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NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 35.

that the ancient names defrutum, sapa and caroenum (which often appear as painted labels on Haltern 70 amphoras) all correspond to a single substance, known in Spanish as arrope and in English as boiled must. Both Roman authors and modern winemakers prescribe the reduction by boiling of freshly-pressed grape-must to provide an additive which in certain circumstances can be used to improve a vintage. The resultant juice also provides a medium in which fruit can be bottled for transportation (as found in the well-known example of the olives found in the Thames Estuary, or in amphora inscriptions from Continental Europe). In ancient Iberia, then, the amphoras found in northern Lusitania or north-western Tarraconensis would have been carrying boiled must as an additive to pep up local wines. Since this was obviously a relatively specialized and irregular trade, we can explain the lack of bulk cargoes of Haltern 70 amphoras (Culip VIII being one of the largest known); compare other specialized products which appear to have travelled in rare amphora-forms, such as Lipari alum in Richborough 527 amphoras. This is a handsome volume, like the others in the series, but it suffers academically from a serious drawback. Nearly all the text is in Catalan (Aguileras contribution being in Castilian), and there are no summaries or captions in any other language. While one welcomes the resurgence of the Catalan language at home, one must deplore, in the modern situation, the publication of something which is of such international interest without any aids, no matter how brief, to readers outside Catalunya. A. J. PARKER University of Bristol, England

The Philosophy of Shipbuilding: Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Wooden Ships


(Ed Rachal Foundation Nautical Archaeology series) FREDERICK M. HOCKER and CHERYL A. WARD 183 pp., 109 b&w illustrations, 2 tables Texas A&M University Press, College Station, TX 778434354, USA, 2004, 52.95 (hbk), ISBN 1-58544343-1 This book of homage, dedicated to Emeritus Professor of Nautical Archaeology J. Richard Steffy, has been delayed a long time for various reasons (explained in the Acknowledgements). Indeed, it was in 1990 that Dick Steffy retired from teaching at Texas A&M University, College Station. His retirement as professor, however, was not synonymous with retirement as researcher. His important contribution to the rst
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volume of the 12th-century Sere Limani shipwreck monograph (2004) is a ne illustration of his present scientic activity. In the foreword, George F. Bass recalls the very original scientic way of an engineer named Dick Steffytalented model-maker of ancient ships and greatly interested in the history of wooden shipbuilding. This engineer became in a few years the outstanding expert, internationally respected, of ancient nautical architecture and of the interpretation of shipwrecks. His book Wooden Shipbuilding and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks, which rst appeared in 1994 (see review in IJNA 23, 2556, and 31.2, 1589) remains the fundamental reference work for every nautical archaeology study. Great scholar Dick Steffy was also a great teacher at Texas A&M University and the associated Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), the two institutions closely linked to his professorial career. The Steffy Ship Reconstruction Laboratory continues today to be an exceptional training centre for new generations of students in the discipline, the reconstruction of ancient ships, of which Dick Steffy was the pre fondateur. In the book under review edited by Fred Hocker and Cheryl Ward, emphasis is on the aspect of the philosophy of shipbuildingan expression that Hocker attributes to Steffy who dened it as the fundamental conceptual approach underlying a particular ships design and construction. In his introductory chapter Hocker establishes the historical context of the scientic debate on the subject. In particular, he analyses two very important notions: theses of typology and of classication in nautical architecture. According to the two authors, these two concepts have different meaningsresulting in various historical conclusions relating, for example, to the notion (important but complex to use) of shipbuilding tradition. After the introductory chapter there are nine contributions from American and European nautical archaeologists and historians of naval architecture, some of whom were erstwhile students of Dick Steffy. These contributions may be divided into two groups: the rst (chapters 25) illustrates the different approaches of the philosophy of shipbuilding within a historical and geographic frame from Scandinavia to Egypt. Chapters 610 form the second group. In Chapter 2, Boatbuilding in Ancient Egypt (pp.1324), Cheryl Ward analyses, in particular, the techniques of nautical carpentry on the one hand (species of wood, tools, types of joints), and, on the other, the shell-rst methods of Egyptian shipbuilding. Here she introduces the important distinction between the building of working water-craft such as the Mataria boat and Lisht timbers, and of ceremonial craft such as the Khufu and Dashur vessels. In a certain sense, this distinction might have the same technical consequences (conception and construction) as those resulting from the distinction, made by Lucien Basch, between private shipbuilding for trade and state shipbuilding for war and ofcial trading.

2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation 2006 The Nautical Archaeology Society

REVIEWS

In Principles and Methods of Construction in Ancient Naval Architecture (Chapter 3, pp.2536), Patrice Pomey returns to shell-rst Greco-Roman shipbuilding. In considering eight wrecks situated in both the eastern and western Mediterranean, he discusses two concepts which cover two distinct aspects from a methodological point of view. The rst is the principle of constructionthat is, the form and structure of the vessel; the second is methods or processes of construction concerned with the practical realisation of the vessel. It must be said that from the operational angle of the shipyard these two aspects are very close together. After Egypt and the Mediterranean, it is northern Europe that is the subject of Ole Crumlin-Pedersen in his Nordic clinker Construction chapter (pp.3763). With reference to the ve 11th-century Skuldelev wrecks, in particular, Crumlin-Pedersen describes the most signicant characteristics of the Nordic shellrst clinker construction. He also addresses the practical problem of cutting up planks by splitting or sawing as a theoretical question: the concept of the form as a mental template of the ship resulting (for example) in the predetermination of the number of strakes and their curvature near the ends, right up to the sheer. Chapter 5, by Fred Hocker, is titled Bottom-based shipbuilding in Northwestern Europe and runs to 29 pages. He gives a circumstantial analysis of a philosophy of shipbuilding which is neither shell-rst, skeleton-rst nor frame-based. This bottom-based construction is mainly associated with inland navigationrivers and lakesbut does not exclude the maritime zones of northwestern Europe, from the Baltic to the Channel. In accordance with historiographical logic, the shipbuilding of the Roman-Celtic tradition is studied in great detail since it gave rise to the important development in the medieval period of the cog tradition and, more recently, the North Holland shipbuilding tradition. This important synthesis ends the rst group of contributions. The second group consists of ve contributions in the form of case histories. These are presented more briey to reect the more limited approach (to the philosophy of construction). It is from the study of written sourcesin the form of Egyptian papyri by a man of Greek origin named Zenonthat Lionel Casson in Chapter 6, Ive already sold my tunic: Nile skippers and their Problems in the mid-third century BC (pp.95102) describes the difculties encountered during trading on the Nile. There are nancial difculties, for example, the wages of the crew; and material difculties, for example, the repair of vessels. After the written sources, ship models are studied in Chapter 7, Two Athenian Ship Models of the Third Millennium BC (pp.10311). Here Lucien Basch proposes a very detailed analysis of two fragments of ship models in terracotta which pose hard problems of architectural interpretation.

In Chapter 8, The Tantura Wrecks and Ancient Mediterranean Shipbuilding (pp.11327), the archaeological data are again examined. Yaacov Kahanov, Jeffrey Royal and Jerome Hall interpreting the wrecks of Tantura A (dated to the 6th century AD) and Tantura B (rst quarter of the 9th century AD) as frame-based construction, give a new historical readingmore complex and less linearof the problem of development during the Early Middle Ages in the eastern Mediterranean. The chapter written by Thomas Oertling, Characteristics of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Iberian Ships (Chapter 9, pp.129 36) returns to his denitionfrom 11 architectural characteristics of archaeological dataof the Atlantic or Ibero-Atlantic tradition of shipbuilding. This denition is examined only from the point of view of structure, without reference to conceptual aspects; in particular, the process of ships design which, during this period, seems very close to each other in Atlantic and Mediterranean contexts. In the last chapter, Sails on an Inland Sea: the evolution of Lake Champlains Sailing Merchant Fleet (Chapter 10, pp.13762), Kevin Crisman studies, from a group of wrecks well preserved in the cold, dark waters of Lake Champlain, the process of architectural adaptation of ships (through form, structure, propulsion) to necessities and constraints of the inter-regional economy of water transport in the Great Lakes between 1783 and 1900. A glossary, a general bibliography taking in the bibliography of each individual chapter, and an index, complete this book of homage. In perfect harmony with what we call (with great respect and affection) the Steffy philosophy of shipbuilding, many chapters contribute remarkably to the history of naval architecture. This book must be recommended to old, present and future generations of nautical archaeologists and historians of shipbuilding. ERIC RIETH Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

Roars Circle: A Viking Ship Returns to the Sea


HENRIK JUEL 160 pp., 8 pp. colour, 29 b&w photos, in-text drawings Lutterworth Press, PO Box 60, Cambridge CB1 2NT, UK, 2005 (1985 in Danish), 15 (sbk), ISBN 0-71883045-8

The original Viking ship of the title is the well-known, almost-complete nd Skuldelev 3, a small clinker-built cargo vessel built in Denmark around 1040 AD. She was c.14 m long with a beam of 3.28 m, and was
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2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation 2006 The Nautical Archaeology Society

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