Ships and boats (Hastings' Dictionary)

Under the designation ‘ships’ are included in the Bible vessels of all sizes, from the sea-going ships whose Phoenician crews ‘did their business in great waters’ (Ps 10775), and traded for kings Solomon and Hiram (1 K 976. 27- 38) from the head of the Gulf of ‘Akabah in the Red Sea to OPHIR in the Indian or Arabian Sea, down to the mere fishing-boats of the Sea of Tiberias (Jn 6! 21!

; called Sea of Galilee in Mt 48, Mk 781, Jn 61; and Lake of Gennesaret in Lk 51), such as that in which our Lord was awakened from sleep during a storm and rebuked the wind and sea and reproached His timid dis- ciples for their want of faith (Lk 8%), ‘ Boats’ are mentioned in the AV only twice. The term is applied once to what were, apparently, lake fishing-craft (Jn 67 wdo.dprov). It is used again, in the story of St.

Paul’s voyage and shipwreck, of the boat (cxégn) of a sea-going ship which was hoisted up on account of bad weather after being towed astern during the first part of the voyage (Ac 27}6), This boat was afterwards lowered again by the crew of the ship, but cut adrift by the soldiers on St. Paul’s advice (vv.% 32), * A. SHIPS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

—It seems proper to make mention here, as belonging to the category of ‘ships,’ although denominated an ‘ark’ (13m), of the huge three-decked vessel said to have been built by Noah under Divine direction (Gn 614 1. 16), and apparently without mast, sail, or any means of steering or propulsion.

It was to be of gopher wood (an unknown timber), and was in- tended as a means of saving Noah and his family, and such animals as were necessary for the per- * A ‘ferry-boat’ is perhaps mentioned in 28 1918, if the MT 73y9 773y) is correct, although such a meaning of 173 is not found elsewhere. But prob. Wellhausen (followed by Driver, et al.) is right in reading ’m 373%}, ‘and they crossed over the ford.’ This is implicitly supported by the LXX xa) iasiroipyncay thy Autoupyiay (i.e.

, by confusion of 7 and % 7737 173y21, the reading adopted by Budde in SBOT). 360 SHIPS AND BOATS pee of the species, from destruction by water.

f we assume the form of the ark to be conceived as that of an ordinary ship, we have no historical mention of its dimensions as given in Gn 6" being exceeded until the construction of the Great Eastern steamship, built at Millwall by Brunel in 1858, with accommodation for 4000 passengers, and with a capacity of 24,000 tons, which is slightly in excess of the apparent size of the ark. See, further, art. FLOOD in vol. ii. p. 16.

The earliest Scripture mention of ships properly so called (n‘3x) is in Gn 4918, where Zebulun is spoken of in the Blessing of Jacob as a haven for them. The next is in Nu 24%, where the Balaam oracles speak of ships from the coast of KITTIM as taking part in the destruction of Assyria. These latter would be ships of war as distinguished from commercial ones. Merchant ships are mentioned in 1 K 98 (ef.

10% ‘a navy of TARSHISH’); and in Ps 1073 is given the heart-stirring description of a sailor’s life in a sea-going ship. In Pr 314 the foresight of the thrifty housewife forms the point of comparison between her and the merchant ships which bring goods from afar. In Pr 30” ‘the way of a ship in the midst of the sea’ is mentioned as one of the four things which were too wonderful for the writer.

The absence of chart and compass, with the sun and stars only for a guide to the Phenician mariner, and these often, as in St. Paul’s voyage (Ac 27°), invisible, made the art of navigation a mystery known only to those who, like these experts, were gifted with the hereditary instinct of their profession.

Moreover, the pressure of the wind on the sails from a direction opposed to the ship’s course, nevertheless urging her through the water on the way she would go, seems almost as wonderful as that the disposition of the muscles and feathers of an eagle should enable it to soar to invisible heights, or swoop to the earth in a moment without apparent motion of its wings, or that the slippery serpent should glide rapidly over a smooth rock without any external means of locomotion.

In 1 K 96 (|| 2 Ch 8%) and 10”? (|| 2 Ch 97!)

we have the account of the building of Solo- mon’s merchant ships at ‘Ezion-geber at the head of the Gulf of ‘Akabah, and the furnishing of them with experienced Pheenician pilots by Hiram king of Tyre, the friend of Solomon’s father, David; and of their voyage to Ophir and back with 420 talents of gold (equal to £2,583,000), The last of the above passages has a notice of the tri- ennial visit of Soloiian's and Hiram’s ships ‘ to Tarshish,’* bringing back gold and silver (the latter being considered so plentiful as to be re- garded of no account), ivory, apes, and peacocks.

These, were genuine sea-going ships, and the whole of the above references, except those from Genesis and Numbers, relate to the same century and to the 40 years of Solomon’s reign (c. 970-930 B.C.), when Tyre was at the height of its prosperity, and Shashank (Shishak) 1., of the 22nd dynasty, or his immediate predecessor, was the ruling Pharaoh of Egypt. Unfortunately, the Phenicians have not left us either literature or sculptures from which we can form.

an idea of the kind of ships used on these voyages; nor have we any Assyrian representa- tions of them until two centuries later in the time of Hezekiah and Sennacherib, when all the sea (rade of the Assyrians was in the hands of the Pheenicians, who had also absorbed that of the Egyptians (Herodot. i. 1). A century later still *The Chronicler here confuses a ‘ship of Tarshish’ (7.e, a large vessel fitted to go long voyages) with a ship going to Tarshish.

Wherever the latter port was, whether (as most believe) identical with Tartessus in Spain, or Tarsus, or some district in Greece or Italy, it could not have been reached by a vessel sailing from ‘Ezion-geber unless by circumnavigating [on every ground @ most unlikely supposition] the continent of Africa.

SHIPS AND BOATS Ezekiel (275) speaks of the royal merchant chips of Tyre, which traded with Syria and va-ious Mediterranean ports and to the far East, as having planks of fir and masts of cedar, whilst the oars were of oak of Bashan, and the benches of the rowers of ivory inlaid in wood from the isles of Kittim, the sails of fine embroidered linen, their crews from Zidon and Arvad, and their pilots from Tyre.

But this description, although no doubt applicable to the royal yachts, may be considered seauat extent poetical as applied to commercial ships. The question of the much disputed situation of the port of Ophir to which Solomon’s ships traded from ‘Ezion-geber in the Gulf of ‘Akabah, bringin back gold, ivory, almug trees, and peacocks (1 K 978 102), belongs to another section of this Dic- tionary (see art. OPHIR in vol. iii.)

; but the length of time occupied in the voyage, inferred from the interval of three years (1 K 10”) between the arrivals of the ships at ‘Ezion-geber, indicates a great dis- tance, such as Central or Southern Africa, or the island of Ceylon, where peacocks still abound. Such voyages would necessitate the ships bein laid up in some safe port between the months o May and October, during the bad weather and ~ heavy sea which accompany the §8.W.

monsoon, as is the case at the present day with the Indian and Arab trading vessels which annually frequent the port of Berbereh opposite to Aden.* Although we have no contemporary representa- tions of Phcenician sea-going ships of Solomon’s time, we have drawings of Egyptian ones to refer to of a much more ancient date, and of a type after which we may suppose the ships of the early Pheenicians and those of Hiram and Solomon to have been constructed.

These drawings, no doubt, give us a faithful picture of the ships, their crews, and their merchandise from a general point of view ; but they are more or less conventional, and the technical errors in our own marine historical pictures point to the necessity of not relying too much upon accuracy of nautical detail, as the drawings may have been made by artists who did not take part in the expeditions and were not sea- men.

Unfortunately, also, many important de- tails are missing from the models of ancient ships in the museums. The Egyptian ships were for the most part unloaded at a port in the Red Sea, and their cargoes transferred overland to Koptos on the Nile. The first Red Sea voyage of which we have any knowledge is mentioned in an inscription at Wady Gassfis, near Kosseir, in the Valley of Hamma- mAt, on the road from Koptos to the Red Sea.

This commemorates the expedition sent by Pharaoh Sankh-Ka-Ra of the 11th (a Theban) dynasty to the ‘ Land of Pudnit’ (or Punt), the site of which is as much disputed as that of Ophir or Tarshish, and is considered by M. Edouard Naville to be but a ‘vague geographical designation.’ See, further, art. PuT in vol. iv. p. 176f.

The destination of the expedition was evidently, however, somewhere in Tropical Africa, and was in all probability in the vicinity of the present Somaliland on the east coast, where there existed an entrepét for the ivory, frankincense, myrrh, gold dust, and ostrich feathers, and for the ostrich eggs so much prized by the Egyptians of those days. This first ex- pedition to Punt must have taken place, according to Brugsch, 250 years after the founding of Tyre, if Herodotus (ii.

44) was correctly informed by the Tyrians, i.e. about 1500 years before the time of Solomon, and 500 years before the birth of Abra- ham ; but, according to Mariette, even earlier than this. We have no account of this expedition, nor * Findlay’s Directory jor the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, 1870, p. 559. SHIPS AND BOATS any sculptures showing the kind of ships employed on it.

The next important Red Sea expedition men- tioned on the monuments was sent during the 18th dynasty, also to the Land of Punt, in the reign of queen Hatsepsu I., sister of Thothmes II. (during the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt) ; the sculptures on the walls of Deir el-Bahri, near the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, fully illustrate this important event, including the ships used (see Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, ii. 82ft.)

The place of departure by the overland route from the Nile to the Red Sea, on the outward voyage, as well as the port of reshipment of the goods brought by the expedition on its return by the same route, was doubtless the ancient Koptos (now Qoft), as in the earlier expedition before mentioned ; the Red Sea port of embarkation and SHIPS AND BOATS 361 the height of their prosperity in the land of Goshen (Gn 471+ 27, Ex 1”), which they had inhabited for more than a century, it is probable that, as their occupation was that of shepherds and cattle- dealers located in the midst of the Delta, they would see and know but little of what was going on so far south of them as Koptos and Thebes, and absolutely nothing of the sea-going ships of which the expedition was composed.

Consequently, no knowledge of the building or handling of ships or boats was carried away with them from Egypt at the time of the Exodus ; and the forty years of subsequent wandering in the wilderness would have sufficed to ensure the obliteration from their memories of any such knowledge had it been acquired. It was not until the reign of Solomon that the Israelites commenced to build ships (1 K 9%), an 1. pESHASHEH (MIDDLE EGYPT). W. WALL, N. HALF, TOMB OF ANTA, BC.

3600, SAILING SHIP WITH ANTA STANDING BY THE CABIN. disembarkation being Tua or Cinmun, known later as Philoteras (after it had been so renamed by the Ptolemies), and now as Old Kosseir, not far from the modern port of that name in lat. 26° 7’ N., and distant from Koptos about 100 miles. As regards the African port depicted in the sculp- tures as the object of the expedition, and called the Land of Punt, there is some doubt. But for the African ebony (Dalbergia melanoxylon, G.P.R.

, so much in request for temple furniture in Egypt) and other trees which are represented as growing near the place of landing,* the land-locked port of Berbereh already spoken of, which has always been a great mart for the products of the interior, might be intended ; and even these trees may have been artistically introduced to indicate a part of these products.

_Although the Children of Israel must, at the time of queen Hatsepsu’s expedition, have been at * These trees are not now found near the seashore. art which, through the friendship of Hiram king of Tyre for David and his son (28 5!||1 Ch 14 and 1K 5}), they learned from the Pheenicians, who supplied the pilots and mariners for these ships (1 K 977). Whether the Phenicians brought their knowledge of shipbuilding with them from Western Arabia at the time of their early migration (Herod. i.

1, vii. 89) or learnt it from the Egyptians, is a mystery. Boatbuilding was certainly a very ancient art in Egypt, as in the tomb of Ti at Sak4ra (5th dynasty, ¢. 3680-1500— 3660 B.c. [Petrie]) it is represented in the wall sculptures in all its details. The merchant ships of queen Hatsepsu’s expedi- tion to the Land of Punt, as delineated on the walls of the temple of Deir el-Bahri,* are long vessels curved upwards at each extreme, as we see the Pheenician triremes of the 7th cent. B.c.

depicted * Egyp. Expl. Fund, pt. iii. vol. 15, pl. lxxii., Ixviii., Ixxiv., Ixxv. ; Petrie, l.c. p. 84. Cf. figs. 3 and 4 on p. 364, 362 SHIPS AND BOATS SHIPS AND BOATS on the Assyrian monuments, but without their figureheads; the stern is recurved towards the bow like the uplifted trunk of an elephant, and ends in a trumpet mouth—the conventional repre- sentation of the papyrus plant—a form adopted also by the Phcenicians and Assyrians; there is also a raised forecastle and poop.

The mast, in- stead of being of the more ancient ‘ sheerlegs’ form (as we see it in fig. 1 on the walls of the tomb of Anta at Deshdsheh, 5th dynasty, c. B.c.

3600), consists of a single spar, placed a little forward of the centre of the ship, and is kept in its place by ‘shrouds’ and a ‘stay’; whilst additional support, when the sail is set, is given by a pair of very stout ‘jeers,’ or halliards, attached to each side of the ‘bunt,’ or middle of the ‘yard,’ and secured to the gunwale of the vessel. The sail is of the square form and secured to two yards, the lower of which is as long as the ship herself, but the upper one is a good deal shorter.

Each yard isin two pieces, ‘fished’ together in the middle of its length by means of cordage, the centre of the lower yard being securely lashed to the mast near the level of the gunwale. This lower yard is supported by numerous ‘lifts’ * at uniform intervals (apparently about seven in number on each side), which are ‘rove’ through ‘sheaves’ or ‘snatches’ placed one ee Lona Saiki 2. DESHASHEH (MIDDLE EGYPT). COFFIN OF MERA, B.0. 3500. BOAT CONVEYING and Roman ships of later date.

A noticeable arrangement for strengthening these sea-going ships is a tightly stretched and very stout cable secured to the bow and stern in the centre of the ship, inside, passing high over the heads of the rowers, and supported on strong wooden props with forked heads. ‘This is doubtless to afford support to the weakest or curved portion of the ship at her two ends, neither of which is water-borne—a very necessary precaution under such conditions when & vessel is straining in a heavy sea.

Assuming the distance between the rowers to be 4 ft., the space between the foremost oar and the extremity of the bow is about 18 ft. in length, so that the total length of the ships appears to have been 102 ft., of which a length of about 58 ft. only is water-borne, the remainder being the curves of the bow and stern. A row of port-holes, corresponding in number to the oars, is indicated on the side of the ships below the gunwale.

These were probably intended for a second tier of oars, as we see in the Phenician and Assyrian triremes of the 7th and 8th cents. B.c. The ships are steered, not ‘by a single rudder passing through the keel,’ as in the more modern arrangement described by Herodotus (ii. 96), but by two very stout paddles, one on each quarter, having simple pred) blades OFFERINGS TO THE TOMB. above the other at the head of the mast, so that one rope answers for a lift on both sides of the yard.

These lifts are so tightened as to give to the yard the form of a bow curving upwards at each extremity. The head of the sail is attached, in accordance with modern usage, to the upper yard, which can be hoisted to the masthead when the sail is set, or lowered so as to lie on the lower yard or remain aloft with the sail ‘ brailed up’ at plea- sure. This upper yard has a single lift on each side, attached half-way between the mast and the yardarm.

The ‘ foot’ of the sail is attached to the lower yard at intervals when the sail is set, but quite detached from it when the sail isfurled. The ‘braces’ of the upper yard (not always represented in the drawings) are single ropes attached to the upper yard at the same spot as the lifts, and lead thence to the deck or gunwale; they were usually under the control of the helmsman, as we see them on the walls of the tomb of Anta at Deshdsheh.

There are 15 oarsmen, seated on either side of the ships, all engaged in rowing (not pushing the oars), although the sails are set (pl. Ixxiii.), and only one man plies each of the 30 oars—a universal rule in ancient ships. The distance between the rowers in a fore and aft direction is, apparently, about 4 ft., but possibly only 2 cubits, as we see in Greek * Precisely as shown in the medel of an Indian ship in the {ndian Institute Museum at Oxford.

without the remarkable letter D form of the Pheenician ones represented on the Assyrian monu- ments in the time of Sennacherib, but having aang ‘looms’ or handles, which first pass throu ‘strops,’ or loops of rope, placed on the gunwale midway between the upper end of the stern-curve and the point where the stern first touches the water; immediately above these strops, at a vertical height of about 4 ft.

, the upper portion of the looms rests on the summit of a post fixed to the gunwale close to the strop; here is placed acrutch or notch in which the loom revolves by means of a tiller fixed to its upper portion and curving downwards to the hand of the helmsman below. The ordinary mode of steering was pre- cisely as by the modern rudder, the normal position of the blades of the paddles being nearly vertical and ‘fore and aft.

’ We see the same arrangement of tiller in the papyrus sail-boats painted on the tomb of the priestess of Mera at Deshdsheh,* a few miles south of the Fayum (not to be confounded with the tomb of Mera at Sakarah, belonging also to the 5th dynasty), nearly 2000 years before queen Hatsepsu’s time.

A stont stirrup of rope is attached to the upper part of the post on which the loom rests, and hangs over the outside of the ship, appar- ently for the helmsman to put one of his feet in whilst he placed the other against the outside of * Egyp. Expl. Fund, vol. 15, pl. xxvii. See above, fig.

2 SHIPS AND BOATS SHIPS AND BOATS 363 a nn nee SUE Utd EEE ERS SEER the ship in order to obtain leverage in working the paddle on special occasions when the loom must have been previously lifted out of the crutch ; but the stirrup may also have been used to support the rudder-paddle when not in use, or when it was ‘triced up.

’ Occasionally ships had only one pee es, as shown in tomb paintings and in the model of the Scandinavian kip lately found at Christiania, to be seen in the Pitt-Rivers Collec- vion at Oxford, which rudder-paddle being on the starboard side Sebawe the derivation of this word from ‘steer-board.’ Other tomb pans show as many as three rudder-paddles on one side.

Four- oared boats, without masts or sails, are also repre- sented in the Deir el-Bahri paintings of queen Hatsepsu’s expedition as bringing off goods to the ships, and these have only one paddle-rudder, which is p eped in acrutch in the centre of the ae but with the same stirrup as shown in the ships.

There is no visible anchor of any kind on board the ships, nor any arrangement for using one; but the pict on the forecastle has a long pole in his hand with which he is sounding the depth of the water. The only anchor used in those early days was a heavy weight, generally a large stone or a basket full of smaller ones. NG anchor, properly so called, is represented in any Egyptian sculpture or painting. The hooked anchor (4yxvpa) is first mentioned by the poet Pindar (I. v. 18) in the 5th cent.

B.C. ; it was without flukes. Homer always uses the word edval, meaning a stone anchor; and Ephorus, the historian of the 4th cent. B.C, (Strabo, vil. 3), attributed the invention of the two-armed anchor to Anacharsis, a Scythian Eanes of the 6th cent. B.C. In the time of Herodotus (ii.

96) the merchant ships of the Egyptians on the Nile, when sailing down stream, used a heavy stone attached to a rope from the stern as a drag to keep their heads straight, in conjunction with a raft of tamarisk floating on the water, attached to the bow, so as to be acted on by the current which a the ship down stream, whilst the stone held er back, as is still the practice on the river Euphrates ;* but there is no mention of the use of a bow anchor, whether of stone or any other material.

The form of the Egyptian ships admitted of their lying at anchor as easily by the stern as by the head, and, paddles which could be lifted out of the water being used instead of rudders, there was no fear of the latter being broken by the sea, as was the case when the modern rudder, hung on ‘ gud- geons’ by means of ‘pintles,’ was substituted in later times. The advantage of anchoring by the stern in narrow waters or when suddenly shoaling water at night, as in the case of St.

Paul’s ship off the island of Melita (Ac 27: ”), where the rudder- paddles were triced up clear of the water, is obvious. But this vessel had means of anchoring by the bows if desired (v.%°), and no doubt the gyptian ships also; large stones, wooden tubes, or sacks filled with lead or other heavy weights being used as anchors. The masts of queen Hatsepsu’s ships were prob- ably derived, like the Egyptian ships in the time of Herodotus (ii.

96), and even at the present day, from the gum-arabic tree of Nubia (Acacia nilotica, Delile), known to modern Arabs as the sont, a corruption of the ancient Egypt name shant, which is as old as the 4th dynasty, or of one of the many varieties of this tree in that region. The equally common seydl, or ‘ash’ of the ancient Egyptians (Acacia seydl, Delile), which Canon Tristram supposes to be the ‘ shittim’ wood of the Bible (Ex 25. 26. 37.

38), is scarcely more than a variety of the sont, and, like it, is frequently * Chesney, vol. ii p. 640. mentioned in the hieroglyphs, and is of the same antiquity. The ships of Solomon built at ‘Ezion-geber (1 K 95) were probably of the fir and cedar supplied by Hiram (1 K 58% 1°), which do not grow in Egypt or Nubia, although much imported for use in Egyp- tian temples from the 5th dynasty downwards. No mention, however, is made in the Bible of the material used in shipbuilding.

According to Onesecritus, chief pilot to Alexander the Great (Pliny, vi. 24), the ships which traded in the 5th cent. B.C. between Taprobane (Ceylon) and the country of the Prasians (Calcutta) during four months of the year, the voyage lasting 20 days, were rigged like the Nile boats, and were built of papyrus stems as we see them in process of construction depicted 3000 years earlier on the walls of the tomb of Anta at Desh4sheh; but these were only coasting vessels.

The Egyptian merchant vessels in the time of Herodotus are described by him (ii. 96) as being built with- out ribs, the planks, 2 cubits in Yength, being arranged ‘like bricks’ (i.e. probably the planking was double, the middle of the outer plank over- laying the two ends of the inner one), and joined together by long ‘tree-nails’; the planks were caulked with stems of ‘byblus’ (Papyrus anti- quorum, L.)

, the sails being made of the same material, which seems incredible ; but whether of flax or byblus, the ‘ cloths’ of the sails were placed horizontally instead of vertically as now. The ropes of Egyptian ships continued to be made of byblus (Herod. vii. 25, 34) or of palm fibre as late as the 27th or Persian dyneety (B.c. 480), and, according to the same authority (Herod. ii. 96), the sails also,—whilst those of the Pheenicians were made of flax.

But it is doubtful if the Nile boats, described by Herodotus, were really sea- going vessels like those of queen Hatsepsu and Solomon, though they carried many thousand talents (more than 100 tons) of cargo; and, as the making of linen cloth was an Egyptian speciality, it was probably used for the sails of sea-going ships by them as well as by Solomon and Hiram, who im- ported it from Egypt (Ezk 27).

At Deir el-Bahri* we see the queen’s ships being laden in a port of the Land of Punt after the same fashion as we may suppose those of Solomon to have taken in their cargoes at Ophir, by means of porters and ‘ gang-boards’ connecting the ships with the shore. The cargo, which is being carried and stowed on the deck by the crew, consists of sacks of frankincense of various kinds (especially that called ‘anti’), gold dust, ebony, elephants’ tusks, gum, ostrich eggs and feathers.

Live apes are climbing about the rigging as we see them in the boat depicted on the tomb of Mera at Desh- Asheh 2000 years earlier—an indication probably of the fauna of the Land of Punt, which includes the giraffe, peculiar to tropical Africa.

We may safely assume that Solomon’s Mediter- ranean ships were similar to those built by him at ‘Ezion-geber, on the Pheenician model, and that the latter, again, resembled those of queen Hat- sepsu, although with possibly some modifications of no great importance. ‘There seems, also, no reason to suppose that the ships built at ‘Ezion- geber by Jehoshaphat king of Judah a centu later (1 K 228), or the passenger ship in whic.

Jonah embarked at Joppa some thirty years later for Tarshish (Jon 1°), and in which the vain use of the oars in the ships to endeavour to make the land is so graphically described, belonged to a different type. Ships of war.—The Egyptian sailors or boatmen formed, according to Herodotus (ii. 164), one of the seven classes into which the population of the * Egyp. Expl. Fund, pt. iii. vol. 15, pl. xxiv. See figs. on p.

364, 364 SHIPS AND BOATS SHIPS AND BOATS country was divided, the office of pilot or steers- man ranking above all other grades. Probably those belonging to merchant ships formed a superior subdivision of these. We may take it for granted that the Phenicians and Tyrians fol- lowed the same practice in the time of Solomon as with certain modifications the Greeks did in later times.

The crews of war ships seem to have been placed in a separate category with the soldiers, who, from constant practice at the oar on the Nile, were themselves expert galleymen. Whether any of these latter were on board queen Hatsepsu’s or Solomon’s ships we are not told; but, although these were both commercial expedi- tions, it is probable that the ships were prepared 3, TEMPLE OF DEIR EL-BAHRI. MIDDLE COLONNADE. SOUTH WALL, are stationed in a ‘ top’ or cage at the masthead.

During the engagement the sail was ‘ brailed’ up, and there was apparently no lower yard to the square sail as we see in the ships of queen Hat- sepsu of a later date. According to Wilkinson (iii. 204), ramming was used in the attack; but the ships had no beak for this purpose as in Roman days, a lion’s, ram’s, or other animal’s head covered with metal taking its place.

There seems to be little doubt that the Egyp- tian men-of-war also took part in the Mediter- ranean in the transport of troops and in sea fights during the reign of the Ramses Pharaohs against the ships of various nations inhabiting the littoral, as they did in the time of Pharaoh- QUEEN HATSEPSU’S EXPEDITION TO PUNT, B.C. 1500. LOADING EGYPTIAN SHIPS AT PUNT. Sea eee 4, MIDDLE COLONNADE. to fight if need be.

That men-of-war were speci- ally fitted out by the Egyptians for fighting purposes in the Neabinn Gulf we know from _ Herodotus (ii, 102) and Diodorus (i.

55), who both mention the fleet of ‘long vessels’ built ex- pressly for war (called by them wa) to the number of 400, whilst the transports were called wsch (broad), and the galleys mensch;* and the employment of such vessels on the expeditions of the Pharaohs to Ethiopia was frequent, the officers who com- manded them being mentioned on the monuments, and the title of ‘chief or captain of the king’s ships’ being not uncommon.

A sea fight is repre- sented at Thebes, in which the Egyptian sol- diers in military dress are seen rowing. In the men-of-war of the 4th and 5th dynasties slingers * Wilkinson, Ane. Egypt., vol. i. p. 274. cee 3 BES LELLEDO CLL WUT ey SSIS SSS SOUTH WALL. LADEN EGYPTIAN SHIPS LEAVING PUNT. necho (Herod. ii. 159); their victories over com- bined forces of Dardanians, Teucrians, Mysians, and, apparently, over Pelasgians, Daunians, Oscans, and Sicilians, being recorded on the monuments.

Of the Phenician war vessels which were con- temporaneous we have no knowledge; and it is to the Assyrian monuments of a later date that we are indebted for pictorial representations of them in a very crude way. During the three invasions of Syria and Phoenicia by Shalmaneser Iv. in the reigns of Hezekiah king of Judah and Hoshea king of Israel (B.C. 726-721, 2 K 18%), Josephus tells us, on the authority of Menander (342-291 B.C.)

, that the Assyrian monarch, in order to quell a revolt in the island of Tyre, made use of 60 Pheenician galleys with 800 men to row them, but a ss ge a ee _ imitations of Pheenician ones. SHIPS AND BOATS was utterly defeated by the Tyrians with 12 ships, which took 500 prisoners.

* Sennacherib, who had sent the Rabshakeh to Hezekiah to reproach the living God (2 K 19% 34), and demand the surrender of Jerusalem the second time within three years, took, a few years later, his Phenician shipwrights across Mesopotamia to the Tigris and built a fleet of his own, with which he made a successful raid on the Chaldean settle- ment in Susiana at the north end of the Gulf of Persia.

It is these Pheenician cataphract triremes, with two tiers of oars, and having beaks, masts, and sails, that we see represented in the sculp- tures of Kouyunjik.t In Sargon’s sculptures the Pheenician vessels of this time have 4 or 5 oars- men on each side, but in Sennacherib’s they have 8, 9, or 11, and also two steersmen. It was not until Sennacherib’s time that the Assyrians began to build war vessels, which even then were only These trireme war galleys were what is called aphract, i.e.

the upper tier of rowers were unprotected and ex eal to view. Jhe apertures for the oars are like those SHIPS AND BOATS the fishing and passenger vessels on the Sea of Galilee, in which our Lord embarked (described in the AV as ‘ships’ [except in Jn 6” *3, where it has ‘boats’], and in the RV as ‘boats’ [Mt 47 1422. 24, 32. 2 Mk 622: 45. 47. 51. bas Lk 52. 8. 7.11 822. Bg Jn 637. 19. 22, 23. 241) the interest in ships mentioned in the NT centres in the voyage of St.

Paul from Ceesarea to Puteoli, about 60 A.D. During this voyage he and his fellow-traveller, St. Luke the physician, experienced what seems to have been his fourth shipwreck (2 Co 11%). The account of this voyage is remarkable for accuracy and conciseness in the use of nautical terms, though wanting in the descriptive details which a pro- fessional seaman would have added.

In the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux of Naucratis in the Egyptian Delta, written about a century and a half later, we have a collection of Greek nautical terms, containing most of those used in St. Luke’s description of the voyage. Of the BoP of Adra- myttium, a seaport of Mysia (which had then been for half a century part of the Roman province of Asia Minor), in which they embarked at Czsarea, 365 5. WAR GALLEY IN THE SERVICE OF SENNACHERIB, KING OF ASSYRIA.

in queen Hatsepsu’s ships, no oars being shown in them in the drawings in either case. The beak is somewhat like the snout of a fish; the shields | | Havens in Crete, and to the island of Melita (28%), of the soldiers are seen suspended inside the bul- warks, they themselves being partly visible; the pilot is in the bow, and the steersman aft, with part of the crew standing near the mast, the two steering-paddles having blades in the form of the letter D, which is perhaps only conventional.

The war ships of Kittim (Dn 11%), which were to conquer Antiochus Epiphanes, are Roman vessels. In 2 Mac 4” we have the first mention of galleys (rpujpac). B. NEw TESTAMENT SHIPS AND BOATs.—An account of Greek and Roman ships of war (vijes uaxpat, naves longe), of which ample details are eg by Boeckh,t Graser,§ Guhl and Koner,|| and orr,{] seems to be out of place here, as, apart from * Rawlinson, Anc. Monarch. vol. ii, pp. 405, 449. t Layard’s Nineveh, 1st series, p. 71, etc.; and pl.

in Rawlin- son, Anc. Monarch. vol. ii. p. 176. ; t Urkunden wiber das Seewesen des Attischen Staates, etc., 1840. § De velerum re navali. \| The Life of the Greeks and Romans, 3rd ed. pp. 253-264. *| Ancient Ships, 1894. 4 no details are given; but the two Alexandrian corn-ships in which the voyage was completed from Myra (Ac 27%7-8), a port of Lycia, to Fair and thence to Syracuse, Rhegium, and Puteoli (284. 12.

13), were evidently of large size, if the read- ing in both AV and RV of 276 as the number of persons on board, including the crew, besides a cargo of wheat, is correct.* This number was not extraordinary, as Josephus tells us that only a few years later he himself was wrecked on a voyage from Palestine to Puteoli in a ship having about 600 persons on board.

For the type of these ships we can refer to contemporary paintings found at Herculaneum and Pompeii which ‘afford valuable details, and have the advantage of synchronizing pertectly with the voyage of St. Paul, the catastrophe to which they owe their preservation having happened less than twenty wore after his shipwreck.’ + The term mdotov used by St. Luke throughout his account of this voyage, except in Ac 27, when * WH and others read ‘about (#s) 76.’ t a Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St.

Paul, 4th ed. 1880, p. 182. 366 SHIPS AND BOATS vats is used, was a common one for a merchant ship in general, but does not point to any one in particular of the many kinds of sea-going ships (phaseli, corbite, cybee, etc.), of the ‘round’ or merchant class (orpoyyt\n vais, navis oneraria) in use at that time; but the fact of the wrecked vessel being a corn-ship of Alexandria suffices. Lucian (2nd cent. A.D.)

in one of his dialogues * gives an account of one of the great merchant ships employed in carrying corn from Egypt to Italy about 150 4.D. Her length was 180 ft., and breadth 45 ft., the depth from upper deck to keel being 434 ft. Such a ship would carry a bur- then of 10,000 talents or amphore, equal to 250 tons. But ships of much larger capacity were built for special purposes, such as the one described by Pliny as having, about twenty years before St.

Paul’s voyage, taken the Vatican obelisk, by order of the emperor Caligula, from Egypt to Rome, together with four blocks of stone to form its pedestal, the whole weighing nearly 500 tons, in addition to 1000 tons of lentils in the hold as a bed for the obelisk to rest on. The mast of this ship, which Pliny describes as the most wonderful vessel ever seen afloat, was a single fir spar, and required four men with extended arms to encircle it.

This event occurred within Pliny’s own know- ledge as a youth of seventeen; but if he is correct as to the size of the ship, that of the mast is almost incredible, unless he was in error as to its not being a built one.t Julius Cesar tells us that these ships carried movable three-storeyed tur- rets on the upper deck for defensive purposes.

t According to Lucian’s description, the ship had both bow and stern curved upwards like those of the ancient Egyptian and earliest Greek ships, the ends terminating in a gilded cheniscus, one of which was in the form of the head and neck of a swan, and the other either similar or a ‘figure- head.’ Somewhere between the stem and stern was @ statue of the presiding deity of the State or port of origin of the ship.

On each bow was painted a large eye, or a figure illustrative of her name, From a painting still to be seen in a tomb at Pompeii, and another found at Herculaneum,§ we know that such ships had projecting galleries at bow and stern, with bulwarks of open rails, and that the upper ends of the two paddle-rudders (aniddia, gubernacula) passed through holes in the ship, as described by Herodotus, instead of being Sxrern aly Sutncnes to rope straps on the gunwale as in the Egyptian vessels and in the Scandinavian one already spoken of, and were often connected together by a rope attached to the tillers stretched across the ship, called ya\wés, which kept the two paddle-blades parallel to one another ;|| but this, from St.

Luke’s account of the shipwreck, must have been done in such a way as not to prevent the rudders from being triced up clear of the water in case of anchoring by the stern. We also see in the Herculaneum painting a portion of one of the ship’s cabins described by Lucian. There are also depicted what are, apparently, cable arrangements for anchoring by the stern, though no anchor is visible.

She has two masts with ‘square’ yards and sails, as we see represented on the coins of the 2nd and 8rd centuries-A.D. ; and this seems to have been the normal number, though occasionally there were three at this period; but only one mast is shown in the Pompeii ship. The masts were supported by ‘shrouds’ placed abreast of and * whojoy 9 Eiyel. t Pliny, HN xvi. 76 and xxxiv. 14. $ de Bello Gallico, iii. 14; de Bello Civili, 1. 26. § Antichita di Ercolano, tom. ii. pl. xiv. cit. J. Smith, V.

and S. of St. Paul, p. 206. i} See and Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, fig. 201, p. 257 SHIPS AND BOATS abaft the mast, with ‘stays’ to support it from the bow as now. These as well as the ‘running rigging’ were made of hide, flax, or hemp, or, prob- ably in many cases, a combination of them and papyrus.

The ships of this—the merchant—class were built almost exclusively of fir or pine, as also the masts and yards, the latter (xepatae or antenne) being in two pieces ‘fished’ together like those of both ancient and modern Egyptian vessels. The sails at this period were almost universally made of flax as now; the ‘bolt rope’ surrounding them being of hide, One of the sails is called dpréuwv by St.

Luke (Ac 27°), and, although this word is not found in Julius Pollux or in any other ancient or medizeval Greek author, a mast and sail, each termed artemon, are mentioned by the Romans, Lucilius, Labeo, and Seneca, almost contemporane- ously with St. Paul’s shipwreck, as being, appar- ently, inferior in importance or magnitude to the principal mast and sail of a ship; they are repre- sented on an Alexandrian coin of A.D. 67 * as a sort of bowsprit and spritsail, and again on a Roman coin of A.

D. 186 in the Museum at Avignon as a foremast and square foresail.t The word artemon is translated in the AV ‘mainsail,’ but in the RV ‘foresail’; and there can be little doubt but that the latter is the more correct term as applied to the sail hoisted when the ship was pu pores Tun aground, The word is still in use in the French marine as the name of the mizen or sternmost mast, and the sails on it; whilst the term misaine is applied to the foremast and its sails.

The word artemon is now obsolete in the Italian language, but in the 16th cent. it was applied at Venice to the largest sail of a ship, which appears then to have been the foresail ; and, possibly, the ignorance of this fact, as suggested by Smith, may have led the AV translators into error.t The sails were triced up to the yards by numerous *brails’ (cadwd.

a) when it was desired to reduce or take them in, and these were worked by the crew from the deck below; the yards were also furnished with ‘lifts’ and ‘braces’ for trimming the sails.

The anchors (dyxvpa), which were suspended as now, one on each bow from ‘ catheads’ (érwrldes), were made of lead, iron, or wood coated with lead, and of the modern form, as on the coins of Pestum we see the stock and flukes or palms and ring duly re- presented ; besides the ‘ bower’ anchors there were others, four of which were let go at the stern of St. Paul’s ship when shoaling water (Ac 27%), whilst a pretence was made by the crew of also laying out the bower anchors by boat.

: Oars (xémn, remus) are not mentioned as being used on board ; and as these were often absent from large merchant vessels, or only sufficient in number to be used as ‘sweeps’ during a calm, this was probably the case here. Such vessels had movable ‘topmasts,’ to the summit of which was hoisted the upper corner of the triangular sail, called in Latin supparum. It is to the lowering down to the deck of these topmasts that the expression (Ac 27?

”) ‘strake sash > in the AV and ‘lowered the gear’ in the RV probably refers; to ‘strike’ a topmast is the proper nautical term in use at the present day. Beton tells us that Alexandrian wheat- ships,§ on arrival at Puteoli, alone had the privi- lege of keeping their topsails up, all others being obliged to lower them down on entering the bay.

The phrase dvropOadyet r@ dvéuy (Ac 27"), trans- lated in the AV ‘ bear up into the wind,’ and in the RV ‘ face the wind,’ would be, in nautical language, ‘beat up against the wind.’ To ‘bear up’ is the sea phrase for doing exactly the reverse of what is * Torr, Ancient Ships, pl. vi. 27. t ID. pl. vi. 23. 3 Smith, V. and S. of St. Paul, gP. 192-200. § Epist. 77, cit. Smith, V. and S. of St. Paul, p. 157. SHIPS AND BOATS expressed in the AV, and means to put a ship before the wind.

Captain Sturmy* in describing a naval sea fight says, ‘ Bear up before the wind that we may give him our starboard broadside,’ and again, ‘ He bears up before the wind to stop his leaks’; dvro- pbaruety, as @ nautival expression, may have refer- ence to the eyes painted on each bow of ships in general; the term ‘eyes of the ship’ is still in general use as a sea term for the inside part of her which lies nearest to the stem.

The rope cables (cxovla, ayktpia, ancoralia or funes ancorales) which passed, as now, through holes on each side of the bow, were of from 6 in. to 44 in. in diameter, equal to from 13} in. to 18 in. modern hemp cables, and were ‘hove in’ by a capstan (crpodgetov) to weigh the anchor. Chain cables were then used only by ships of war, and, in so far as the English Navy is con- cerned, were not introduced till the beginning of the 19th century.

The terms ‘helps’ and ‘undergirding’ (Ac 27” BojOerar, drofwrvivres) refer to the modes in use of strengthening an old or weak ye in bad weather by bracing the two curved ends of the ship, which were not water-borne, together by means of a stout rope or cable passing along the outside of the ship longitudinally, and generally below the water-line, several times; or by passing it under the keel and round the hull in a direction transverse to its length, and probably sometimes by a combination of both these methods.

‘ Undergir ing ’ is a literal translation of the Greek nautical term for the opera- tion of passing the above ropes or cables (i7ofw- wara) around or underaship; but it has never been an English sea term, although the process of trans- verse undergirding has occasionally been resorted to by our sailing ships when dangerously over- strained, and was then termed ‘ frapping’ the ship.

t The internal longitudinal rope support of the ancient Egyptian ships seems to have been still in use in Roman ships to some extent under the name of tormentum,t probably from the two or four parts of rope of which it consisted being tightened, as required, by means of a piece of wood inserted between them and twisted round ; third day of the gale, probably refers to the spare stores of various kinds which followed some heavier undescribed weights (v.

18), and it was only as a last resort that the cargo of wheat (v.**) (on which the commercial success of the voyage de- pended, and which was in share of the ‘supercargo’ (vatxAnpos, v.14), to whose ill advice and that of the sailing-master (xuSepvjrys) St. Paul attributed their Pr) was ‘jettisoned ’ in order to so lighten the ship, that, when the cables were slipped (v.®) and the foresail hoisted, she might run beach they had selected (v.™).

From the depth of water in which soundings were taken (Ac 27%), viz. in 20 and 15 fathoms, it is evident igh up on the * The Compleat Mariner, bk. i. p. 20, 4.D. 1660. t Isidore Hisp. Op. Fol. Par. 1601. t Hor. Carm. i.-xiv. 6, 7.

SHIPS AND BOATS that a sounding-lead attached to a line (karameipa- Tnpla, catapirates) was used, as we see it on a bas- relief in the British Museum, suspended from the volute of the bow,* and Ligene| ‘armed’ with grease at its lower end to determine the nature of the bottom, as in the time of Herodotus (ii. 5) and Lucilius.

+ The anchoring by the stern when rapidly shoaling water at night (Ac 27) was good seaman- ship, and, in a vessel shaped alike at both ends, offered no practical difficulties, the rudder-paddles being afterwards triced up clear of the water. The ship carried at least one boat (cxd¢n), like all others of her class, for general purposes, such as laying out anchors (v.

*°), communicating with the shore or with other ships; and this boat was towed asterr in charge of one of the crew,t in accordance with usual practice in fine weather, being either hoisted up to ‘davits’ outside the ship, or hoisted on board altogether, for greater security (v.!°), when bad weather came on. The ship in which St.

Paul embarked from the island of Melita seems to have been of the same type as the wrecked one, but we have the additional detail given of her ‘sign’ (rapdonpor, insigne) (28%), indicating her name Acécxoupoi, translated ‘ Castor and Pollux’ in the AV and ‘The Twin Brothers’ in the RV. Whether the parasemon was, in this case, a painting on either side of the stem denoting the fratres Helene, sons of Jupiter, who were then specially venerated as the patrons of sailors,§ like t. George and St.

Nicholas in modern days, or whether they formed her ‘figurehead,’ we do not know; but both modes of indicating a ship’s name, and, occasionally, a combination of the two, were in vogue at that time in Roman ships. That these ships were capable of ‘ working to windward’ like modern sailing ships there can be no manner of doubt, although, possibly, not lying so close to the wind as within 5 or 6 points of the compass; but the quotation from Pliny (ZN ii.

48) does not refer to ‘beating,’ and merely states that ships with the same wind sail in opposite directions according to the ‘tack’ they are on, and often meet one another, which can obviously be done with the wind fair or abeam.

|| The modern nautical term corresponding to the Greek wepieOdvtes xarnvry- capey els ‘Piryiov (Ac 2815), translated in the AV ‘we fetched a compass and came to Rhegium’ (RV ‘made a circuit’), would be ‘ we beat up to Rhe- gium,’ the only course open to her in making for that port from Syracuse with a northerly wind, which is clearly indicated by her waiting there a day for a change of wind to the south.

That these ships were fast sailers we know from contemporary statements of ancient authors, and especially from Pliny, who, in speaking of the marvellous utility of the flax plant, of which sails were made, in re- ducing the time occupied in a voyage from Egypt to Italy, instances a voyage recently made from the Straits of Messina to Alexandria, by two Roman prefects, E.

Galerius and Balbillus, in 7 and 6 days respectively ; and another voyage from Puteoli to Alexandria by Valerius Marianus, a Roman senator, ‘lenissimo flatu,’ in 9 days.** St. Paul’s voyage from Rhegium to Puteoli (180 miles) was effected in 2 days (but see art. ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT), . 379). Of the fishing and passenger boats on the Sea of Galilee (Lake of Tiberias), which were evidently very numerous in our Lord’s time, we have no description.

Guhl and Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, fig. 204 . 259. B + Torr, Ancient Ships, p. 101. t Jb. p. 108. § Hor. Carm. i. 8, j Smith, DB2, art. ‘Ships and Boats.’ { WH (following BN?) read wapiadértas, ‘ cast loose. AN xix. 1. 368 ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN OT) Pens a ceiiee and Rosellini, Monuments de gupte; August Boeckh, Urkunden wiber das Seewesen dea Attischen Staates; B. Glaser, Uber das Seewesen des alten aigypten; M. Jal, Archéologie Navale; F.

Steinitz, The Ship, its Origin and Progress; Carl R. Lepsius, Denkmdler aus Agyptenund Ethiopien; Diimichen, Die lotte einer Egyptischen Konigin; A. H. Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, and Nineveh and its Remains; Cecil Torr, Ancient Ships; James Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul; Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians; Canon G. Rawlinson, The Seven Ancient Mon. archies ; Egypt. Exploration Fund, Tomb of Pateri at el-Kab, Deshasheh (tomb of Anta and Mera), Deir el-Bahri (Punt Expedition); G.

Maspero, The Dawn af Civilization: E Guhl and W. Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans. Canney, art. ‘Ship’ in Hneyel. Biblica. R. M. BLOMFIELD.