that their
cause was understood by the ancients. In the first century A.D.,
Pliny remarked on the wonderful circumstance of the ebb and
flow of water twice a day caused by the sun and the moon. Since
tidal changes drive the local currents in much of the world's
coastal waters, one is at first surprised that the Mediterranean cur-
rents are as large as they are. Actually, there are several other
causes of currents, and it is difficult to determine which of these is
dominant at any moment.
The drag of the wind on the surface of the sea moves the water.
Starting with a calm sea and a rising breez.e, ripples are formed,
then wavelets, chop, and finally, when the wind gets above forty
knots, full storm waves five to seven meters high are generated. In
addition to th.e waves, the near-surface water is moved along by
the wind in proportion to the wind velocity and surface roughness.
Forty knots of wind creates a surface current of about one knot.
The largest current-causing factor in the Mediterranean is evap-
oration. Winds dried by the deserts to the south evaporate fantas-
tic quantities of water as they blow across the sea,, taking with
them about a thousand cubic miles of water a year or, on the
average, eighty thousand tons a second.
This amount of water cannot be made up by the inflow from the
Rhone, the Nile, and those rivers that overflow the Black Sea
through the Turkish straits. Rather, the evaporation losses are
constantly replaced from the Atlantic by an inflow through the
Strait of Gibraltar. The surface water in the strait, which always
moves eastward, flows at two to four knots, with an average vol-
ume of two million tons per second. This is far more than the
amount evaporated; the difference is accounted for by an outflow
beneath the surface through the strait. This countercurrent that
flows westward is composed of much heavier, saltier water, so that
the salinity in the Mediterranean does not increase but is con-
stantly maintained at a somewhat higher level than the Atlantic.
U it were not for this subsurface discharge, in a few years the
evaporation would convert the Mediterranean into a huge dead
sea..
The enclosed nature of the eastern basin is reflected in its higher
salinity ( thirty-nine parts per thousand) and higher surface tem-
perature, which ranges from 17 to 24 ° C. In spite of constant
replenishment through Gibraltar, the average water level in the
Mediterranean remains some ten centimeters lower than the
Atlantic in the winter and three times that much in the summer,
when evaporation is higher.
In the western basin, the water is not only less saline than in the
east, but is somewhat colder, the surface temperature being
13-14° C. As water evaporates from the surlace, the remaining
surface waters become saltier and heavier than those below. This
unstable condition cannot exist for long, and from time to time the
water structure abruptly collapses. Then the heavy water falls to
the bottom, whence it moves westward, toward the outflow. The
implication of these water motions is that oxygenated surface
waters are carried to the bottom and that the larvae of marine
borers are transplanted to deep wreck sites. Both are important to
the deep archaeologist.
The somewhat swifter currents that exist in narrow passes
where the water rushes through may prevent sedimentation and
result in a clean, water-scoured bottom. Possibly in such places
the hard parts and artifacts from ancient ships will lie nakedly ex-
posed on the sea bottom.
In the Strait of Messina the currents are driven both by tidal
forces and by saline differences. Every twelve hours, when the
waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ionian Sea try to exchange,
this produces currents of as much as four knots. At some times,
there may be layers of water moving in opposite directions,
producing shear and turbulence. According to Ernle Bradford,
a well-known authority on such subjects, the whirlpool of Charyb-
dis, well known to the fishermen of the adjacent Sicilian town of
Ganzirri, results from this turbulence. On the opposite, Italian
shore, their rivals from the village of Scilla, named after the
monster of the Odyssey, say that on a gray day when the currents
from the south buck the wind from the north, one ca.n still hear
Scylla's yelp as the wind and the sea boom against the rocks and
cry in the caves.
Charybdis apparently is not as great a whlrlpool as it once was,
because of a change .in the structure of the seabed caused by an
earthquake in 1783. Even so, in sailing days a British admiral
wrote that " . . . small craft are endangered by it and I have seen
several men-of-war whirled round on its surface."
There are also notable currents in the Dardanelles, where the
waters of the Sea of Marmara enter the Aegean. On the Asiatic
side of the Dardanelles the current often flows at three knots,
while close against the European side it is less than half that
figure. A few miles upstream, in the one-mile-wide "narrows"
( where Xerxes built his famous bridge of boats in 480 B .c.), the
currents run evenly at about two knots, being unexpectedly higher
near the banks than at the center. It was at this point that Lord
Byron and a British naval officer swam across in imitation of
Leander. Their crossing time was one hour and ten minutes, and
the actual distance they covered was nearly four miles. When the
north wind blows in reinforcement, this current can run as high as
five knots. Other places where substantial currents may flow, and
thus might influence archaeological exploration, include narrow
passes between some of the Greek islands ( especially east and
west of Crete), the Straits of Sicily, and the strait between Sardinia
and Corsica.
Mediterranean summers are sunny and warm, when the trade
winds blow from the south; but the winter months, when the
northerlies blow, are cold and damp. When the winter storms
come, the blast of salt spray makes sailors uncomfortable and
apprehensive. They reef the sails, pull their jackets tightly about
themselves, and head for a safe anchorage.
In the western Mediterranean, when an atmospheric depression
moves eastward across Spain and through the Strait of G.ibra1tar
it causes strong northwest gales along the whole North African
coast. An unwary mariner may find hjmself swept against a hostile
lee shore; the whole coast from Tangier to Cape Bon is a grave-
yard of shlps that were wrecked there from classical times up to
g
the. presen~. Th~ Span iards lost seve ral fleets off Alge ria durin
,
their conf lict with the Moo rs in the sixte enth centu ry. In 1541
t
one of the wors t mari time disas ters in histo ry was brou ght abou
was
by a storm that struc k just as the fleet of Emp eror Char les V
pois ed to inva de. Man y galle ys, as well as a hund red and fifty
ish
galle ons carry ing eigh t thou sand troop s and the flower of Span
nobi lity, peris hed in what beca me know n as "Cha rles' s Gale ."
The
emp eror, cont emp latin g the wrec kage of his fleet and army , is
said
to have bow ed his head and murm ured , "Thy will be done ."
The drea ded north erly wint er wind that caus es so muc h mise ry
has been given a diffe rent nam e by each bord ering coun try.
The mist ral, as the wint er wind that blow s sout h acro ss Fran ce
sure
is calle d, is cold , dry, and dusty . It arise s from a high -pres
the
area in the Alps to the north and send s its cold draft dow n
sea
sonn y Rho ne Vall ey. Whe n the mistr al colli des with the warm
y a
bree zes, the resu lt is shor t, vicio us storm s that have sent man
luck less ship to the botto m.
The bora , a nort hern wind that blast s its way dow n the Adri atic
gth
betw een Italy and Croa tia, rapid ly reach es whol e-gal e stren
and mak es wave s seve n to ten mete rs high . Gust s reach over
a
to
hund red knot s, and life lines are rigged alon g stree ts in Trie ste
help pede stria ns keep their footi ng. In Vene tian times, ships from
e in
nort hern Adri atic port s were actua lly forbi dden to retur n hom
of
Nov emb er to Dece mbe r beca use of the grea tly incre ased chan ce
-
loss. A viole nt bora can arise very sudd enly , and even large mod
em steel ships some time s disap pear with all hand s.
Fart her east, the same wind , now calle d the Gree k wind , or
greg alc, blow s sout h acro ss the norm ally tranq uil Ioni an Sea from
a.
the mou ntain s of Gree ce and Alba nia towa rd the shor es of Afric
nt
Bad weat her was the main caus e of ships sinki ng in ancie
and
time s; in the early days of the strug gle betw een Cart hage
lost
Rom e, the latte r lost four ship s to the weat her for every one
the
in battl e. Ther e was a whim sical prov erb of galle y warf are in
Midd le Ages that there were "fou r ports for a fleet: June, July,
a
Aug ust, and Port Mah on." In 491 B.c., Dari us lost a fleet to
storm at the tip of Mou nt Atho s peninsula~ which thwa rted his at-
temp t to inva de Gree ce. In his prep arati ons for the next war with
ss
Gree ce, he actu ally dug a cana l one and a half miles long acro
1000 w,

,---------~2ooom

T~mperafure ,11,d bepfh in

fhe Adriafic Sea and kross
I+• Enlralfce
100: I Yerl. exa9.

Afl~r Medil~rranean Sea Al/as

n
the base of the peninsula of Mount Athos, one of the fingers of
Thrace, to avoid having his ships go around its stormy tip--a total
sea distance of only sixty miles.
Unless the captain of a sailing ship has considerable local expe-
rience or employs a local pilot, his ship may be overwhelmed by
downdrafts from the mountains as it passes them on their
southern side. These downdrafts can increase a good, force-five
sailing breeze to gale-force gusts. Areas where this phenomenon
occurs include the southern coast of Crete (the Admiralty Pilot
warns mariners to stay at least five miles out to sea), the eastern
side of the Gulf of Athens, and the southern and eastern sides of
the Cyclades.
The principal southern wind is the sirocco, also called simoom
or khamsin. It is a hot wind loaded with dust it picks up in cross-
ing the desert. This drying wind is said to "split furniture, crack
the soul, and send sailors to the north again." A big sirocco can
last a week, blowing a steady force six, gusting to eight or ten. In
1966, a large, modem Greek steamer, the M.S. Heraklion went
down with 230 people in a sirocco--doubtless to a bottom littered
with wrecks from ancient times.
One of the oceanographic survey ships that was responsible for
making many of the deep "stations" that are presented in the
Atlas of the Mediterranean was the auxiliary schooner Atlantis of
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The following sen-
tences, taken from the preface to that atlas, describe some of the
things Atlantis learned about Mediterranean winds in addition to
the data on salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen it was
seeking:
Atlantis had considerable difficulty beginning her first section.
A northern storm prevented her from leaving the North African

Figure 5. Temperature and Depth in the Adriatic Sea

The upper Adriatic is very shallow, but the southern end has water depths
of about one thousand meters. This is the place where tbe deadly bora has
sunk a great many ships, both ancient and modem, and where conditions
for the survival of old hulls are good.
coast For three succe~ive nights the lights of the city of Algiers
were in view in spite of all attempts to make sea room. . . . At first
the Tyrrhenian section proceeded smoothly but as the weather wors-
ened again all operations ceased and the ship had to run before a
gale to seek shelter south of the Straits of Messina. . . . Work
south and east of Rhodes was suspended because of storms. . . .
The last station was made under full power against the wind as
still another gale threatened to suspend operations.
In the Aegean and the Black seas the prevailing winds during
the summe.r sailing season are from north to northwest. The an-
cient Greeks referred to them as "etesian," meaning that they are
reliable and return every year. In the Aegean this wind is called
the melteme. It begins, according to Herodotus, with the rising of
the Dog Star in early July, and continues to the middle of Sep-
tember. On a typical melteme day in the Cyclades Isles it is calm
at dawn but by full daylight a pleasant northerly breeze will have
begun to ruffle the blue water. By afternoon the breeze can
increase to 20-30 knots but it begins to drop as the sun sets, and
at midnight the sea is calm again. Sometimes these afternoon
winds reach gale velocities and raise waves four meters high; oc-
casionally, they blow all night. As a result, the custom was to sail
between harbors from dawn until early afternoon and then anchor
until the following day.
It was on the etesian winds that early Greek trade depended.
Running before them, the old ships could easily cross the Aegean,
visit Crete and Rhodes, and sail on to Egypt. Returning home was
more of a problem, but they could tack to take advantage of varia-
tions in the wind direction, or row, or wait for a more favorable
season. As a result, the passage time in one direction often took
far less time than if the same ship went the other way. The ancient
freighters could "make good" about four to six knots while run-
ning before the wind, perhaps two knots against it. Trade between
Egypt and Rhodes continued the year around but in much of the
Aegean, trade simply stopped in October and ships were laid up
until the following May.
In the spring, southwesterlies blowing in the Aegean made it
possible for the ancient mariners to sail north through the Turkish
straits. Currents in the straits may have forced the sailors to row
part of the way through or even to tow their boats from the shore
for short distances. But, once in the Black Sea, they could sail
again.
Compared to the winds, other factors that controlled ship com-
merce were minor. Ancient trade moved with the wind, and in
deference the Athenians built a tower that still stands below the
Acropolis. At its top is a revolving Triton who points his staff in
the direction of the wind. Below him on the marble sides of the
octagonal structure are carved figures that symbolize each of the
eight winds.
Prof. Lionel Casson, who has written extensively on ancient
mariners, quotes the historian Vegetius, who says that the best
parts of the sailing season are from 27 May to 14 September and
that the absolute outside limits are 10 March to 10 November.
During fall and winter, sailing was reduced to the absolute
minimum; only vital dispatches, urgently needed supplies, and
emergency military equipment moved by sea. Aside from ships
transporting those necessities, the sea lanes were deserte d-
although in times when pirates were a serious menace the winter
weather was a lesser risk. The problem of winter sailing was as
much one of cloud cover as of storm. Mariners who sail without a
compass must be able to see the sun and the stars or at least sight
distant headlands to get their bearing. In winter, when days were
short, skies cloudy, and stars obscured, ships could not be sure
what direction they were going. Sailors refused to sail, insurance
rates went up, and ship traffic came to a virtual standstill.
Northward from the Aegean Sea, the Turkish straits lead to the
Black Sea. Amid that passage, between the Dardanelles and the
Bosporus, is the Sea of Marmara. Not much is known about the
depths of that small sea except that a few oceanographic stations
made there by Atlantis show very little oxygen near the bottom in
one of its deep areas. This suggests strongly that those deep pud-
dles have reducing conditions at the bottom. Since this relatively
restricted route has been well traveled for many thousands of
years, it seems likely that old ships are down there. If so, some
have landed in the bottoms of the anoxic basins. Thus a prime
place to search for well-preserved wrecks is the basins of the Sea
of Marmara.

r:
Rt>ufe of
/Jo,porus Sury~y

Clo TU~KEY
AEGEAN
SEA
Q
~

A. Aegean Sea

- - - -- + - - - - - t /000 nt

r:::=::::::::::;;:::::::::::::::::=::::::;;;;;~~====="::11.::=:::==i::::::::~;;;:;;;;;;;~ =,7 SaIinity,

part., p~r l/,ou$and

1- - - --+-- -----1 1000 m

- - - - - u., -

- - - - - + - - ----t 1000 m

11,•,E 21• zr• t'I•

L4ngifude.
Ot1ano.9~apl,ic Secfi#'1 1hrou!Jlt 1/,e Turki~J, Slrail4
5ft4w,it_s fl,e. /Jeep Z"ne in lne Sea "' Narmara
Wltere Ais1olt'ed O~ygen I.- Yery 1.4w
The Black Sea is unique among all the world's seas because of
its remarkable stratification into two distinct layers. The surface
water is relatively fresh and light, since it comes from the great
northern rivers: Don, Danube, and Dnieper. But below two
hundred meters the water is salty, with a high density; very little
mixing takes place. Even when the surface waters become very
cold (-1 ° C), they still are less dense than the deep water and do
not sink.
It is the non-mixing that makes the Black Sea so special. The
unchanging layers imply a barrier, and without some vertical
motion of the water there is no mechanism to transport oxygen
from the atmosphere to the bottom. No oxygen means that no fish
or invertebrates can live there; the bottom layer of that sea has
been poisoned by deadly hydrogen sulphide. With H:!S instead of
oxygen, there can be no wood-devouring borers or scavengers and
no microbial degradation of organic materials including ship hulls.
Black sulphide compounds form; thus the name, Black Sea. But
above, the well-oxygenated surface layer is much like a huge lake,
with lots of fish and many summer resorts along the coast. In an-
cient times, Jason and his Argonauts explored its perimeter, the
Trojans taxed the ships as they entered, and Greek city-states
colonized its rim.
Many of the following data come from a review paper by the
famous Russian oceanographer L. Ze.nkevich, who cites the work
of his countrymen over the past century in exploring the Black
Sea. This great inland sea is about the same latitude as the Great
Lakes; its greatest length is 620 nautical miles, and its width at the
center is about 210 nautical miles. The average depth is 1,271
meters, the greatest depth 2,247 meters. The average annual river
inflow of fresh water is four hundred cubic kilometers, while two
hundred cubic kilometers of saline waters enter from the Sea of
Marmara to the south in an exchange similar to that at Gibraltar.

Figure 6. OceanograpbJc Section Through the Turkish Straits

The deep hole in the heavily traveled Sea of Marmara is one of the best
places to search for ancient ships. Its high salinity and very low oxygen
can be expected to have prevented marine borers from living in the area
and destroying wooden objects.
Tbe relatively narrow center ot the sea, between the cnmean
peninsula on the north and the Anatolian coast on the south,
seems to segregate the water motions into two independent gyres
( circular current motions), which can be identified by their
salinity. The shore line of the Black Sea is relatively smooth, with
few coastal features, islands, bays, or inlets; generally, the under-
water slope is steep and the 150-meter contour closely approaches
the coast.
The upper limit of the deep, toxic water generally ranges from a
hundred to a hundred and fifty meters, but occasionally animals
have been found at depths of as much as two hundred meters.
Presumably this indicates variations throughout the sea caused
by seasonal changes or interfacial waves moving along the bound-
ary between the two layers.
The tidal range in the Black Sea reaches a maximum of only
eight centimeters on spring tides, but seasonal changes in sea level
may be as much as thirty centimeters. Salinity in the upper layers
(except around river mouths) averages 17-18 parts per thousand;
in the deep water, it is about 22.5 parts per thousand except near
the Bosporus, where it is somewhat higher. Very little of the sea
surface freezes, but when the winter is severe, ice sheets form
along the northern and western coasts and large masses of ice
break off and fl.oat free. At the hottest times of the year, the same
waters can reach 28° C (82° F).
In the open parts of the Black Sea, with depths over two
hundred meters, the water transparency is such that a diver can
usually see about twenty meters, with a maximum of thirty meters.
Generally, this decreases near the coast, as it does in other seas.
Visibility near the bottom in deep wate.r has not been reported,
but it can be expected to be at least five meters, which will be ade-
quate for salvage work.

Figure 7. The Black Sea

This chart shows the western half of the Black Sea and the Sea of Mar•
mara. The reducing environment is cross-hatched to show the huge extent
of sea bottom that may contain extremely well-preserved ship hulks be-
cause no borers can live there and no oxidation can take place.
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.-•··:DANELitf ·; -::·•:·.:::-;-.:_:-:•:::.·:·.:· SEA OF MIIRHARA Depth in Mefe r.s
In 1924, B. Issatchenko, a microbiologist, discovered that bot-
tom-dwelling bacteria of th.e genus M icrospira are the main source
of the hydrogen sulphide. Their vital activities reduce sulphates,
so that carbonates are formed and H 2S is liberated.
All life in the Black Sea (except anaerobic bacteria) is concen-
trated in the upper layer, which forms only about 1~15 per cent
of the volume of the sea. According to Zenkevich, "Organic sub-
stances which reach the depths from the upper layer accumulate at
the bottom." In the deepwater sediments, plankton remains are
predominant while those of bottom~welling animals are absent.
This is as one would expect; dead swface animals are well
preserved, and no animals ever lived at the bottom.
Cores from the Black Sea depths taken by Dr. David Ross and
associates on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition
show the bottom strata to be varved. That means there are very
thin alternating light and dark layers of sediment, each pair
representing a year's deposition. By counting the layers, it is possi-
ble to determine the exact age of any object encountered and to
obtain the sedimentation rate with precision. Generally, they
found that one meter of sediment took five thousand years to ac-
cumulate, giving a rate of twenty centimeters per thousand years.
This is about twice the rate in the Mediterranean, but there are
good reasons. The great silt load of the northern rivers in spring
adds light-colored particles to form half of the varve; the organic
productivity of summer and autumn furnishes the remaining, dark
layer. One core reached seventy thousand years backward in time,
measured by varve count, and found delicate biological mem-
branes in good condition.
The value of such an environment to the deep-sea archaeologist
can scarcely be overstated. Suppose that an ancient wreck can be
found on the floor of the Black Sea or the Sea of Marmara. Its or-
ganic substances should be completely preserved, and a careful
count of the layers of sediment that have accumu1ated on the
ship's deck should permit one to date the wreck within a few
years.
The advantages of such a find are so great that one is tempted
to begin searching there in spite of the huge expanse of bottom
that would have to be inspected. Before making that decision it is
necessary to know more about the nature of the ancient ships.
Warships

abo ut his
The sear che r for old Jost ships must know something
are useful
qua rry. Cer tain ly the size, shape, and construction
t sort of sea-
pieces of info rma tion . The n it is helpful to know wha
something
resistant arti fact s each class of ship carr ied and whether
cts or from
valu able can be lear ned from retrieving those obje
ally it is im-
stud ying deta ils of the ship construction methods. Fin
ken ones can
por tant to kno w where the ships voyaged, so that sun
be sou ght in area s of high probability.
they were
Thi s cha pter will describe anc ient warships, the way
Egyptians
fought, and the city-states they served. As the anc ient
.."
said, "To spe ak of the dead is to mak e them live again
carefully
The earliest kno wn pict ure of seagoing warships was
245 0 e.c .-
carv ed on the tom b of a Pha rao h nam ed Sah ure in
s brought
two hun dre d yea rs afte r Pha rao h Sneferu's forty ship
e. The tom b
ced ars from Leb ano n in the first reco rded sea trad
Pha rao h's
dra win g sho wed a fleet of troo p tran spo rts carr ying the
ove r thirty
sold iers to som e por t in Asia. The ships look to be
iously, they
met ers long, propelled by oar s as well as sails. Obv
were the pro duc t of long years of development.
the Aegean
Dur ing the sec ond mil lenn ium e.c., the peo ple of
built a very
sho wed thei r stre ngt h at sea. The Min oan s of Cre te
40 D E E P W AT E R , A N C I E N T S H I P S

high level of civilization, with cities and palaces that show no signs
of defensive works. One explanation is that they relied on the
same kind of "wooden walls" the oracle recommended to the
Greeks during the Persian war a thousand years later. These
wooden walls were fighting ships, ready to defend the island
against all intruders. Thucydides wrote that "Minos is the first to
whom tradition ascribes the possession of a Navy." According to
Lionel Casson, "Their bold programs of overseas exploration and
colonization, their far flung trade and their unwalled cities presup-
poses the existence of a great fleet." About 1500 B.c., the Minoan
culture seems to have suddenly disintegrated. One hypothesis is
that the great sea wave from the explosion of the volcano at San-
torin wiped out the defending warships on the beaches and in the
harbors along the northern coast. At any rate, by 1450 B.c. the
fleet that had maintained order was gone and the chaos of sea
raiders prevailed.
The Mycenaean Greeks then moved across the narrow channel
from the Peleponnesus in strength and took over Crete, its colo-
nies, and its commerce. Presumably they used warships, or at least
troop transports, and readily subdued the Minoans, who were
unprepared for land war. Mycenaean sea power rose quickly but
faded in a few hundred years, leaving little trace. We do not know
what their ships looked like; the record of those ships, if it exists,
is on the sea floor.
As the Mycenaean grip on the seas began to slip, the rovers and
pirates of Lycia ( in southwestern Asia Minor) and the nearby
isles-presumably Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades-banded
together and formed raiding parties that swept the shores of the
eastern Mediterranean. These rovers were contemporaries with
the ones who became known as the "Sea Peoples," whose JITeat,
Byblos ) agains t raiders , as well as protec t their mercha ntmen, the
Phoeni cians must have had a consid erable navy. Certain ly, they
ventur ed to distant , unfrien dly shores and domin ated the eastern
Medite rranea n from 1J 00 to 800 B.c., althoug h few details of
their ships of that period are known. Later. in the fifth century ,
they minted coins showin g fighting ships that were equiva lent to
those of the Greeks .
The first Greek ships of which we have a reason ably clear pic-
ture are the ones describ ed by the poet Homer in the eighth cen-
tury B.c. He told of the galleys of the Trojan War, in the Bronze
Age, severa l hundre d years earlier. The ships he describ ed seem to
have been a combin ation of those traditio nally associa ted with
Jason' s Argon auts and the ships Homer saw about him. They
were pentec onters, long and slender , swift and black, painted with
pitch except for the bow eyes. Such ships would have been about
twenty meters long, low in the water and undeck ed. They were
similar to, but probab ly less gracefu l than, the Viking ships of two
thousa nd years later. They were built either for trading or raiding ,
as suited the captain 's fancy. Such ships must have been light and
strong, to permit freque nt beachi ngs and occasio nal portage . The
rowing crew was fi.fty men, half on each side, one oar per man,
and one steerin g oar on each side of the stem. There were also a
mast and sail that could readily be steppe d and rigged if there
were a followi ng wind. The crew would haul in on the foresta ys,
raising the mast into its slot and tighten ing the backsta y. Then
they would hoist the single cross yard. The sail was square , proba...
bly of linen patche s sewn checke rboard fashion betwee n strengt h-
ening leather thongs , and suppor ted from the yard, against which
it was furled. The sail was raised and lowere d by a series of
lines called brails that looped around the foot, or bottom of the
sail, so that it could be shorten ed by gatheri ng it upward to the
woode n yard, somew hat like a venetia n blind.
Becaus e the wind was contra ry much of the time, the ship was
often rowed. One such ship becam e known as the "hundr ed-
handed giant of the Aegea n"-a very apt descrip tion of fifty men
rowin g-not at all the mythic al monste r portray ed by some
roman tic artists. The ship would have been about wide enough to
allow two men to sleep end to end on each rowing bench. With
such accommodations, it is no wonder they preferred to go ashore
every night to sleep on some soft beach where they could forage
for food and build fires. Warships were not intended for good liv-
ing even though the men that crewed them were sea rovers and
adventurers used to rough conditions. Provisions, water in
goatskin bags, and weapons were stowed under the benches. It
must have been a hard life.
The oars were about four meters long and were levered against
thole pins ( vertical wooden pins that serve as lever points for the
oars) , being secured there by leather straps so that when the men
dropped them to fight or to handle the sail the oars would not
slide off and drift away. The steering oars, operated from the
short, raised afterdeck, were also partly supported by leather
thongs. Perhaps there was a stempost, against which the steers-
man could brace himself. Because these ships were so low in the
water, there may also have been a low rail along the sides to
which some kind of a temporary screen of cloth or leather could
be rigged -much as the Norsemen used shields two thousand
years later to keep out the wind, the blown spray, and small
waves.
Certainly the idea that a shipload of adventurers could circum-
navigate the Black Sea as Jason and his fellow rovers did and
bring back stories of hitherto unknown lands was pretty exciting.
It must have seemed to their fellow Greeks as far out as a moon
shot seems to us now, and a golden fleece is more romantic than a
chip of moon rock. Tales of winged men (Babylonian statues ),
moving rocks (icebergs), and a witch princess (Mede a) must
have made the stay-at-homes tingle with vicarious delight. Eventu-
ally the tales became legend, but in the meantime the stories en-
couraged the development of better ships for adventuring.
Most warships, from earliest times until after the battle of
Lepanto, in 1571, were galleys. They were driven by men's mus-
cles, pulling on oars. Although most fighting ships of early times
carried masts and sails for long passages at sea, sails were not
dependable enough for fighting. Men were much better-disciplined
than the wind.
Most of the naval engagements of the ancient world were prob-
ably fought within a mile or so of shore. This is because the ships
were essentially land-based fighting tools. They were manned by
soldiers and commanded by generals. In fights between ships, or-
dinary swords, missiles, and spears were used and the tactics were
like those on land. The soldiers slept and ate on shore, drawing
the ship up on a sandy beach every night, stem first, ready to
shove off in a hurry to do battle. On long cruises, headed for some
distant rendezvous with an enemy fleet, they tended to follow the
shore lines and stay within sight of land rather than strike off
across the sea. When they sailed, they could only run before the
wind or with it on the beam, because of the flat-bottomed hull and
square sail.
Doubtless, there were numerous times when these early
warships had to cross wide passages out of sight of land--either
rowing or under sail-and this they did only when necessary and
always with trepidation. When King Nestor and his men returned
to Greece from the Trojan War, in about 1200 B.c., he directly
crossed the Aegean from Lesbos to Euboea, a distance of a
hundred and ten miles, instead of the customary flitting from
island to island for nightly camp-outs. At three knots, even on a
somewhat zigzag course, this risky voyage took less than two days,
but the expedition members were so pleased to reach the new
shore safely they made a great sacrifice to Zeus. This episode un-
wittingly reveals quite a bit about the dangers to warships at sea
in the Bronze Age. Since Nestor's courage is undoubted, there
must have been a very bad record of ship losses, perhaps caused
by the sudden violent winds and poor stability, to have made him
so concerned. Possibly he wasn't certain about which direction to
take, or he thought the sky would be cloudy and obscure the stars
so he could not navigate, or he thought his boats had too little
freeboard to survive a storm. Clearly, Nestor and his associates
thought their open penteconters (which probably were loaded with
booty and souvenirs) had a good chance of sinking as they
crossed the deep water headed for home. Perhaps some did.
There are certain difficulties in training a large crew of men to
row a ship. Anyone who has watched naval cadets rowing whale-
boats, or crewmen from a large passenger liner practice with life-
boats in a quiet harbor, has an inkling of the problem. Those are
small craft with six to twelve rowers. Until the crew bas had con-
siderab le practic e, there is a great likelih ood of "catch ing a crab"
( the oar not digging deeply enough into the water and sudden ly
skittering along the surface when the power stroke is carelessly
applie d) or getting out of synchronization and tangling oars. In
larger ships, with hundre ds of rowers, it would be difficult to keep
all the rowers in good health and a high state of training; there
must have been many "crabs ," bumpe d oars, and other foul-ups.
Certain ly a lot of practic e was require d to co-ord inate the actions
of hundre ds of men so that they rowed effectively in unison. The
rowers had to learn to start and stop quickly, and to tum the ship
in its own length by packin g down on one side and pulling ahead
on the other. But, in warships, they rowed as though their lives
depend ed on it. Which they did.
War upon the sea in the early days, once it had develo ped
beyond the stage of looting and taking slaves from coastal cities,
had as its ultima te objective the contro l of sea-bo rne comme rce.
Piracy was the first step, but contro l of the trade routes and the es-
tablish ment of colonies by a formal military machin e were vital to
expansion. The sea was the most conven ient highway of the ir-
regularly shore-lined Medite rranea n, and the destruc tion of the
ships of a city-st ate could cut off its food supplies and its colonies.
The need for greater speed and power in sea battles led to the
develo pment of several new rowing schemes: several men on each
oar, oars of different lengths on one slanted bench, and a second
tier of oars mount ed on the fighting deck above. The latter type of
ship, the bireme, improv ed the speed withou t increasing the length
or width.
Sometime, in the ninth centur y B.c., the ram was invented. This
led almost immediately to the develo pment of the triere, or
trireme as it is popula rly known .
The trireme was a three-b anked warshi p made specifically for
fighting with the ram. It was a fast ship becaus e it was slende r and
yet carried many more rowers than previo us ships. This was made
possible by the use of an outrigg er beam to hold tholepins a bit
above and outboa rd of the upper deck level. This arrang ement
permit ted an entire new bank of rowers to be added withou t
requiring longer oars or widening the hull. With this outrigg er
beam serving as an oar fulcrum, the oars of the upper rowers