An Invitation to Sail the Wine Dark Sea with Us

"I declare that I am Mentes, the son of wise Anchialus, and I am lord over the oar-loving Taphians. And now have I put in here, as you see, with ship and crew, while sailing over the wine-dark sea to men of strange speech, on my way to Temese for copper; and I bear with me shining iron."

Homer, Odyssey 1.180-184

We invite you to sail around the wine-dark sea with us "to peoples of strange speech" and to listen to the voices of the peoples of the ancient world. Each case will take you to a different destination, and the texts and objects featured have been chosen to raise up those voices and help us to think about them and their lives.

Diversity in the Ancient World

Voices from Rome: Eucharis and Caprasia

Voices from Greece: Telesilla and the Women of Corinth

Voices from Babylon: Receipts Can Talk

Ancient Houses: Research Projects completed by the students enrolled in CLS 215: Women in Antiquity during Summer 2021

Voices from the Greek Islands: Sappho

Voices from Egypt: Tasoucharion and Tetos

Voices from Carthage: Saints Perpetua and Felicity

Acknowledgments and Bibliography

Experience the exhibit in augmented and virtual reality!

Hold items from the exhibit in your hand using a Merge Cube
More AR and VR resources coming soon!

The Lego ship in this case and the other Lego creations are the work of the Fall 2021 Latin 101: Elementary Latin class. They have researched ancient Roman merchant ships and created this ship and these other creations as part of a culture researching ancient Roman culture. The ship is, of course, accompanied by many sea monsters, indicating the danger perceived by inhabitants of the ancient world of sea travel - while the sea was a powerful tool, it was also capricious, dangerous, and took peoples' lives.

Below, read the materials created by students of Latin 101 about Roman ships:

The Romans, Ships, and Seafaring

Although it may be surprising to us now, A Model of an Ancient Roman merchant ship Romans were never traditionally associated with being seafaring peoples. Add onto that the facts that shipbuilding was a long and complicated process that required certain techniques and principals, and it seems difficult to consider. However, they popularized certain aspects like building the ship from the outside and working in from there, which is still used today. The Roman navy for many years was treated as secondary to the land-based military, leaving Carthage to rule the waters of the area. When conflict was brewing was when the Romans reverse-engineered a ship from Carthage for their own purposes (around the time of the First Punic War). Estimates of how long the fleet took to build are questionable, but it was a substantial effort of mass production. After the conflict with Carthage, the epidemic of piracy in the Mediterranean once again called for naval might.

Sea Monsters: You may notice a depiction of sea monsters around the ship. This is not accidental; sea monsters played a substantial role in Roman myths and legends. “Ketos” was a general term describing whales and sharks of the area, but there was also the Ketea, large sharp-toothed serpents. All monsters of the sea were collectively known as the Ketea as well. There were some famous Ketos in Roman legends, such as the Ketos Troias, a monster that was intended to hold Troy captive in fear (under the orders of the god of the sea).

Roman Ship Facts

It is believed that container ships go back as far as the 1950's BCE. The Phoenicians are known to be the first to use these ships for transporting foods, drinks, raw materials and other miscellaneous items.

Sailing the seas was considered un-Roman and they only began sailing after conquering areas that were already building ships and sailing.

Each ship has a large white swan mast.

Shipbuilders often started building the hull first and then they would build the rest of the ship. They did this because the shape of the hull determined how the rest of the ship was built, and there were several ways to build the hull. This required someone who had a lot of experience in order to build a ship that would not sink.

Shipbuilding in ancient Rome was more of an art, inherited techniques and personal experience rather than an from an engineering stand point. The Romans were not traditionally sailors. They are more of a land-based community who learned to build ships from the people that they conquered, mainly the Carthaginians , the Greeks and the Egyptians.

Roman shipbuilders built the outer hull first, then went on to the frame and the rest of the ship. They were joined together using the locked mortise and tenon method. Then in the first centuries of the current era, Mediterranean shipbuilders shifted to another shipbuilding method that we use in today's world. The ship building consisted of building the frame first and then proceeding with the hull and the other components of the ship. This method was more systematic and dramatically shortened ship construction times.

Capacity for cargo space on the Roman Ships were between 100-150 ton. Materials that were transported included: agricultural goods, raw materials, and other goods. "They had V-shaped hull was deep underwater meaning that they could not sail too close to the coast. They usually had two huge side rudders (or steering oars) located off the stern and controlled by a small tiller bar connected to a system of cables. They had from one to three masts with large square sails and a small triangular sail called the supparum at the bow."

The Roman navy ended up becoming the biggest and most powerful in the Mediterranean. As they became the strongest military they called the Mediterranean "Mare Nostrum" which means "Our Sea."

References:

https://www.romae-vitam.com/roman-ships.html

https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Ketea.html

https://carolashby.com/the-roman-navy/

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1028/roman-shipbuilding--navigation/

https://naval-encyclopedia.com/antique-ships/roman-ships.php

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