Ancient three- and four-masters

[Eleatic Guest]

Has anyone ever read credible reports about a Hellenistic or Roman four-master? It seems three masts were about the maximum on sailing ships.

[FarDarter]

Triremes, which were arguably the most popular warship of the Classical Greek era, had only one sail, as did probably all smaller ships and the larger but still mass-producible quadremes and quinqueremes. This is because the primary propulsion of ships back then was still by oar, and this would remain so until some time before the Renaissance. When sailing had reached its height under men like Lord Nelson, the ship's sailing abilities were so great that they could, no exaggeration, sail directly into the wind, although contrary to what Pirates of the Caribbean might have you believe you cannot simply throw the wheel and turn the car. The many masts seen on first-rate warships like the HMS Victory propelled the ship, yes, but also had a great deal to do with turning the ship, and this has to do with the way air currents push the sails, which in turn push the ship in different directions through a medium which does not offer very much resistance if gone through correctly, although such a large ship requires hundreds of men aloft in the rigging alone.

If I were to guess, having several masts on any polyreme ship would get simply too complicated. Remember, those ships relied on oar power, and contrary to what some might have you believe, those oars required highly skilled crews to operate them truly effectively. Masts simply weren't yet needed - ten knots was what a smaller sailing ship might effectively make, and it was what the reconstruction trireme Olympias made in a full speed run.

[Urselius]

Apart from an "artemon", which acted as a "headsail" and was very useful for manoeuvring, multiple masts on galleys would have been of very limited use. This is because galleys are very shallow hulled with little in the way of a keel, the advantage of multiple masts is only evident when the wind is on the beam, wind from close to directly astern is harnessable by a single mast just as efficiently as multiple masts. Wind acting on sails from abeam would make a shallow hulled galley tend to heel over, so that increasing the sail area through multiple masts would be positively dangerous - this applies less for lateen rigs than square rigs as lateens can be used to balance each other and are much better at sailing on the wind (close hauled).

This means that multiple masts would only be useful for merchant ships in the Ancient world, they had deeper hulls and more evident keels.

[Eleatic Guest]

Thinking of it, adding a fourth mast would have been impractical. Since ancient ships had only one sail each mast, there was still enough potential to increase the sail surface by adding topsails (square sails) to the existing masts.

[Sean Manning]

Do you mean that if the ancients had wanted to increase sail area, it would have made sense to add more sails to the existing masts before adding more masts? I'm not sure that they would have necessarily invented those things in that order.

My copy of Casson is in another country so I can't help with the original question. It doesn't help that evidence for merchant ships is so scarce before the Roman empire.

[Eleatic Guest]

Do you mean that if the ancients had wanted to increase sail area, it would have made sense to add more sails to the existing masts before adding more masts?

Yes, that's my guess. With three masts (foremast, main mast and mizzen), they had a balanced ship plan, which they would not have wanted to give up easily. So, instead of packing yet another mast somewhere onto the deck, it would have been more practical to first start trying to increase the height of the masts to fit in another sail. To a certain extent, they already did this with the triangular topsail. For larger sails and masts, however, they would have needed to master the technique of creating composite masts, and I am not sure if the ancient shipwright was already that far.

Now admittedly, the Chinese did exactly that, simply adding multiple masts to their junk to increase the sail area more and more. But the reason for this must have been that AFAIK one cannot add a lugsail, and in general fore-and-aft sails, on top of another one. This works only with square sails, which the Chinese mariner however hardly ever used and certainly not on large ships.

[Urselius]

I was really saying that galleys are not primarily "sailing ships." They are primarily designed for oar-powered combat, and as a result are long, narrow and shallow. A long, narrow and shallow hull is not suited to coping with a press of sail with the wind from close to abeam, in that situation the galley will easily turn turtle. This is why there are so many records of Ancient fleets of warships being destroyed by storms. The Vikings also had this problem and had long shallow oar powered warships for use in the Baltic and for coastal raiding, but their long-range ocean-going sailing vessels, knarrs, had shorter wider-beamed and deeper hulls.

Of course the galley would only use its sails if the wind was favourable, it could always be rowed if the wind was coming from an unfavourable direction. In battle sails would not be used at all, so the advantage of a balanced rig for improved manoeuvrability would not apply.

[Eleatic Guest]

I have been talking about sailing ships, merchantmen with bulky and heavy hulls (see initial post). It is clear that too many masts and sails on a galley would be impractical for an array of reasons.

[Sean Manning]

Do you mean that if the ancients had wanted to increase sail area, it would have made sense to add more sails to the existing masts before adding more masts?

Yes, that's my guess. With three masts (foremast, main mast and mizzen), they had a balanced ship plan, which they would not have wanted to give up easily. So, instead of packing yet another mast somewhere onto the deck, it would have been more practical to first start trying to increase the height of the masts to fit in another sail. To a certain extent, they already did this with the triangular topsail. For larger sails and masts, however, they would have needed to master the technique of creating composite masts, and I am not sure if the ancient shipwright was already that far.

Stefan, I would guess that a shipwright familiar with both rigs-with-many-masts and masts-with-many-sails would chose the later before the former, but I don't think it is obvious that someone would invent a mast with several large sails before inventing a ship with more than three masts. The ancients did have latteen sails, and Europeans experimented with four masts and a bowsprit in the sixteenth century before deciding that three masts and a bowsprit was better. But this is a technical question, and I think you will need to talk to someone like Morrison or Coates who understands shipbuilding and sail plans.

[Urselius]

There were a number of huge ships built for the specific purpose of transporting obelisks from Egypt to Rome and later Constantinople. If any multiple masted ships existed my bet is that it would have been those.

[Nathan Ross]

If any multiple masted ships existed my bet is that it would have been those.

Lucian's The Ship, which has the famous description of the grain ship Isis, also contains the following quote:

What do you say to five ships, larger and finer ones than your Egyptian; above all, warranted not to sink? ... three-masters all of them, and imperishable. (Lucian, The Ship, or The Wishes, 15)

That seems to imply that the very largest ships (at least in the second century) had three masts at most.

[Urselius]

It implies that unusually large ships might have three masts. However, the obelisk ships were not unusually large, they were phenomenally large for their time.

[Eleatic Guest]

Do we have any idea of the length of the mainmast on the large, ocean-going freighters?

[Eleatic Guest]

I need at bit of help. Could you make a real quick search for a five-masted Roman ship in your native tongue?

This sounds mighty strange, but still intriguing. Quote from D.J. Blackman: Ancient Harbours in the Mediterranean. Part 2, 1982, INJA: A curious graffito in Sabratha theatre appears to show a floating crane and a five-masted ship (!), but only a drawing has been published: Turba, L., 1954. Graffiti con figure di navi nelle pareti di un fornice del teatro di Sabratha. Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia. 3: 109-12. Rome

I go nuts if nobody has bothered yet to follow up this trail. According to Google Scholar and Books this Turba article has only been quoted a few times ever since.

[Eleatic Guest]

I got a copy, but my Italian is not good enough for comprehending it. I'd appreciate some help in understanding it:

1. Did the author personally saw and recorded the ship drawing? Then why does he provide a sketch only, and not a photograph? Is the graffito accessible?
2. Does he date the graffito? Is he aware of the anachronism of a five-master in antiquity?
3. In the drawing each mast has several topsails (superimposed sails not unlike a full-rigged ship). What does he say about them?
4. What does he mean with a "pontone", the other object depicted? The sketch he provides looks weird, like a modern stadium roof.

In uno dei fornici del teatro di Sabratha, e precisamente in quello stesso in cui nel 1926 sono apparse alcune palmette simboliche, graffite sull'intradosso dell'archivolto intermedio (già a suo tempo segnalate e pubblicate dall'allora Soprintendente Bartoccini), è apparsa ora una coppia di graffiti di insolita grandezza (fig. 1).

Si tratta di due disegni, uno per lato, che si svolgono sul IV e V ordine di blocchi. Nella figura maggiore la parte superiore era quasi del tutto svanita, e da sola non poteva offrire a prima vista che un insieme di linee poco chiare. La parte inferiore invece, rimasta prima e più a lungo interrata, poteva dirsi di buona conservazione, e solo attraverso ad essa fu possibile ricostruire tutta la figura, reintegrando anche quelle vaghe e incerte tracce di linee oblique, raffiguranti una specie di traliccio, in un primo momento inspiegabile.

I due graffiti si svolgono sulle due pareti maggiori: pressocchè nitido è quello di destra che rappresenta il fianco di una grande nave, ben delineata nella sua sagoma e nel fasciame, con la linea del bompresso e delle alberature; ben delineati sono la prora dritta e rostrata, raccordata alla linea orizzontale della chiglia, e il timone. Questa chiara figura di nave ha permesso il delineamento della prima figura molto più estesa e più complessa, comprendente un insieme di natanti accostati tra loro durante una operazione di carico o scarico di merci, in un porto mercantile (figg. 2 e 3).

Al centro della figura maggiore, che si estende per quasi due metri e mezzo, campeggia un pontone scaricatore a traliccio. Sulla destra di chi guarda si intravede l a metà di una nave, presumihilmente sotto carico, accostata a una specie di molo, e sulla sinistra un gruppo di tre prore di navi, all'ancora, accostate tra loro in attesa di carico (fig. 2).

Si nota che le prore di queste navi sono tutte di una stessa forma, e analnga forma hanno anche le due testate del pontone a traliccio, ancorato nel centro della figura.

Nella grande nave e nelle tre prore, tutte ferme all'ancora, ed anche in quella nave accostata sotto carico, a prima vista non si ravvisano tracce o linee raffiguranti veri e propri ormeggi. Ripetuti esami hanno chiarito quella particolare forma di traliccio che sopporta il tiro nel pontone centrale, fa da bilancia, e prende piede nel pontone stesso, sui fianchi di una specie di camera lignea centrale con tetto a pioventi, che si vede eretta sul pontone medesimo per alloggiarvi gli argani e le attrezzature. Attorno a detta camera !ignea rimane uno spazio libero per i lavori, che verrebbero effettuati appunto manovrando sulle ancore comandate dai verricelli installati nella camera centrale. Sul bordo del pontone corre un parapetto di ritegno, che trattiene anche i cumuli dei cordami pronti alla bisogna.

E noto che le rovine di Sahratha hanno un grande nemico nel vento, specie in quello di tramontana, che corrode tutte quelle pareti di pietra arenacea molto friabile, che vanno di continuo sfarinandosi per la continuata erosione.

E di conseguenza anche questi graffiti, rimasti allo scoperto, fra pochi anni potranno forse esser scomparsi.

Chi conosce Sabratha conoscerà anche Leptis Magna, col suo antico porto leggermente aperto a levante. Nel braccio a mare che ha forma di molo, è ricavato sottovento un sistema di banchine maggiori, con ormeggi e interposte scalette di raccordo; al piede di esse, sempre sottovento, corre una specie di controhancbina bassa e di larghezza costante. In questo sistema di controbanchine io vedrei qualcosa di molto analogo a quella specie di basso molo profilato sul lato destro della figura maggiore. Si vorrebbe dire che la figura stessa si adatti egregiamente per una manovra del genere, messa in atto nel porto di Leptis coll'ausilio del pontone manovrato sulle ancore, e traghettante dalla nave alle banchine e viceversa, issando a bordo o deponendo a terra le mercanzie, per mezzo del suo lungo braccio, che supera la distanza e l'altezza delle suaccennate banchine maggiori (fig. 4).

Anche Sabratha ha avuto il suo porto. E dubbio se esso fosse situato a ponente della città, in corrispondenza della vicina rada di Marsa Zuaga, o se invece si trovasse a levante, al di là del santuario di Iside, pur esso affacciato a levante, nei pressi della attuale piana di Bu-harida, leggermente aperta, come una bassa insenatura. A tramontana, a mare aperto, i marosi hanno già ingoiato una metà del tempio stesso, oltre agli edifici già esistenti a nord di esso, inabissati.

Non si può n è accertare n è escludere che la corona di scogli, che tuttora chiude al largo lo specchio d'acqua antistante agli scavi, sia stata, essa stessa, piede di una antica opera portuaria; cosa certa è che i marosi hanno già ingoiato una parte della città antica. Un a scrupolosa raffigurazione grafica, con linee tratteggiate e punteggiate per i tratti incerti è stata da me nei miei disegni esclusa, data la impossibilità di un controllo in sito, prima della messa in pulito dei disegni. I due gruppi vengono quindi graficamente presentati a linea di schizzo, di sufficiente approssimazione, rimettendo ad un piìt acuto osservatore un secondo rilievo più approfondito, con le eventuali rettifiche di qualche linea rimasta incerta o sfuggita, in ispecie nella identificazione delle vele, sì e no tutte ammainate, o sostituite da una vera e propria randa, o da qualcosa di simile, all'albero 112 di poppa. Naturalmente non ho bisogno di dire che questi graffiti non hanno nulla a che vedere con quella figura di veliero, di modesta misura, che è ricavata su una delle pareti del cisternone che un tempo si vedeva allo scoperto lungo l'arenile davanti agli scavi, ed è stato ricoperto poi dal materiale di scarico.

Il mio rilievo, per quanto fuori scala c grosso modo delineato, intende documentare il trovamento, e rendere con sufficiente chiarezza le rispettive sagome ben demarcate di queste attrezzature marinare, ed anche la loro saggia disposizione d'insieme, spaziata e ben distribuita.

Source: Turba, L., 1954. Graffiti con figure di navi nelle pareti di un fornice del teatro di Sabratha. Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia. 3: 109-12