Ancient Mediterranean

Digital Project

Minoan ship

Cat. No.

A83

Date

LM IIIB (?)

Findspot

Unknown

Dimensions

Not available

Medium

Painted clay larnax

Accession Number

n/a

References

Gray 1974: G47, fig. 11; Humphreys 1977: 352; Wachsmann 1998: 131, fig. 7.7; Wedde 2000: 320, no. 607

The ship was painted upside down on the inside wall of the larnax. Flat hull with a curving sternpost indicate by a steering oar. Keel line rises slightly towards the bow. The keel and gunwale lines do not join. The two horizontals are joined by seventeen vertical parallel lines. There is an oblique dotted line from the top of the curved stempost to the outward extremity of the line representing the steering oar. The ship is possibly off the Minoan type (Wedde Type IV).

Was on the Swiss art market in 1970/1971

Humphreys has wondered whether the upside down orientation was on purpose: " Can it possibly have been painted this way to make it look right from the point of view of the corps." (Humphreys 1977: 352)

Gray, D. 1974, Seewesen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.

Humphreys, S. C. 1977. “Review of Seewesen,” Classical Philology 72: 347-355.

Wachsmann, S. 1998. Seagoing Ships & Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.

Wedde, M. 2000. Towards a Hermeneutics of Aegean Bronze Age Ship Imagery. Peleus Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zyperns, vol. 6. Bibliopolis: Mannheim and Möhnsee.

  • copyright icon © Gray 1974: G47, fig. 11 Click for fullscreen
  • copyright icon © Gray 1974: G47, fig. 11 Click for fullscreen