MATERIAL CULTURE AND ECONOMICS ■ 221

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2 1
KEY SITES
3
4 Three Mediterranean shipwrecks
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Three wrecks excavated in one
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region of the Mediterranean over the
7
last forty years provide a glimpse
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not only of trade patterns of the
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ancient world but of how
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shipbuilding techniques changed over
1 2
time in response to social and
2
environmental factors.
3
4
Kyrenia, Cyprus c. 300 BC
5
6 This wreck was a small merchant
7 vessel with a cargo of amphorae
8 from the island of Rhodes, identi-
9 fiable by their seal stamps, and
201111 millstones. There were very few 3

1 personal possessions, only a few

2 bone eyelets from a sandal and
3 some fig seeds. Underneath the hull
4 a collection of concretions were
5 recovered. When opened and used to
6 produce resin casts they proved to
7 be iron javelins, some of them bent
8 from impact on the hull. Since
9 there are no natural hazards in the
30 area, this evidence led the Figure 10.16 The decay of the Kyrenia wreck
1 excavators to believe that pirates
2 may have sunk the Kyrenia. The
3 vessel had settled down onto the ocean bed, and gradually became covered in silt. As its mast
4 and rigging rotted away, the lower part of the hull was forced outwards by the weight of the
5 cargo and broke apart.
6
Protected by the silt, which choked off oxygen and killed the marine worms that infested it, the
7
remains of the hull were preserved. The ship was built in the traditional way of the classical
8
Greeks, which is ‘hull first’. Planks are carved by eye to fit along a keel, with timber selected
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for its natural curvature as appropriate to different parts of the vessel. The sculpted planks
40
were held together along their edges by thousands of mortise and tenon joints which gave a
1
very strong hull braced only with frames at a later stage. This process wasted 70–80 per cent
2
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222 ■ ARCHAEOLOGY COURSEBOOK

KEY SITES cont.

of the wood used and required a high standard of craftsmanship from the shipwright. It would
only be possible in a society which valued craftsmanship, where raw materials were abundant
and where time was no problem. The man who built the Kyrenia was probably a slave and his
time was his master’s.

Yassi Ada, Turkey c. AD 625

This wreck was dated by coins recovered from the wreck to the reign of the Byzantine
Emperor Heraclius. An elaborate ‘steelyard’ with the head of a boar at one end and a sliding
bust of Athena at the other declared itself to be the property of ‘George senior, sea-captain’.
Historical documents suggest he was one of a growing class of merchants who financed their
own ventures and often captained their own ship. The vessel itself was partly constructed in the
old classical ‘hull-first’ style, with logs sculpted to fit. However, this time the mortise and tenon
joints were less carefully executed. They were fewer in number and often nails were driven
through them once the plank was located. The upper section of the hull was built by the new
‘frame-first’ method. Many flat planks were cut from a log and twisted against internal frames
as they moved forward along the hull. This more economical use of materials and time suggests
that social conditions had changed from the time that the Kyrenia was built. The Byzantine
shipwright was a free man contracted to do the job. His employer would have been concerned
to save time and timber and therefore money. Byzantine society still used slaves but only in the
household and not in an industrial context.

Serce Limani, Turkey

This medieval Arab merchant vessel was found to contain a cargo of glass. Eighty intact pieces
from the ends of the ship possibly represented personal possessions or items of merchandise
but the centre of the ship held several tonnes of raw and broken glass. The raw glass or ‘cullet’
would have been added to new batches to improve quality and the broken glass seems to
represent the sweepings from a glass factory. Many of the pieces were twisted or malformed in
the process of blowing or moulding and had been discarded. The excavators classified the
millions of pieces of glass by sorting them according to attributes such as colour, pattern and
location on original vessels, for example rim sherds. By following this process meticulously a
large number of pieces were eventually re-assembled. The cargo demonstrates craft speciali-
sation and the technology of production, but the fabric of the ship itself is equally rewarding.
The Serce Limani ship was built entirely by the ‘frame-first’ technique. First the keel was laid
down. Frames were attached to it and planks bent around the frame to form the hull. The
technique is still used in shipyards around the Mediterranean and gives a strong hull while
being economical in use of wood. Many hull planks can be cut from a single log. This
development clearly happened between the building of the Yassi Ada and the Serce Limani
 MATERIAL CULTURE AND ECONOMICS ■ 223

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2
KEY SITES cont.
3
4
wrecks in the early medieval period when historical scholars tell us that there was considerable
5
conflict between the expanding Arab world and the Byzantine Empire. Historical records
6
describe massive losses of ships through warfare. It is easy to visualise a cycle of forest
7
clearance to feed an ever-increasing demand for ships creating a situation where there was
8
pressure to budget-build new ships. The Serce Limani vessel shows signs of compromise on
9
quality and it was also ‘armed to the teeth’. In addition to the glass, large numbers of spears
10
and a cache of fine swords were discovered. These three wrecks demonstrate diachronic change
1
in technology over a thousand-year period and a range of economic specialisation (
see
2
p. 227).
3
4 http://www.diveturkey.com/ http://www.diveturkey.com/
5 inaturkey/projects.htm inaturkey/serce.htm
6
7
8
Economy
9 Trade goods
201111 Trade routes
Amphora stamps
1 Post-excavation Craft specialisation Excavation
2 Artefact Communication Underwater archaeology
3 categories Transport Techniques
Attributes
4
5
6 Dates
Kyrenia
7 Coins and TPQ
Conservation ‘Time capsule’
8
Waterlogged wood
9 Glass
30 Organic residues Three Shipwrecks Social organisation
Concretions and Slavery
1
casts Free labour
i
an

2
Ya

ss Warfare
iA Li m
3 da
Ser
ce Hierarchy
4
5
6
7 Documents Material culture Display and Presentation
Vase-paintings Industrial production Raising wrecks
8 Medieval chronicles Specialisation Long-term preservation
9 Inscriptions Shipbuilding techniques Reconstruction
40 Diachronic change Model-building
Glassworking
1 Amphorae
2
Figure 10.17 Three shipwrecks: the key aspects and links
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 MATERIAL CULTURE AND ECONOMICS ■ 227

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2
KEY SKILL
3
4 Improve your style!
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A comment frequently seen on student reports and returned work is ‘your style could be
6
improved’. It is often difficult to work out what this means and harder still to do something in
7
response. Sometimes the comment actually refers to structure and sometimes to written
8
English. Generally speaking it is about how you knit the essay together. Here are three
9
mechanical things you can do to help yourself in your next piece of work:
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1
1 Use words and phrases which lead you to consider several pieces of evidence and
2
reach judgements
3
4
Include all of the following at least once:
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6 for example however therefore an alternative
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potentially extent on the other hand nevertheless
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2 Gobbets and gambits
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1 One way of looking at your notes is that they represent lots of chunks of knowledge. These are
2 your gobbets. In writing a response to a question you need to join these together as seamlessly
3 as possible. The linking phrases which join up explanations or examples are gambits. (
see
4 p. 164.)
5
6 3 Vary your sentence length
7
At secondary school you may have been encouraged to use longer words and more complex
8
sentences. Sometimes this can lead to rather turgid writing. To make your work more ‘punchy’,
9
experiment with alternating sentence length. Short sentences can give your work more impact
30
and are often clearer. Never use a complex word if a simpler one does the job just as well.
1
2
3
4
SPECIALISATION available to all members of society. It may
5
6 Specialisation is often used as an indicator of indicate age and gender differentiation. There
7 social complexity. It demonstrates a degree of are two main types of specialisation:
8 interdependence within a society and often ■ Attached specialists are craftsmen who live
9 between that society and others. The more in close proximity to a high status person.
40 complex a society becomes the more interde- They may be part of their extended family
1 pendent its members become. If the production and related by birth or marriage.
2 of artefacts is concentrated in the hands of a ■ Independent specialists produce goods to
3111 few people it also implies skills are not market for their own profit. They are not