A mortiseand tenon joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right angles.
The First Dynasty of ancient Egypt covers the first series of Egyptian kings to rule over a unified Egypt. It immediately follows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, by Menes, or Narmer, and marks the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, when power was centered at Thinis.
Carvel built or carvel planking is a method of boat building in which hull planks are laid edge to edge and fastened to a robust frame, thereby forming a smooth surface. Traditionally the planks are neither attached to, nor slotted into, each other, having only a caulking sealant between the planks to keep water out. Modern carvel builders may attach the planks to each other with glues and fixings. It is a "frame first" method of hull construction, where the shape is determined by the framework onto which the planks are fixed. This is in contrast to "plank first" or "shell first" methods, where the outer skin of the hull is made and then reinforced by the insertion of timbers that are fitted to that shape. The most common modern "plank first" method is clinker construction; in the classical period "plank first" involved joining the edges of planks with mortise and tenon joints within the thickness of the timbers, superficially giving the smooth-hull appearance of carvel construction, but achieved by entirely different means.
A lateen or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same overall category of sail.
The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun, Turkey, in the Mediterranean Sea. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982 by Mehmed Çakir, a local sponge diver from Yalıkavak, a village near Bodrum.
A sewn boat is a type of wooden boat which has its planks sewn, stitched, tied, or bound together with natural fibre rope tendons or flexible wood, such as roots and willow branches. Sewn boat construction techniques were used in many parts of the world prior to the development of metal fasteners, and continued to be used long after that time for small boats to reduce construction costs where metal fasteners were too expensive.
A treenail, also trenail, trennel, or trunnel, is a wooden peg, pin, or dowel used to fasten pieces of wood together, especially in timber frames, covered bridges, wooden shipbuilding and boat building. It is driven into a hole bored through two pieces of structural wood.
Clinker-built, also known as lapstrake-built, is a method of boat building in which the edges of longitudinal (lengthwise-running) hull planks overlap each other. Where necessary in larger craft, shorter hull planks can be joined end to end, creating a longer hull plank (strake).
Ancient boat building methods can be categorized as one of hide, log, sewn, lashed-plank, clinker, shell-first, and frame-first. While the frame-first technique dominates the modern ship construction industry, the ancients relied primarily on the other techniques to build their watercraft. In many cases, these techniques were very labor-intensive or inefficient in their use of raw materials. Regardless of differences in ship construction techniques, the vessels of the ancient world, particularly those that plied the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the islands of Southeast Asia were seaworthy craft, capable of allowing people to engage in large-scale maritime trade.
The Ma'agan Michael Ship is a well-preserved 5th-century BCE boat discovered off the coast of Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael, Israel, in 1985. The ship was excavated and its timber immersed in preservation tanks at the University of Haifa, undergoing a seven-year process of impregnation by heated polyethylene glycol (PEG). In March 1999, the boat was reassembled and transferred to a dedicated wing built at the Hecht Museum, on the grounds of the university. The boat has provided researchers with insights into ancient methods of shipbuilding and the evolution of anchors.
Honor Frost was a pioneer in the field of underwater archaeology, who led many Mediterranean archaeological investigations, especially in Lebanon, and was noted for her typology of stone anchors and skills in archaeological illustration.
The Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon. They developed a maritime civilization which expanded and contracted throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel. The Phoenicians extended their cultural influence through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula, evidenced by thousands of Phoenician inscriptions.
Discovered by divers from the French Navy Diving School in 1967, the archaeological investigations of the Roman wreck at Madrague de Giens constituted the first large-scale, "truly scientific underwater excavation[s] carried out in France". The wreck lies at around 18 to 20 metres depth off the coast of the small fishing port of La Madrague de Giens on the Giens Peninsula, east of Toulon, on the southern Mediterranean coast of France. Sank around 75–60 BCE, the vessel was found to be "a large merchantman of considerable tonnage—400 tons deadweight with a displacement of around 550 tons", making it one of the largest Roman wrecks excavated, with only the wreck at Albenga, Italy exceeding it at the time of its discovery. The vessel wrecked at Madrague de Giens measured around 40 metres in length; has a "wine glass" section which would have given better ability to sail to windward; displayed extended raking of the stem and stern; and had two masts. The hull was characterised by a reverse stempost in the shape of a ram with a big cutwater which "must have given... [the] craft high-performance sailing qualities". The ship sank while transporting a large cargo of wine and black glazed pottery from Italy. It is not known why it sank.
Lashed-lug boats are ancient boat-building techniques of the Austronesian peoples. It is characterized by the use of raised lugs on the inner face of hull planks. These lugs have holes drilled in them so that other hull components such as ribs, thwarts or other structural components can be tied to them with natural fiber ropes. This allows a structure to be put together without any metal fastenings. The planks are further stitched together edge-to-edge by sewing or using dowels ("treenails") unto a dugout keel and the solid carved wood pieces that form the caps for the prow and stern. Characteristically, the shell of the boat is created first, prior to being lashed unto ribs. The seams between planks are also sealed with absorbent tapa bark and fiber that expands when wet or caulked with resin-based preparations.
The Marsala Punic shipwreck is a third-century-BC shipwreck of two Punic ships. The wreck was discovered in 1969, off the shore of Isola Lunga, not far from Marsala on the western coast of Sicily. It was excavated from 1971 onwards. The excavation, led by Honor Frost and her team, lasted four years and revealed a substantial portion of the hull structure.
The Bajo de la Campana Phoenician shipwreck is a seventh-century BC shipwreck of a Phoenician trade ship found at Bajo de la Campana, a submerged rock reef near Cartagena, Spain. This shipwreck was accidentally discovered in the 1950s. It is the earliest Phoenician shipwreck to date to undergo an archaeological excavation. Over the course of four field seasons, researchers conducted almost 4,000 dives and over 300 hours of exploration. The sunken ship spilled its cargo in and around an underwater cave at the edge of the Bajo reef. Among the artifacts recovered were fragments of the ship's hull, along with terracotta vessels, including amphoras, bowls, and plates. Among the cargo were elephant ivory tusks, indicating Phoenician trade connections with regions where elephants were native. Additionally, the discovery of tin ingots, copper ingots, and galena nuggets suggests the ship's involvement in long-distance trade networks. The cargo also contained pine cones, double-sided wooden combs, amber nodules from the Baltic, and various raw materials such as timber and resin. Provisions and personal items of the crew were also recovered from the wreck, such as a gaming piece, a whetstone with Phoenician graffiti, and nuts and seeds. The Bajo de la Campana shipwreck belonged to Phoenician traders from the Eastern Mediterranean.
The joining technology is used in any type of mechanical joint which is the arrangement formed by two or more elements: typically, two physical parts and a joining element. The mechanical joining systems make possible to form a set of several pieces using the individual parts and the corresponding joining elements. There are fixed sets and removable sets.
The Phoenician shipwrecks of Mazarrón are two wrecks dated to the 7th century BC, found off the coast of Mazarrón, in the Region of Murcia, Spain. The shipwreck site was identified in 1988 by archaeologists from the Spanish National Museum of Maritime Archaeology and the National Center for Underwater Archaeological Research. In July 1991, the remains of a first ship, dubbed Mazarrón I, were identified, and has undergone excavation, extraction, and restoration since 1993. It is currently on display at the Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Cartagena. The second shipwreck, dubbed Mazarrón II, was discovered in 1994, and was found in a better state of preservation. After years of study, its was extracted in November 2024. The shipwrecks demonstrates hybrid shipbuilding techniques including pegged mortise and tenon joints, as well as sewn seams, providing evidence of technological experimentation in maritime construction during the Iron Age.
The Zambratija shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the 12th to 10th century BCE discovered in the Bay of Zambratija near Umag on Croatia's Istrian peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea.
