Mediterranean Connections

Maritime Transport Containers and Seaborne Trade in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages

A. Bernard Knapp, Stella Demesticha, A. Knapp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781629583549
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134992768
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Mediterranean Connections focuses on the origin and development of maritime transport containers from the Early Bronze through early Iron Age periods (ca. 3200–700 BC). Analysis of this category of objects broadens our understanding of ancient Mediterranean interregional connections, including the role that shipwrecks, seafaring, and coastal communities played in interaction and exchange. These containers have often been the subject of specific and detailed pottery studies, but have seldom been examined in the context of connectivity and trade in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.

This broad study:

• considers the likely origins of these types of vessels;
• traces their development and spread throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean as archetypal organic bulk cargo containers;
• discusses the wider impact on Mediterranean connections, transport and trade over a period of 2,500 years covering the Bronze and early Iron Ages.

Classical and Near Eastern archaeologists and historians, as well as maritime archaeologists, will find this extensively researched volume an important addition to their library.

1 Introduction

 

 

 

 

 

… the ship is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, self-contained and at the same time exposed to the endless sea, travelling from port to port, from cargo to cargo, from brothel to brothel, as far as the colonies, in search of the most precious treasures …

(Foucault 1984; http://foucault.info/doc/documents/heterotopia/foucault-heterotopia-en-html; also cited by Panagiotopoulos 2011: 45)

 

In order to gain a deeper understanding of ancient Mediterranean connections, and of the roles of shipwrecks, seafaring and coastal communities in Bronze–early Iron Age interregional trading systems, a maritime perspective is essential (Broodbank 2000: 2). Even if we have moved beyond ‘the lame use of “trade” as a self-explanatory force’ (Morris 2006: 67) in analysing interconnections in the prehistoric and early historic Mediterranean, we still need to explore ways to assess the complexities of Mediterranean trade and trade mechanisms. In this study, we seek to do so by considering the origin, development and likely functions—from the Early Bronze through the early Iron Ages in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean—of what we term the ‘maritime transport container’ (MTC) (after Marcus 2002: 409–411).

Within the field of Mediterranean archaeology, such vessels have a long and dynamic history of study. Because these containers have been studied by pottery specialists working in different regions over long periods of time, and because of the diverse functional, temporal or geographical contexts in which they have been found, they are referred to quite differently: e.g. Canaanite Jar (Grace 1956; Parr 1973; Raban 1980; Sugerman 2000; Killebrew 2007); Egyptian Amphora (Wood 1987; Bourriau 2004); Oval-mouthed Amphora (Betancourt 1990: 39–40; Poursat and Knappett 2006), Aegean Transport Stirrup Jar (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2011; Haskell et al. 2011); wine jars (Grace 1953). By the Iron Age, at least, most MTCs are simply termed amphorae (Grace 1961; Peacock and Williams 1986), albeit with multiple designators: e.g. Phoenician (transport) amphorae (Bettles 2003a; Regev 2004); SOS amphorae (Pratt 2015); Greek transport amphora (Whitbread 1995); and transport amphorae more generally (Koehler 1979; Beck et al. 1989; Eiring and Lund 2004). Within and beyond these terms, other, more specific definitions and classifications may be found, and no doubt will continue to be referred to as such in their respective chronological and culture–historical domains. In order to carry out this diachronic study covering the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, however, it was crucial to adopt a single overarching term—the maritime transport container (MTC)—that would be readily understandable to anyone who conducts research on these transport (and/or storage) vessels designed to carry organic bulk cargoes long distances by sea. Nonetheless, we still retain the specific cultural nomenclature for each vessel type throughout the text.

Grace (1956: 80–81) first identified the Levantine Late Bronze Age form as the ‘Canaanite jar’, while Parr (1973: 173–174) deemed it to be the ‘direct ancestor of the Greek and Roman amphora’, a pottery type in use for over 2000 years. Stirrup jars appear in the earliest studies and catalogues of Minoan and Mycenaean pottery under various names: Bügelkanne (Furtwängler and Loeschcke 1886: xiii), stirrup-vase (Evans 1902/1903: 138), vase à étrier (Renaudin 1922: 122–123), false-spouted vase (Pendlebury 1939: 202) and false-necked jar (Furumark 1941: 85). The unique arrangement of the handles, the closed neck and the spout made these containers easily distinguishable in the archaeological record. Seldom, however, have these—or any of the vessels discussed here—been examined diachronically as a commercial commodity container (cf. Bevan 2014).

Here we consider the likely origins of these types of vessels, their development and spread throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean as archetypal organic bulk cargo containers, and their wider impact on Mediterranean connections, transport and trade over the Bronze and early Iron Ages, a period of some 2500 years. Maritime transport containers facilitated the large-scale (‘bulk’) transportation of goods in ships. In attempting to reconstruct the early phases of their history, we also consider the early phases of ‘systematic’ seaborne trade—i.e. the transport of wine, olive oil, other organic goods, and other products in large quantities—as it may be traced archaeologically. To what extent had such trade developed by the Early Bronze Age? How did it change during the Middle–Late Bronze Ages? Did the early Iron Age bring further developments?

Other issues raised (even if not always resolved satisfactorily) are:

● To what extent can maritime transport containers inform us about patterns of seaborne trade in the Mediterranean over the nearly 2500 years covered in this study?

● Did social factors such as mobility, communications and maritime experience outweigh constraints such as the availability of resources, the (reputed) seasonality of seaborne trade (Beresford 2013), or the distance to specific ports or markets (Curtin 1984: 15–37; van Dommelen and Knapp 2010)?

● How are any culture’s sociopolitical and economic institutions—together with sources of wealth and prestige—related to its maritime trading patterns?

In the attempt to answer such questions, we focus first on maritime matters (shipwrecks, harbours), as well as on general issues involving connectivity and seaborne trade (bulk transport of goods; types of goods exchanged; social aspects of exchange) and how they changed through time. We then define and consider at length the maritime transport container, its form and function(s), the many varieties and where they were likely manufactured, what they may have contained, and their development throughout the Bronze and early Iron Ages. At various points in the text, we also consider later, better-known patterns of maritime production and trade that may shed light on the situation in the Bronze and early Iron Ages. Finally, we discuss how this treatment of maritime transport containers enhances our understanding of ancient Mediterranean connections, transport and trade. The volumetric analyses in the appendix calculate the capacity of each type of MTC treated here through the use of a computer-aided modelling, which produces 3D images of the vessels. The aim is to consider whether there was any level of capacity standardisation throughout the use history of the MTCs presented here. Such standardisation, if it existed, would have been beneficial for both the sellers packaging their products in vessels of known capacity, and the merchants and mariners who had to estimate the extent and spatial arrangement of their cargoes.

Underlying the discussion of various aspects of the production, transport and consumption of what were likely bulk organic products is the unifying theme of the movement of goods and people throughout the Mediterranean maritime world, the routes they followed, and the social or economic relationships involved in such movements. If, as Febvre (Annales, 11 January 1940: 70) wrote, ‘The Mediterranean is the sum of its routes’, and if, as Braudel (1972: 277) subsequently observed, ‘the whole Mediterranean consists of movement in space’, then there are no land routes or sea-lanes in the Mediterranean without people moving and interacting, no people moving without making stopovers (e.g. at ports, anchorages, inns, markets) that give shape to the journey. Venturing onto the open sea was always risky, but for those long-distance maritime traders who did so, the advantages of cost and speed opened endless opportunities (Panagiotopoulos 2013: 155). As Broodbank (2013a: 394) recently quipped, the Mediterranean Sea ‘remained an anarchic, free-for-all zone for anyone with the skill, daring and funds to set out upon it’.

2 Maritime Matters

Shipwrecks and Harbours

… wait until the sailing season arrives, and then

drag your swift boat down to the sea,

arrange the cargo in it and get it ready

so that you can bring the profit home.

(Hesiod, Works and Days: 630–632)

Shipwrecks

Despite the wealth of new information gained from studies of the Uluburun shipwreck and its cargo (most recently, Pulak 2008; 2009; Monroe 2007; 2009: 10–15; 2010), our understanding of the nature and forms of Bronze Age maritime transport remains limited, particularly in comparison with later periods. Moreover, some scholars are sceptical about whether wreck sites situated close to land and lacking wooden ship remains actually represent shipwrecks. Wachsmann (1998: 205; 2011: 17, n. 14), for example, questions whether the finds from Dokos (a small island in the Argo-Saronic Gulf) represent an Early Helladic wreck, or whether those from the Pseira islet (east Crete) indicate a Minoan shipwreck. Here it is worth emphasising that only the Bronze Age wrecks at Cape Gelidonya and Uluburun preserve any wooden remains of the actual ships. At Dokos, at least, the absence of an Early Helladic settlement on the promontory (Myti Kommeni) just above the wreck site, as well as the results of the geophysical survey (Yannis Lolos, pers. comm.), leave little doubt that the assemblage represents that of a shipwreck. Moreover, the area around the Saronic and Argolic Gulfs formed part of an important sea-lane of trading activity from the Early Bronze Age onward (Papageorgiou 2009: 214). At Pseira, the depth of the assemblage (at ˗45 m) points to a wreck rather than a dumping episode from the land site. In both cases, the excavators have suggested wreck deposits rather than dumping, which in our view means that these were assemblages of vessels transported on ships (see Figure 1 for all shipwreck sites mentioned in the text).

Beyond the best-known shipwrecks, at Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya in Turkey and Point Iria in Greece (Bass 1967; Karageorghis 1993: 584–587; Vichos and Lolos 1997; Phelps et al. 1999), the cargo of another late Middle or early Late Bronze Age (c.1600 BC) wreck was excavated at Sheytan Deresi off Turkey’s southwest coast (Bass 1976; Margariti 1998; Catsambis 2008). Recent excavations have identified another Late Bronze Age wreck just off the islet of Modi, near Poros in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, some 60 km south of Athens’ Piraeus harbour (Agouridis 2008; 2011; 2012). Two further ‘Minoan’ wreck deposits are known: one (already excavated) near the Pseira islet in northeast Crete (Hadjidaki 2004a; 2004b; Hadjidaki and Betancourt 2005–2006), the other (only reported) at Koulenti along the Laconian coast of the Greek mainland (Spondylis 2012). Finally, a wreck deposit that most likely dates to the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth century BC) has been identified on the basis of finds—mainly copper and tin ingots—at Hishuley Carmel, about 1 km south of Haifa on the southern Levantine coast (Galili et al. 2013). The argument made by the same authors (Galili et al. 2011) for four Late Bronze Age shipwrecks along a 3-km stretch of beach south of Haifa seems more speculative—at least until it can be demonstrated that this is not the result of dumping, or taphonomic or other factors, or until some evidence of an actual ship is found (already noted by Wachsmann 1998: 208–209).

Figure 1 Bronze–Iron Age sites with shipwrecks mentioned in text. Drawing by Luke Sollars.

Other relevant instances of Bronze Age evidence, both iconographic as well as ships’ remains or related finds, are simply noted at this point as examples of what is likely to be a larger corpus:

1 depictions or rough outlines of ships, or ‘ships graffiti’, from terminal Neolithic Strofilas on Andros in the Cyclades (Televenatou 2008: 47, fig. 6.8; Archibald 2013: 78, fig. 107), the Late Chalcolithic Levant (Marcus 2002: 406–407, fig. 24.1), predynastic Egypt (Braudel 2001: 92–93) and contemporary or slightly later Tarxien and Kordin on Malta (Cilia 2004: 73–75; Vella 2004: 28); Early Bronze Age Syros and Naxos in the Cyclades (Broodbank 1989: 327–329; 2000: 96–101; Televenatou 2008: 47), Mochlos off Crete (Wedde 2000) and in the southern Levant (Marcus 1998: 109–110); Middle Kingdom Egypt (Rod el ‘Air, Sinai, in Wachsmann 1998: 32–37, figs. 2.45–2.60); Late Bronze Age Cyprus (Basch and Artzy 1985; Wachsmann 1998: 141–143), Crete (Soles 2012: 188–191, figs. 21.2, 6), Greece (Tragana, Messenia in Mountjoy 1999(1): 357–358, no. 132, fig. 123) and the southern Levant (Artzy 1997: 7).

2 ships’ models (Westerberg 1983): Bronze Age clay and metal boat models from Byblos (Wachsmann 1998: 52–53); an Early Minoan model from Kephala Petras (Papadatos 2012), and one clay and one stone model from Mochlos on Crete (Soles 2012: 188–190, figs. 21.3–4); if authentic, the three lead models from Naxos in the Cyclades (Renfrew 1967: 5 pl. 3, 12–14; Broodbank 2000: 97–99, n. 4); at least seven Middle–Late Cypriot clay models of seagoing ships (Westerberg 1983: 9–16; Wachsmann 1998: 51, 62–67; Knapp 2014: 82); a wooden boat model from Gurob in Egypt, argued to be an Aegean or ‘Sea Peoples’ ritual vessel (Wachsmann 2013).

3 Early–Middle Minoan and later seal-stones (from Crete), and one on a golden signet ring (from Mochlos) depicting a variety of vessels—deep-hulled, masted, rigged, oared—in miniature, few of which show a sail (summarised in Broodbank 2010: 155–156, with further references; Soles 2012: 188–192, figs. 21.1, 5–6; see also Rahmstorf 2010).

4 wall-paintings of Cycladic or Aegean sailing ships, oared vessels and harbours (e.g. Doumas 1992; Sherratt 2000; Strasser 2010; Strasser and Chapin 2014).

5 the plank-built boats from Early Bronze Age (First Dynasty) Abydos and the Fourth Dynasty funerary barge of Khufu (a riverine vessel) in Egypt (Lipke 1984; Ward 2006); the possible ‘Middle Bronze Age’ boat found at Mitrou on the Euobean Gulf in central Greece (Van de Moortel 2012).

6 stone anchors, widespread throughout the Bronze–Iron Age Aegean, Cyprus, the Levant and Egypt (e.g. Frost 1970a; 1979; McCaslin 1980; Galili et al. 1994; Shaw 1995; Toth 2002; Knapp 2014: 83–84).

Wachsmann (1998: 9–204) presents a comprehensive overview of all material and representational evidence of ships from the Bronze Age Levant and Aegean, while Broodbank (2010) offers a focused study of seagoing, sailing ships—including their representations—and ship-building technology, as well as their sociocultural impact in the Late Chalcolithic through early Iron Age Mediterranean (for a nautical analysis of the iconographic evidence, see Basch 1987).

In general, and depending on their state of preservation, shipwrecks provide the most crucial material resource, and often shed light on other factors such as traded goods (i.e. the cargo), sailing routes or the ports of origin and destination. Theoretical analyses and new finds in shipwreck archaeology (Adams 2001: 296–297) have refined the notion that a wreck is a single event phenomenon, whether a closed find (Westerdahl 1992: 7) or a case of ‘exchange frozen in time’ (Muckelroy 1980: 108). Even so, shipwrecks preserve their special synchronic value for dating and remain a unique source of information about nautical issues and seaborne activities. Nonetheless, the number of known shipwrecks from specific periods—in particular within the prehistoric Mediterranean—is typically low, and thus the existing archaeological record may not provide a sufficient sample from which we could derive definitive conclusions on ancient maritime trade mechanisms.

Six of the eight known shipwrecks of Bronze Age date—Sheytan Deresi (Bass 1976), Uluburun (Pulak 2008), Cape Gelidonya (Bass 1967), Point Iria (Lolos 1999), Modi (Agouridis 2011; 2012) and Laconia (Spondylis 2012)—were scattered on a sloping seabed or steep reef. A slightly different set of six—Sheytan Deresi, Point Iria, Modi, Koulenti (Laconia), Hishuley Carmel (Galili et al. 2013) and Pseira island (Hadjidaki and Betancourt 2005–2006)—should be considered open deposits rather than closed finds. Moreover, as already noted, only the Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya wreck deposits have revealed any elements of the original ships’ wooden hulls. For the early Iron Age, the picture is equally limited; only three certain shipwrecks are known, dated to the Late Geometric–Early Archaic periods (and thus at the limit of our time frame in this volume): the deepwater Tanit and Elissa wrecks off the coast from Ashkelon (Ballard et al. 2002; Stager 2003), and Kekova Adası off the Mediterranean coast in southwestern Turkey (Greene et al. 2011). Greene et al. (2013: 28–32) also provide preliminary accounts of two further possible Iron Age shipwrecks, at Kepçe Burnu and Çaycağız Koyu, respectively about 200 and 150 km northwest of Kekova Adası. The cargo of both wrecks was badly broken, but contains many examples of the Cypriot Basket-handled Amphorae that dominated the assemblage of the Kekova Adası wreck (discussed further below, in Chapter 4, Maritime Transport Containers: Into the Iron Age). The Tanit and Elissa seem to be well preserved and coherent but too deep for excavation, while the wrecks at Kekova Adası, Kepçe Burnu and Çaycağiz Koyu are widely scattered and dispersed on the rocky sea bottom. Nonetheless, and despite their fragmentary condition, which does not provide the best evidence about the type and size of ship, these wrecks still render specific information on ancient Mediterranean trade, especially concerning the composition and nature of their cargo.

As the Uluburun wreck deposit has demonstrated (Pulak 2008), a ship’s cargo presents striking evidence for the material components of ancient trade—goods exchanged and/or carried from one port to another (also Parker 1992: 3). More typically, however, evidence of Bronze or Iron Age maritime trading patterns—shipping, sailing or shipwrecks—is quite limited compared to that for later periods, especially for the Hellenistic and Ro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Maritime Matters
• 3 Connectivity, Seaborne Trade and Maritime Transport Containers
• 4 Maritime Transport Containers
• 5 Maritime Transport Containers, Bulk Transport and Mediterranean Trade: Discussion
• 6 Conclusions: MTCs and Mediterranean Connectivity
• Appendix: Volumetric Analysis and Capacity Measurements of Selected MTCs
• References
• Index