Comments on: Ports and harbours

By: Rosemarie Kennan

Rosemarie Kennan — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 13:38:51 +0000

Just wondering why such important harbours as Portus and Myos Hormos were left to silt up. Were they replaced by others providing better shelter?

By: Edwin

Edwin — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 11:57:47 +0000

Well worth looking at the range of material on The Archaeology Data Service which is free.
The CBA reports are especially interesting
our course, for example

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/cba_rr/rr41.cfm
Waterfront archaeology in Britain and Northern Europe
Gustav Milne and Brian Hobley (Editors)
CBA Research Report No 41 (1981)
ISBN 0 906780 08 X

When you link you may be first asked to accept their terms.

By: Wade Tarzia

Wade Tarzia — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:01:42 +0000

Thank you. From now I am not going to say “thanks” anymore because I just thought that this becomes an annoying low-info e-mail that pops up on your screen that you do not need. So to all the faculty and staff, please accept my future-thanks for all postings replied to! :-)

By: Lucy Blue

Lucy Blue — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:40:16 +0000

Hi Wade – sometime not very much other than the obvious advantageous physical features, associated settlement and ceramic scatters in associated shallow sheltered bay are also signs. However, some sites did start to adapt by cutting blocks to avoid siltation and also with providing additional protection as indicated by cutting offshore rocks and to build sea walls. Only a few LBA sites reveal actual early quay features and they include sites in the eastern Mediterranean such as Tell Dor, Israel and Kition, Cyprus. We also possibly have early ship sheds for storing boats at sites such as Kommos, Crete. It is not really until the Iron Age that more comprehensive harbour structures start to be seen

By: Wade Tarzia

Wade Tarzia — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 17:24:14 +0000

Thanks, very good.

By: Wade Tarzia

Wade Tarzia — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 17:01:32 +0000

Boat design viz-a-viz typical landing places (or harbor facilities) is a fascinating topic. Good example of vessels designed to land at undeveloped places might be the river boats of Pakistan, which have inordinately long overhangs on the bow (and corresponding ones at stern, perhaps to counter-balance), which seems to permit them to nose up to a sand/mud bank — the slope of the stem matching, in a sense, the slope of the land. A vessel that had to make landings at rough or narrowly accessible places might need different things — one of the Pacific outrigger canoes is dug to such a thin log-thickness that they can be picked up and carried by one sailor, out of the surf of over rocks — not a quality we often associate with dugout canoes, but the landing place dictated the scantlings of the design. The canoes of Hawaii often had to make landings over deadly rocks, so they built canoe ladders to sail them right up on the wooden ladder, so perhaps for these canoes any feature that gets them on the ladder (hull bottom curvature? upturned ends on the outrigger float?) is the adaptation.

By: Julian (FL Shipwrecks Team)

Julian (FL Shipwrecks Team) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 16:16:47 +0000

I think the tidal regime has a lot to do with things in different parts of the world. In NW Europe where there is a very large tidal regime, many places can be accessed at high tide, leaving a useful area for loading and unloading as the tide falls and then stays out for many hours. As Edwin comments below, this has led to many vessels in this part of the world being designed to ‘take the ground’ between tides.

By contrast, areas such as the Red Sea and Mediterranean have a really limited tidal regime and so you simply don’t get the opportunity to behave in the same way. Vessels have to be physically dragged clear of the sea, or secured afloat. So it makes sense for quays and jetties to develop.

But in answer to your original question. In later prehistory it is very difficult to pick out definite harbour areas in many places, simply because they are so ephemeral in terms of the archaeological signature that they left behind. More likely is to be able to ID them from the associated terrestrial settlement, which is likely to leave a much bigger fingerprint behind.

By: Edwin

Edwin — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 15:12:06 +0000

Beach landings were and are very important, some vessels being designed for this, possibly the most recent being the Clyde Puffer and maybe the earliest on record in Northern waters those of the Veneti.

By: Wade Tarzia

Wade Tarzia — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 15:10:03 +0000

Interesting. So I’m curious — what did the Bronze Age harbors of Europe have that marked them out as harbors, besides the obvious geographical location? We have seen the Bronze Age ship carvings near what was once the shore in those times — part of the ritualistic harbor setting, but is that all we have to go on? We we have any indications that harder work was invested in Bronze Age harbors, such as holes carved out of bedrock to place bollards or other mooring devices?