HISTORY OF THE SHIP

Evening Star, Issue 18280, 21 May 1923, Page 5

HISTORY OF THE SHIP

AX INTERESTING- ADDRESS. PRIMITIVE MARINERS. The feature of a meeting of the Otago Officers’ Club on Friday evening was an address by Colonel W. J. Strong on ‘ Tho Ancient History of the Ship.’ Amongst those present were Colonel Young (O.C. Southern Command), Lieutenant Mulling (of the Australian Light Horse), and 1 tho mayor. Colonel Strong stated that about 6,000 years before the Christian era Babylonian settlers came from the East to tho Red Sea. These people colonised the region on either side of the Nile, and the new inhabitants of Egypt put into practice the knowledge of shipbuilding they had brought with them. ■, Egyptologists held that this people’s ships belonged to the pre-dynastic period—that is, 6000 b.o. The speaker then dealt with the gradual evolution of boats from the floating tree trunks used by prehistoric man till sails were evolved. For tho development of the art of shipbuilding few countries could be found as suitable as Egypt, surrounded by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and it had tho additional advantage of a long navigable river running through its midst. During the winter and early spring months the gentle 'north wind blew up tho river with the regularity of a trade wind, so enabling the ships to sail against the stream without the aid of oars. Very different indeed were the circumstances which had to be contended with in tho. case of the first shipbuilders of Northern Europe. In earlier times our sources of Egyptian history were limited' to what could be derived from ancient Greek and Roman history, but within onr own time this had l been supplemented by Egyptian exploration, and it was from the reports of those exploration societies that it was possible to secure information of the early Egyptian ships. This information w r as of two kinds : Firstly, there were wall paintings on the ancient buildings, which showed oVerything that a picture could tell of a ship and her rigging. There had also been unearthed within recent years little wooden model boats, which were of two kinds—those made in the form of actual boats, and those in the form of a funeral boat, which were placed in the tombs of the ancient Egyptian in order to provide tho dead man with the means of sailing the streams of tho underworld 1 . Very touching was the care of the ancients for their dead. A similar case was the burying of tho Vikings with their ships. From the earliest times, continued tho speaker, up to about 3000 ii.e., the Egyptian craft were less ships than boats. The sailing ships of the fourth and fifth dynasties gradually became larger and more seaworthy; but the mast and rigging showed only slight advance. The former, from the third to the eleventh dynasty, was in the shape of the letter A. During tho fourth and fifth dynasties, while the A-shaped mast remained, backstays were added, sometimes numbering as many as nine or ten. An additional stay from the top of tho mast to the extremity of tho stern was also frequently seen. Two or throe men steered with paddles, and on larger ships the steersmen numbered as many as five, while tho paddlers numbered twenty-two or twenty-three on each side of tho ship.- As showing the wonderful influence which Egyptian ships of that period exercised on the rig of the Far 'East, and l even of tho Far North-cast, the Burmese and Chinese junks of the present day possessed many points of similarity with tho Egyptian ships of about 6,000 years ago. After the period of tho fifth dynasty the sail, instead of being deep and narrow, became wide and shallow, and instead of several steersmen the Egyptians had a large onr in the centre of the stern, resting on a largo wooden fork and) worked by one steersman by means of a lanyard.

In Egyptian history various expeditions io Punt were mentioned, and they wore the curliest attempts at organising a fleet of powerful ships to make oversea voyages. Exactly where Punt was situated it was not possible to say, because the name was given to various regions at different times. The real motive of these expeditions was to increase l the commerce of Egypt, to open up trade with the neighboring countries, and more especially to obtain incense for the burials of the Egyptians. The length of the Egyptian vessels that voyaged to Punt had been thought to he about'6sft. In the course of years the more experienced Egyptian sailors began In discover the art of sailing against the wind, and they found that the rig of (ho Nile boats was not suitable for this, and ro was evolved a modification of their sail io allow ,of tacking. This, probably, was the origin of the “lateen” sail. It was of extreme antiquity, and had endured since the time of Alexander the Great, about 7)50 n.r. The prevalence of this kind of sail at the present day in the Red tSea, the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of Africa, and as far south ns Zanzibar was well known, ami the fact that it is still found everywhere up and' down, the Mediterranean, on the Nile, and on the Swiss lakes showed how firmly this “lateen” rig became established. Egypt, continued' (he speaker, after flourishing so mightily, had its decline; its shipping deteriorated', and the mastery of the seas passed 1 into the hands of the Phecnicians. It was impossible to exaggerate the influence, exercised by the Phoenicians as successors of the Egyptians in becoming ilio -maritime nation of the world. Phoenicia developed and: prospered through the centuries parallel with the dvna-stic peoples, migrating like the first Egyptians, westward, where they settled around the Levant, to the north of Palestine. Alrcadv in prehistoric days they had expanded still further westward into Greece, founding Thebes, and teaching the barbarian inhabitants the elements of civilisation. Everywhere until a, eentuiy or two before the Incarnation, Phoenician ships were as numerous in the waters of the Mediterranean as British ships are in all parts of the world l to-dav. They had the complete' mastery of the commerce and fisheries of the .-Tig-pan Sou until as late as the eighth century n.o. Broadly speaking, the Phoenician ships were identical with those of about the time of Ramoses TIT. (1200 n.c.). Tt was the Phoenicians who invented the Bircme (vessels with two rows of'oarsmen) and the Trireme (vessels with three row's of oarsmen) in order that speed might bo obtained. About the beginning of the sixth century n.c. the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa, and they had also voyaged out of the Mediterranean, across the turbulent Bav of Biscay to Cornwall, and probably to Ireland. The Phoenicians, who adopted the Egyptian stern and rigging, handed these features on to the Greeks, and they,, in their turn, to Iho Romans. The earliest Greek ships were afloat in the thirteenth century 8.C., and by the year 800 B.c. maritime, matters had taken the greatest hold of the dwellers in the Greek Peninsula and the western coasts of Asia Minor. Right down to the time of the Spanish Armada, and after, tho tendency among Mediterranean nations was ever to build 1 boats of the galley type—the rowed boat rather than the sailing ship. This tendency could ho to two- reasons—the geographical conditions of Southern Europe and' the abundance of slaves. The method of navigation employed: by (he Greeks was that of coasting from port to port, or from one headland or bay to another. There were'no lighthouses, but on certain points of the land the Greeks erected towel's, the most ancient of them being at the entrance to the Aegean Sea. In dealing 'with the early ships of Northern Europe, Colonel Strong stated that the evidence wc possessed of the early ships that sailed tho sens of the Baltic, North Sea, Bay of Biscay, and tho English Channel was both conclusive and diverse. There were in the writings of Caisar and Tacitus many details of ships, and this literature was supplemented by the old sagas of Scandinavia, which, though highly informative, were slightly exaggerated. Considerable knowledge had been gained as the result of excavations, which had revealed the ships of a bygone age. These excavations had revealed ships of two kinds. In Great Britain and Germany various examples of the prehistoric “ dugout” had‘been unearthed. Tho museums of Edinburgh, York, Bremen, and Kiel

contained those interesting craft in an excellent state of preservation. Fortunately, owing to the burial customs which, prevailed centuries ago, there had been excavated' in parts of Norway wonderful old Viking ships in a remarkable state of preservation. The influence of the Viking, or double-ended, typo of ship dominated the whole coastline from Norway to th 6 land as far south ns the northern shores of Spain, right down from the period which followed the construction of the mere “dug-outs,” until.almost the fifteenth century of our ora. It was a_ striking proof of the accurate knowledge in shipbuilding and ship designing possessed by the early Northerners that even to thin day this influence was far from disappearing, and showed a strong tendency to increase in the architecture of yachts and fishing boa is.

In conclusion, the speaker dealt with tho various types of Viking vessels which have been excavated right up to quite recent times, and the methods of navigation and fighting used by tho hardy Norsemen. At tho conclusion of his address Colonel Strong was accorded a very hearty vote of thanks. He expressed bis thanks to Mr J. J. Mallard for the use of hi® valiv able library on tho sea.