A "thank you" to the zeaharbourproject people for their video reconstruction of Zea

[keravnos]

http://www.zeaharbourproject.dk/News-media/zea.wmv

For more info on them,
http://www.zeaharbourproject.dk

I have watched that film at least 5 times so far. I love it. It explains all there was so far as the military harbors of the ancients were concerned, far better than any book length account of them ever could.

A big thanks to zeaharbourproject for that.
and of course CHIMERA. (Check through the credits for what that means).

[Scundoo]

Great video, thanks for posting this

[hoom]

Yeah, that was cool
Now will someone please do something similar for Carthage?

[LorDBulA]

Great movie, thanks for posting.

But is this reconstruction accurate?
This port seems really small, not many ship can stay in it (on water) at the same time.
No docking devices no pier to load/unload cargo, crew etc..

[hoom]

Thats just the military harbour, there was a bigger commercial one.

Zea is one of the two smaller ones on the right

[Sarkiss]

awesome! thanks for sharing, keravnos

[LorDBulA]

Thats just the military harbour, there was a bigger commercial one.

Ok then. I guess it was only used to store and maintain ships. Thanks for the info.

[keravnos]

In all Hellenic and later Hellenistic cities there were two harbors. One would be the "trade" harbor and one would be the "war" harbor, which would be exactly as shown in the video.

[LorDBulA]

I am just wondering how did they get to the ship.
I guess they where putting it on the water with minimal crew to limit the weight.
And then all the food, water, crew had to be transported inside the ship.
Did they used boats to do this? Or did they use only skeleton crew to get inside main port and there they prepared the ship for journey.

Was the military port used regularly for docking military ships or only as a safe ship storage and maintenance base. So only ships that where retired from service (for example in peace time ) or scheduled for maintenance where put inside the military port and all other ships in active service and between maintenance where docked inside trade port.

[keravnos]

-reserved for answer, looking stuff up-

I am just wondering how did they get to the ship.
I guess they where putting it on the water with minimal crew to limit the weight.
And then all the food, water, crew had to be transported inside the ship.
Did they used boats to do this? Or did they use only skeleton crew to get inside main port and there they prepared the ship for journey.

Was the military port used regularly for docking military ships or only as a safe ship storage and maintenance base. So only ships that where retired from service (for example in peace time ) or scheduled for maintenance where put inside the military port and all other ships in active service and between maintenance where docked inside trade port.

This was one of the ΝΕΩΣΟΙΚΟΙ" or "houses of the ships" as they were called.


Each could house 2 triremes. Seeing that there were 180+ in the one war harbor of Zea with 80+ on the smaller war port of Mounichia the combined figure was about 520+ triremes storage capacity.

Below the two war harbors. The bigger is Zea, while the smaller Mounichia,


Having seen the archaeological map of the region (I hope to be able to post it shortly), very near the "shiphouses" were an Aslkepeion (aka hospital) an armory/storage facility and a bit further away, a market. If we combine all that with what we know for hoplites turned marines, the "Epibatai", the ship rowers (ΕΡΕΤΕΣ) which were organised into clubs, and were almost all of the time payed citizens, very rarely slaves, this meant the following.

That each one of them was responsible for his own food. As the space in the trireme was cramped, not much of it could be stored in the ship. Most naval actions took place in the Aegean. It is very possible to get across it, in 1-2 days of rowing at a constant speed of 9 knots. Warspeed would be about 12 knots, but that couldn't be maintained for long. Ideally the rowers and marines on board a trireme would buy their own supplies at a friendly port, or scavenge the land for things to eat, when on enemy ground or islands. That was the cause of their demise in some cases. Spartans, not good at fighting sea battles per se, avenged a previous defeat, when they launched an amphibious attack with their Marines, on the Athenians who had returned and sent the majority of their ships' crew out scavenging for food. That was at 404 BCE and the location Aigos Potamoi. This defeat was the reason Athenians lost the Peloponnesian war.

From what I have read the ship would "launch into" the sea by its own weight, or some help from the marines, being cramped at its stern to add to its weight. It was balanced in such a way, that there was no problem of it tipping over or anything.

Here is how it was stored,


I think that it falling on the sea under its own weight or with a little help isn't out of the question. While on land it was treated with all sort of anti-rotting treatment available at its time. One of the most succesful ones was the covering of all the ship's surface which was submerged with tar.

[Sarkiss]

afaik Carthage had the most outstanding harbours... wish there was similar video done on it

[keravnos]

I am sure that Carthage was built in a similar fashion. Athens had one of the largest warports. In fact it had two of them.

[hoom]

Just a little nit-pick:
Knots are not a per-hour measure.
The measurement of knots was by dropping a float into the water & measuring how much string has to be eased out in 30 seconds.
Each 'knot' on the string being about 14.5m/50 feet apart.
Speed being logged as 'x knots'

In modern use a speed of 1 Knot = 1 Nautical Mile per hour.

More on topic:
I always thought it a bit odd that Athens can't build triremes in EB.
I'm assuming its because of (can't remember the name) battle vs Macedon & Athens never tried to build a big navy again but I'd have thought with the infrastructure there, it should be possible.

Also, has there ever been identified a ship shed for one of the really big ones like the 13s etc? (these being a Successor thing I wouldn't be expecting any at Piraeus though)

It is a good question as to how they manned the ships after getting them in the water.
I'm assuming that there would be a couple of smaller boats acting as tugs to guide the just launched ship either to a mooring where crew, oars & equipment would be ferried out to it or to a pier where the same could be done directly.

[keravnos]

My fault about the knots. Will change.
Thanks Hoom.

[Theusje]

How dare they using HOI2 music.

Great video btw.

[keravnos]

How dare they using HOI2 music.

Great video btw.

If you look at the credits, Paradox software gave them permission to do so.
Class act, if you ask me!

[The General]

I liked the video.

If you look at the credits, Paradox software gave them permission to do so.
Class act, if you ask me!

Aye, a nice gesture from Paradoxians' side.