Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Sewn plank boats: archaeological and ethnographic papers (based on those presented at a conference at Greenwich in November 1984; Bar International Series 276) S. McGRAIL and E. KENTLEY (Eds)
Tarquin's ship ALEXANDER McKEE
The search for the oldest shipwrecks in the world DAVID THORNTON
The shorter science and civilisation in China, vol. 3, nautics (abridgement of Joseph Needham's original) COLIN RONAN
Les hommes et la mer dans I'Europe du nord-ouest de I'antiquitéà nos jours A. LOTTIN, J.-C. HOCQUE and STEPHANIE LEBECQ (Eds)
Early American ships JOHN FITZHUGH MILLER
Marine archaeology and the diver ANDY LOCKERY
The discovery of the Titanic ROBERT D. BALLARD and RICK ARCHBOLD     

Reviews

The George and the Mary ALAN H. FAULKNER
Mersey and Weaver flats, EDWARD PAGET-TOMLINSON
Knobsticks, ROBERT J. WILSON
Boatyards and boatbuilding, ROBERT J. WILSON
The world of model ships and boats, GUY R. WILLIAMS
Prisoner-of-war ship models 1775-1825 EWART C. FREESTON
Baiavia catalogue Compiled by MYRA STANBURY
Sealed bottles. Their history and evolution (1630-1930) ROY MORGAN
Les Variations du Niveau Marin depuis 2000 ans, PAOLO PIRAZZOLI     

‘The Social’ and Beyond: Introducing Actor-Network Theory

In recent years, it has been suggested (e.g. TAG 2002, 2006; IKUWA3 2008) that it is necessary for the discipline to move beyond the study of ships and boats towards the ‘wider social contexts’ of seafaring and maritime activity. This paper investigates the contours of ‘social’ as an object of study. Two questions are asked: (1) how is this object defined within sociology, classical and contemporary social theory, and archaeology; and (2) what is the status of nonhumans, physical-material things, artefacts, plants, animals, etc.? After taking a look at several different theories, it is argued that it is not necessary for us to move beyond ships and boats. Instead, an alternative approach is offered, one that allows us to move beyond the restrictive ontology of the social.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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     

Boats and Boatbuilding in Tanzania (Dar‐es‐Salaam and Zanzibar)

A wide variety of traditional wooden boats and small ships can still be seen in use and being built on the mainland of Tanzania and the island of Zanzibar. This paper compares different accounts in the literature with observations made in 2012, and documents in detail the various stages of building wooden dhows on the beaches of Zanzibar.     

Horse and cargo handling on Medieval Mediterranean ships

The history of ships and boats is filled out through three forms of evidence: archaeological discoveries, textual sources, and a corpus of artistic images. Art from Venice and Ravenna in north-east Italy and the Topkapi Museum in Instanbul, Turkey, offers keys to understanding several questions of Medieval ship-loading practices in the Mediterranean, including cargo loading, and where the war-horse entered his Crusader's ship.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
First aid for marine finds. WENDY S. ROBINSON
Merchant sailing ships, 1775-1815. DAVID R. MACGREGOR
The dhow, an illustrated history of the dhow and its world. CLIFFORD W. HAWKINS
Dhows. DAVID HOWARTH
The Northseamen. JOHN LEATHER
Coals from Newcastle. ROGER FINCH
The ship in the medieval economy, 600— 1600. RICHARD W. UNGER
The history of Dover harbour. ALEC HASENSON
West Coast shipping. M. K. STAMMERS
Wangka: Austronesian canoe origins. EDWIN DORAN
Rafts, boats and ships—from prehistoric times to the medieval era. SEAN McGRAIL     

The Bronze Age Ferriby Boats: Seagoing Ships or Estuary Ferry Boats?

Two different reconstructions of these boats have been published. They have very different capabilities, affecting our understanding of the extensive seafaring in NW Europe during the 3rd and 2nd millennia. Whether it was more likely to have been by planked timber ships, rather than by smaller and more fragile hide boats, should if possible be resolved. One reconstruction of Ferriby could have been seagoing, the other not. This article records the origins of the two reconstructions and the different evidence upon which they are based, and calls for clarification of the reasons for doubting the evidence for the rockered and deeper-hulled reconstruction published by Wright in 1990 .
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Model Boats in the Context of Maritime History and Archaeology

Funereal, votive or shipbuilders' model boats and ships have been quite well documented in the past, but little research has been undertaken into other wooden models from north-west Europe. There have been over 160 found during archaeological excavations, dating from the 9th to the 19th centuries. A study of these 'toys' is not just a study of objects among the minor arts, but reflects a far more important aspect—a source for interpreting remains of full-size vessels, the hypothetical reconstruction of hull-forms and exploration of new ways of defining unknown vessel-types.
© 2007 The Author     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
The funerary boats of Khufu. A bdel M oneim A bubakr & A hmed Y oussef M ustafa
Schiffsmodelle in Alten Ägypten. A rvid G ottlicher & W alter W erner
Three major ancient boat finds in Britain. H. H azelhoff R oelfzema
Britain and the western seaways. E. G. B owen
Clenched lap or clinker. E ric M c K ee
Gunpowder and galleys. Changing technology and Mediterranean warfare at sea in the sixteenth century. J ohn F rancis G uilmartin , J r
The sloops of the Hudson. W illiam E. V eerplanck & M oses W. C ollyer
History of New York shipyards. J ohn H. M orrison
Windjammers of the Horn. A. G. C ourse
The Lusitania case Collected by C. L. D roste . W. H. T atum IV (Ed.)
America's lighthouses: their illustrated history since 1716. F rancis R oss H olland , J r
A history of lighthouses. P atrick B eaver
Marine archaeology. D. J. B lackman (Ed.)
The conservation of antiquities and works of art Treatment, repair and restoration. H. J. P lenderleith & A. E. A. W erner     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Ancient trade and society LIONEL CASSON
Underwater expeditions ROB PALMER
Vol. I. Merchant sailing ships 1775–1815: sovereignty of sail DAVID R. MACGREGOR
Vol. III. Merchant sailing ships 1850–1875: heyday of sail DAVID R. MACGREGOR
Sweet track to Glastonbury—the Somerset levels in prehistory BRYONY and JOHN COLES
Die Galeonen PETER KIRSCH
La grande époque de la marine à voile MARTINE ACERRA and JEAN MEYER
Argusgrunden—a 7000-year-old settlement on the sea-floor off south-east Denmark A. FISCHER, U. MØHL, P. BENNIKE, C. MALMROS. H. TAUBER, J. SCHOU HANSEN and P. SMED
La révolution maritime du XIXe. Sièle
Warrior —restoring the world's first ironclad ANDREW LAMBERT
The immortal Warrior —Britain's first and last battleship JOHN WELLS
Drawings of the USS Monitor —a catalog and technical analysis ERNEST W. PETERKIN
Ships, seafaring and society—essays in maritime history TIMOTHY J. RUNYAN
Sejlskibsssfolk (sailing ship people) OLE MORTENSØN     

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.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Archaeology Underwater. The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice. M. DEAN, B. FERRARI, I. OXLEY, M. REDKNAP and K. WATSON (Eds)
Waterfront Archaeology: Proceedings of the Third International Conference, Bristol, 1988 (CBA Research Report No. 74). G. L. GOOD, R. H. JONES and M. W. PONSFORD (Eds)
The Athlit Ram. LIONEL CASSON and J. RICHARD STEFFY (Eds) ELISHA LINDER (Principal Investigator)
The History of Underwater Exploration. ROBERT F. MARX
Mr Greathead's Lifeboats. ADRIAN G. OSLER
Galleon—The Great Ships of the Armada Era. PETER KIRSCH
The Trireme Trials 1988. Report on The Anglo Hellenic Sea Trials of Olympias . J. F. COATES, S. K. PLATIS and J. T. SHAW     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Votivskepp (Ex-voto ships) I-II JONAS BERG.
Cepos de Anclas con Relieves Recuperados en el Mediterráneo Occidental ( Ancorae Antiquae , II) J. BRAVO PÉREZ
North east sail Berwick to King's Lynn ROBERT SIMPER
Archaeology beneath the sea GEORGE F. BASS
Conservation of metal objects from underwater sites. A study in methods DONNY LEON HAMILTON
Camera techniques in archaeology V. M. CONLON
How to use your camera underwater H. E. DOBBS     

Reviews

The Greek trireme of the 5th century B.C. J. COATES AND S. MCGRAIL (Eds.)
The Athenian trireme: the history and reconstruction of an ancient Greek warship J. S. MORRISON and J. F. COATES
Flags at sea TIMOTHY WILSON
Skinboats of Greenland (Vol. I of 'Ships and Boats of the North'series) H. C. PETERSEN
Galleys in the Netherlands L. TH. LEHMANN
La Belle Poule-frégate de 12 de l'lngenieur Guignace 1765 J. BOUDRIOT and H. BERTI
The lost ships of the Royal Navy-1793-1900 W. P. GOSSET
Marine motifs on ancient coins J. RINGEL
Mediterranean man and the sea M. GALLEY and L. L. SEBAI
The Bryggen Papers-Main Series, Vol. I A. E. HERTEIG and A. E. CHRISTENSEN
The Boats G. HUTCHINSON
History of seafaring in the classical world F. MEIJER     

Living with the past: the historic environment

Book revieved in this article:
Living with the past: the historic environment DAVID BAKER
Watching the seaside. Essays on maritime anthropology A. H. J. PRINS
Yorktown's captive fleet JOHN O. SANDS
Merchant Sailing ships 1815–1850-Supremacy of sail, DAVID R. MAcGREGOR
A history of naval architecture JOHN FINCHAM     

Quantifying Ship Shape in Archaeology: Evaluating 3D Geometric Morphometrics

The analysis of the archaeological remains of ships and boats, in particular hull shapes, have been central to wider analysis of performance, function, and significance within past societies. This article reviews established methods of quantifying shape in ship and boat archaeology—linear measurement ratios and form coefficients—and evaluates the utility of 3D geometric morphometrics (GM). The 3D shape of 30 vessels from north‐west Europe dating between 325 BC and AD 1915 are quantified to study how hull shape relates to a vessel's function and intended operating environment. A comparison of the three methods highlights the importance of analysing the complexity of a hull in a holistic manner and demonstrates that 3D GM outperforms the traditional methods.