Re: Bronze Age ships

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:14:07 GMT, "IEJ" <Iejohansson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Previously we discussed the possibilities of open sea travelling in Ancient
>Age. We have discussed Bronze Age ship found close to Dover in Dover Channel
>etc.
>The question around the possibilities arised once more when I was reading
>archaeologist Lars Blomqvist's Nordsjön Forntidens fruktade farvatten?,
>Gamleby 1992 (quick translation of title: the North Sea Ancient Age's feared
>sea). There I found a note about three english Bronze Age ships found in
>Yorkshire. One of them was 15 meter long. The interesting page was page 54
>where one of the ship's remains were drawn by Gad Rausing(Rausing Gad,
>Prehistoric Boats and ships of Northwestern Europe, Lund 1984). The ship was
>dated to 1700 BC according to both Rausing and Blomqvist.
>
>What I been thinking about yesterday and also today is how would a 15 meter
>long ship made by the tecniques known at that time be for open sea 'sailing'
>or more likely rowing? Maybe they were more advanced than we belive.
>According to Blomqvist who in his book show the simplest reconstruction
>which can be found in Wright E V & Hutchinson G R &Gregson C V A A Fourth
>Boat-Find at North Ferriby, Humberside, The Archaeological Journal, vol 146
>for the year 1989, the ship in some way might have looked like more 'modern'
>ships.
>
>Does anyone know more about this type of ships and is Blomqvist correct in
>his assumptions that such ship/boat might have much longer 'history' then
>the 1700 BC examples found?
>
>Inger E
>

Plenty of information on the Ferriby boat here:
http://www.ferribyboats.co.uk/. Two boats were discovered (Ferriby 1 &
Ferriby 2) and then in 1996 a piece of oak plank was found that was
identified as part of another boat (Ferriby 3). These were dated in
2001 as:

Ferriby 1 - 1880-1680 BC
Ferriby 2 - 1940-1720 BC
Ferriby 3 - 2030-1780 BC

Details of the Dover boat here:
http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ca/timeline/prehistory/dover/dover.htm
and here: http://www.dover.gov.uk/museum/boat/excav.asp. This boat has
been dated to between 1575-1520 BC (or 1589 by tree-ring analysis).

Note that although both the Ferriby boats and the Dover boat were
sewn, i.e. yew withies used to bind the oak planks together, their
architecture differed.

As to how far back in history boats of this type go, well that is
anybody's guess. It seems highly unlikely that they emerged out of
nothing in the Early Bronze Age. We know that there was trade by sea
around the British Isles and clearly there must have been contact with
the continent for metal working technology to have arrived in Britain,
so it seems reasonable to suppose that boats of this type go back a
long way.

Brian Brooks
.

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