A Study of the Sewn‐Plank Boats of Goa,India

The study of traditional boats has enhanced our knowledge of the maritime past. Traditional boats are both river‐ and sea‐worthy. They have been used in rivers for transporting cargo to inland ports from ships anchored at sea, and have often been used in naval warfare. In this paper an attempt has been made to study the sewn‐plank boats of Goa, their building techniques and other features in order to understand their quality and how they were used in the past for an inland river‐transport system. © 2011 The Authors     

Fragments of Boats from the Canale Anfora of Aquileia,Italy, and Comparison of Sewn‐Plank Ships in the Roman Era

Fragments of Roman sewn‐plank boats have been found, during rescue excavations, in the Canale Anfora, an artificial channel used by Roman ships to enter the Roman city of Aquileia. Remains were found in both 1988 and 2005 at the same site. Elements of what were probably two boats are analysed and compared to other finds of Roman sewn boats found along the coast of the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. They are evidence of the use of this technique, instead of the more widespread mortise‐and‐tenon system, in the quite limited area of the Northern Adriatic. These boats were used both for inland and for maritime navigation.     

The Achill Yawl: vernacular boats in historical context on Achill Island,Ireland

Achill yawls, originally introduced to Ireland as ships' boats aboard Norwegian merchantmen, developed into distinct working vessels along Achill Island's shores during the 19th century. These boats were subsequently modified for recreational racing in the mid‐20th century. Despite changes to their design, they are often nostalgically viewed as traditional symbols of an Achill islander identity, though their popularity may have been prompted by late‐19th‐century British legislation. The authors take an ethnographic approach in interpreting Achill yawls over time, contextualizing their social functions through an exploration of primary historical and photographic archives, extant vessels, and interviews with Achill islanders. © 2010 The Authors     

Re‐sewing the Sewn: An Ethnographic Record of Repair and Reuse of Sewn‐plank River Boats in Goa,India

The tradition of fastening planked boats using sewing is characteristic of the Indian Ocean region. Despite known disadvantages of sewn boats, including that perishable materials need regular maintenance and repair, operators of boats used in the sand‐mining industry of Goa still see potential in discarded sewn boats. The problems, raw materials used, technology, and process of re‐sewing and repairing these boats to give them a second life are reported and discussed here.     

Clay models of Phoenician vessels in the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa, Israel

Two clay models of boats have recently been added to the collection of the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa. The models are of rowing boats, with three and five pairs of oarsmen respectively. They probably represent harbour service boats or ceremonial sailings near a harbour. Their analysis is based on similar artefacts found underwater along the same coast and related to the same Phoenician culture. The origin of the artefacts is apparently from close to Tyre, and they can be dated to the 5th century BCE. They may have been from a temple favissa .     

Ground-penetrating radar survey at the pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur,Egypt, 2008: search for the lost boat of a Pharaoh

A survey at Dahshur, Egypt, employed 3-D ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in an attempt to locate pharaonic boat burials at the pyramid complex of King Senwosret III. In AD 1894, the original excavator reported finding five or six boats; however, only four “Dahshur boats” are known in museum collections today. The suspected site of the lost boat burial(s) lay beneath the large 1894 excavation backfill pile. The steep topography of the backfill required nonstandard GPR processing methods to accurately image the subsurface of the site. Although revealing no definitive traces of any remaining boats, imaging results did indicate discernible strata associated with the original naturally deposited surface, an excavated boat pit, debris and fill associated with either its original creation or its excavation, and deeper, presently unidentified archaeological remains.     

Measurements,figures and formulas for the interpretation of Western Norwegian boats and viking ships

Along the coast of Norway we find a family of closely‐related boats. The Nordlands boat is one of them, and in many respects it is the most modern. The plan for the shape of these boats is typically coded into figures. Thus the “secret” of the boat's structure is a sort of “number code”. The question addressed here is: to what extent can the shape of the hull in Viking ships be expressed as a number code similar to that of the 19th‐century west‐coast boats of Norway. The principles behind the methods used to explore this question will be illustrated by three basic concepts, which will be treated separately below.     

The Traditional Boats of Vietnam,an Overview

This paper addresses the material boat culture of Vietnam both in its current context and more specifically through an assessment of how the boats of Vietnam have been studied in the past. It presents a comprehensive summary of past publications describing the construction, use and variety of boats in the region, from the earliest volumes to modern research projects, including the work of the US military. It highlights the rich diversity of construction approaches and boat‐types that are still built and used, and demonstrates the need for further field research to record the fast‐disappearing traditional boats of Vietnam. © 2010 The Authors     

Digital Photogrammetry for Documentation of Maritime Heritage

Documentation of maritime heritage is essential for its protection, and for reference in restoration and renovation processes. These functions become problematic in the case of historical ships and boats that lack lines drawings. The purpose of this paper is to describe a procedure for creation of lines drawings based on the shape analysis of surviving historical boats or their small-scale models with the help of reverse engineering (RE) techniques. The paper describes how digital photogrammetry and the iterative method were used to analyze the shape of three historical boats: Tomahawk, Refola and Nada. The application of the proposed procedure produced the lines drawings of the boats as its result. The accuracy of the 3D CAD model obtained with the photogrammetric technique was verified by comparing it against a more accurate 3D model produced with the help of a RE laser scanner. The examination of the resulting lines drawings proves that the digital photogrammetry process and the proposed iterative method are adequate tools for developing lines plans of boat models. The research offers the methodological basis for the creation of an archive of lines drawings of historical boats. Such an archive would provide reference for philologically correct restorations, and permit definition and classification of distinctive elements of various types of historical boats, particularly those produced in the Campania Region.     

Sewn Boats in Oman and the Indian Ocean

Sewn boats have been ubiquitous across the globe throughout history (Greenhill and Morrison, 1995: 118) and fibre and wood were the fundamental boatbuilding materials in the Oman peninsula for millennia. Evidence for their use appears in the archaeological record in the 3rd millennium BCE but the level of technical development plus the archaeological record of international trade, suggest a much longer history. This paper reviews elements of the information from historical texts, ethnography, and archaeology in a synthesis to broadly outline the development and characteristics of sewn boats in the Indian Ocean.     

Boats and meaning: A study of change and continuity in the Alta fjord,arctic Norway,from 4200 to 500 years B.C.

This paper is an analysis of socioeconomic and symbolic meaning associated with rock carvings of boats which were carved on rock surfaces between 4200 and 500 calendric years B.C. in the Alta fjord, arctic Norway. The carvings, which are divided into four diachronic phases, change in form and partly in content, approximately contemporaneous with the general archaeological record. The analysis of the human figures associated with the boats indicates that there were functional and possibly status differences, in the real as well as in the mythological world. There are also diachronic changes in the activities in which the boats are depicted. The changes in the carvings might be associated with other cultural transformations such as in material culture and socioeconomic and religious systems, among northern hunters and fishers. Some of the changes could be influenced by ideologies associated with Neolithic and Bronze Age socioeconomic systems further south in Scandinavia.     

Seascapes and Landscapes—the Siting of the Ferriby Boat Finds in the Context of Prehistoric Pilotage

The foreshore of North Ferriby, within the Humber estuary, is the site of the earliest sewn plank boats known outside Egypt. Despite a large corpus of research relating to their construction and function, there has, as yet, been no consideration of their location. This paper examines the contemporary environment and sailing conditions of the Humber during the Bronze Age, and assesses pilotage in relation to natural features that might help to explain why North Ferriby was such a significant focus for Bronze Age mariners.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The Depositional Contexts of the Ships from Thonis‐Heracleion,Egypt

Over 70 ancient vessels have been discovered by the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous‐Marine in the port‐city of Thonis‐Heracleion, Egypt. These were deposited both individually and in groups from the 8th to the 2nd century BC. This paper investigates the contexts of these vessels to suggest that a variety of explanations—shipwrecking, ritual deposition, abandonment, and structural reuse—account for their deposition. It also seeks to place these events within the changing landscape of Thonis‐Heracleion to understand the agency behind many of the decisions about what to do with old ships and boats at the end of their use‐life.     

An 18th century boat in Lake Padarn, North Wales

The Llyn Padarn wreck is a bateau style vessel of the late 18th century. Assuming that it is one of the boats built by the quarry company it was constructed between February 1788 and February 1789. If it was built by one of the independent boatmen its date of construction is uncertain, however its excellent state of preservation suggests that it was still relatively new when it sank, and this also would point towards it being one of the company boats. Whatever the date of building, the boat certainly sank between 1788 and 1824, but the quality of the cargo suggests that it was towards the beginning rather than the end of that period. It is of historic interest as one of the few surviving examples of the bateau style of boat building. and it is also one of the best preserved examples of its kind. It also throws some light on the early history of the North Wales slate industry, on the history of travel and transport on Llyn Padarn, and on the lake settlements at Cwm y Glo and Penllyn. The Padarn boat is now being put into E'EG conservation by the National Museum of Wales, and will subsequently be exhibited in the North Wales Quarry Museum at Llanberis. It would be interesting to know what happened to all the other boats which were evidently working on the lakes in the 18th and early 19th centuries. No doubt most were destroyed when their usefulness came to an end, but if one sank there may well be others, and in due course the Welsh Institute of Maritime Archaeology hopes to carry out a remote sensing survey of Padarn using side-scan sonar and low light television. In addition, the upper lake, Llyn Peris, is to be drained in connection with the massive Pump Storate Generating Scheme which has once again turned the derelict quarries into one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe. It is certain that these two lakes still have secrets to reveal. I would like to thank the staff of the North Wales Quarry Museum for their patient assistance and advice in the preparation of this article; Mr Brian Buckle of North Wales Divers Ltd, Colwyn Bay, for providing me with a copy of his survey of the wreck site; Mr Derwyn Jones, the Welsh Librarian in the University Library, Bangor for bringing to my attention various references to Margaret ferch Evans, and my colleague Mr Emlyn Sherrington for translating certain passages from the Welsh.     

Moulds,Graminhos and Ribbands: a pilot study of the construction of saveiros in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos area,Brazil

The survival of late medieval Mediterranean techniques to conceive and build ships and boats in Brazil was noted by John Patrick Sarsfield in the 1980s, but his study of the Valença shipwrights was interrupted by his untimely death in 1990. This paper summarizes Sarsfield's account of these shipbuilding techniques, examines that published by Lev Smarcevski (1996), and provides some preliminary results of the pilot stage of a project to further research traditional shipbuilding in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos region.     

In Search of the Social: Steamboats, Square Wheels, Reindeer and Other Things

This paper examines the concept of the ‘social,’ particularly from an archaeological perspective, and explores how it relates to the ways in which we seek to understand the processes of technological innovation and change. It is demonstrated that the concept ‘social’ is far from well defined and that enquiry is bedevilled by artificial polarization between subject-centred approaches and object-centred particularism. Through the medium of early United States steamboat technology a different approach is forged through the melding of people and things with the idea of viewing artefacts as active social actors along with people. Ultimately, it is argued that maritime archaeologists should be more bullish in their approaches to material things—instead of adopting social theories ‘wholesale,’ we should insist that they include the things we study: boats, material objects, people, artefacts, landscapes and animals.     

Death by Water: Boats and Footprints in the Rock Art of Western Sweden

This paper considers two of the key images in the Bronze Age rock carvings of Bohuslän in relation to the wider landscape. It compares the distribution of cairns on islands off the west coast of Sweden with that of similar monuments on low hills surrounded by drawings of boats. These are often in areas which had previously been occupied by the sea. Perhaps the drawings of boats evoked an expanse of water separating the world of the living from the burial places of the dead. If so, the lines of footprints leading between these two areas may also refer to the passage between life and death.     

Boats in the rock art of Kanozero and Northern Europe

A comparative analysis of boats depicted in the rock art of Lake Kanozero and Northern Europe suggests that they refer to the same type, which was common in northern cultures and was characterized by a protruding straight keel, an oblique sternpost, and a stem post decorated with an elk head. The design apparently consisted of a broad keel plank to which the sides, bow, and stern were attached. In boats represented at Kanozero, this plank protrudes forward, beyond the nose, and backward, beyond the stern.     

Interpretations of Prehistoric Boat Remains

The simple assembly methods and long-unpractised boatbuilding and seamanship skills waiting to be discovered from those few shattered remains of British prehistoric boats make practical interpretation of their original form and function both a fascinating mental exercise and a quagmire for any tempted to publish their thoughts. Some contemporary views are reconsidered and in the spirit of scientific exploration others are offered to promote further debate.
© 2005 The Author     

Manipulating the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Vernacular Boats and Economic Relations on Nineteenth-Century Achill Island,Ireland

Resistance to British control of Ireland’s maritime landscape under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922) was highly localized, enacted in part through Irish choices in boat construction and patterns of movement at sea. British naval authorities overseeing Achill Island in County Mayo used both coercive and conciliatory means to replace Irish subsistence fishing from regional vernacular boats with commercial fishing from larger non-local vessels reliant upon piers and dredged harbors. These changes encouraged islanders’ dependency upon imported food and wage-based employment performed under Protestant surveillance. Indigenous boats including curraghs and yawls played central roles in Irish resistance to these changes, through the assertion of traditional lifeways and practices.