Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

The first sea-fight of which a pictorial representation is known to exist was fought off Migdol, at the mouth of the Nile, in the time of Rameses III., first king of the Twentieth Dynasty, which began about 1180 B.C., and lasted to about 1050 B.C. Egypt was invaded from the East by “warships and foot soldiers,” and the Egyptian monarch mustered a fleet and attacked them.

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WARSHIP.

“The ships on both sides,” says the historian[6]—“we can recognise the Egyptian by the lion heads in the bows—have reefed their sails in order not to interfere with the men who are fighting; the bracket at the mast head has been removed to make room for the slinger. The Egyptians understood how to pull round the ships of the enemy with their grappling irons, so as to bring them to close quarters; in fighting also they have the better of their opponents, for they all carry bows, whilst the barbarians with their short swords can only fight in a hand-to-hand medley. This battle is almost the only naval engagement in Egyptian history, for though in the wars with the Hyksos we certainly hear of fighting on the water, yet in the latter case the Nile was the scene of action.... The ships had their individual names, such as Battle Animal, or Glorious in Memphis. The Ship of Pharaoh was also called Beloved of Amon.”

A remarkable difference between the ships of the Egyptians and those of the Asiatics is that the latter had no rowers, if the bas-relief is accurate. Possibly the Asiatics, Phoenicians probably, had discovered how to manage the sails of their warships and dispense with rowers.

The example set by the Asiatic fleet does not seem to have been followed, for as the need of greater ships became manifest the problem of their propulsion was met by placing one bank or tier of oarsmen above another. Then, as now, the propelling power was vital to the efficiency of the ship, and means had to be devised for the preservation, or at least protection, of the oarsmen. The single-banked ships had planks placed round the gunwales, forming a parodus, or gangway, which served also to guard the rowers from missiles. Later, the upper tier was in an open superstructure, and still later, planks were carried which could be adjusted for the protection of the oarsmen when necessary.

The ram, employed by the Egyptians—who seem to have retained for their sea-going craft the long, overhanging stem and stern so suitable to their river vessels—was a metal head, which added a finishing touch to the projecting bows, and was high above the sea level. At the time of the battle of Migdol, and possibly also of the sea-fights in the reign of the preceding Rameses, who is known to have conducted a naval war, though of this campaign no illustrations have yet been discovered, the captain of the warship was placed in a sort of crow’s nest on top of the double or ⋀-shaped mast.

Then comes a long gap in the history of Egyptian shipping. The Phœnicians became the leading maritime people of the world, but the little that is known of them is derived, not from discoveries in their own cities of Tyre and Sidon, but from the records preserved at Nineveh. Sennacherib’s conquest of Phœnicia was commemorated by mural tablets, on which are the only known records of Phœnician war galleys. The Phœnicians are stated to have invented biremes, or vessels carrying two banks of oars on each side. Perhaps for lightness, and in order to reduce the top weight as much as possible, these galleys had the upper bank of oarsmen unprotected. The prow, differing from that of the earlier Egyptian ships, curved forward at a point slightly above the water line, and continued to do so under the water, thus forming a formidable snout or ram which could inflict considerable damage to the most vulnerable parts. The beaks were generally carved to represent the head of some animal. The vessels also had a parodus placed outside the vessel and extending the whole length of the sides above the oars. The contrivance was probably copied from the Egyptians, who introduced it to enable the warriors to fight at close quarters when drawing alongside an enemy, or to run to either end of the ship as occasion might require without impeding, or being impeded by, the rowers.

GREEK BIREME.