shipyards at piraeus

[davidb]

http://www.livescience.com/55142-ancient-greek-naval-base-found.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=socialfbls&cmpid=social_ls_514627

Thought people might be interested. 

David

[Patrick Waterson]

Definitely so, David.

Among other things, the Piraeus sheds would seem to allow the maximum length of a trireme at the time of the Persian Wars to be 160 feet or so, i.e. about 40 feet longer than the Olympias.

Curious that the sheds are '25 to 27 feet high' - presumably they mean 'wide', as no width is given and if they are extracting items from a colonnade's foundation it suggests not much is left of the walls.  This suggests a maximum trireme beam width of perhaps 24 feet as opposed to the 18 feet of the Olympias.

[Duncan Head]

Curious that the sheds are '25 to 27 feet high' - presumably they mean 'wide', as no width is given and if they are extracting items from a colonnade's foundation it suggests not much is left of the walls.

The original article from the excavation project is at http://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/da/Forskningsaktiviteter/Forskningsprojekter/Andre-forskningsprojekter/Zeaharbourproject and it says that:

These 22 double-ship sheds were around 80–90 metres in length, 6.5 metres wide and 7.5 metres tall.

Perhaps they managed to reconstruct one or more of the columns - it is not clear how the height estimate was reached.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Duncan: this provides the further information inter alia that 44 triremes (22 double sheds) constituted 12% of the holding capacity of the yard, suggesting 350-ish triremes overall.

Interesting is that the length of individual sheds was '80-90 metres' (260-292.5 feet) as this implies some variation in the length of triremes.  It would be tempting to tie this in with the introduction of lighter construction made possible by the hypozomata perhaps expressing itself in a longer and hence faster vessel.  This is just a guess as there may have been other reasons for varying length in triremes.

[Erpingham]

Thanks, Duncan: this provides the further information inter alia that 44 triremes (22 double sheds) constituted 12% of the holding capacity of the yard, suggesting 350-ish triremes overall.

Interesting is that the length of individual sheds was '80-90 metres' (260-292.5 feet) as this implies some variation in the length of triremes.  It would be tempting to tie this in with the introduction of lighter construction made possible by the hypozomata perhaps expressing itself in a longer and hence faster vessel.  This is just a guess as there may have been other reasons for varying length in triremes.

Reading the excavators report suggests that some uncertainty of the length is caused by the need to estimate how much of the structure at the seaward end has been destroyed by modern harbourworks.

Interesting that they found the slipways for fives elsewhere, which seem to have been wider and probably a bit longer (45 metre slipway for 1 ship as opposed to 80-90m for two triremes).

[Patrick Waterson]

Reading the excavators report suggests that some uncertainty of the length is caused by the need to estimate how much of the structure at the seaward end has been destroyed by modern harbourworks.

So 80 metres (260 feet) plus some educated guesswork leading to a putative 90 metres (292.5 feet) maximum.

The Olympias was built with a length of 121 feet and a beam of 18 feet.  The Piraeus yards suggest a possible length of 130+ feet, but probably not more than 140 unless the vessels were parked with only inches to spare.

Interesting that they found the slipways for fives elsewhere, which seem to have been wider and probably a bit longer (45 metre slipway for 1 ship as opposed to 80-90m for two triremes).

It would seem that the larger Successor ships varied considerably in size. 

"When he heard what had happened, Antigonus the son of Demetrius tried to cross over to Macedonia with an army and a fleet, in order to forestall Ptolemy; and Ptolemy went to confront him with Lysimachus' fleet. In this fleet were some ships which had been sent from Heracleia, six-bankers and five-bankers and transports and one eight-banker called the lion-bearer [Leontophoros], of extraordinary size and beauty. It had 100 rowers on each line, so there were 800 men on each side, making a total of 1,600 rowers. There were also 1,200 soldiers on the decks, and 2 steersmen. When battle was joined, the victory went to Ptolemy who routed the fleet of Antigonus, with the ships from Heracleia fighting most bravely of all; and of the ships from Heracleia, the prize went to the eight-banker "lion-bearer". After this defeat at sea, Antigonus retreated to Boeotia, and Ptolemy crossed over to Macedonia, which he put securely under his control." - Memnon of Heraclea 8.4-6, at attalus.org

The description of the Leontophoros as being 'of extraordinary size and beauty' would seem to indicate that it was significantly more massive than an ordinary octoreme, suggesting that standardisation of size and configuration was not universal.  Some quinqueremes (and indeed some triremes) may have been larger than others, and perhaps we should be wary of trying to fit every example of a particular galley type into a Procrustean ship shed.