Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T18:48:05.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The 1st Millennium AD Mediterranean Shipbuilding Transition at Dor/Tantura Lagoon, Israel: Dating the Dor 2001/1 Shipwreck

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Brita Lorentzen ,
Sturt W Manning  and
Yaacov Kahanov
Brita Lorentzen*
Affiliation:
Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology, B48 Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853–3201, USA
Sturt W Manning
Affiliation:
Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology, B48 Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853–3201, USA
Yaacov Kahanov
Affiliation:
Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
*
2. Corresponding author. Email: bel9@cornell.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the 1st millennium AD, a fundamental set of changes in ship design, building methods, and sequence of construction took place in the Mediterranean. This process is known as the “Transition in Construction.” Before the Transition, ship hull design was based longitudinally on the ship's strakes (“shell-first”). By about the mid-1st millennium AD, the concept and construction of ship hulls had changed and were based on the ship's frames (“frame-based”). The Transition was a complex, nonlinear evolution. High-precision dating of the construction and service period of ships built during the 1st millennium is essential for elucidating the Transition process. Such dating precision is possible using radiocarbon wiggle-matching and Bayesian analysis techniques. The following study uses these techniques to determine the construction, launch, and final voyage (wrecking) dates of Dor 2001/1, a Byzantine shipwreck from northern Israel that was built based on frames. The results indicate that Dor 2001/1 was likely constructed and launched in the first third of the 6th century AD and was wrecked no later than AD 540. This is one of the earliest frame-based ships found in the Mediterranean so far. Dor 2001/1 is therefore an important shipwreck in understanding the Transition, since it provides evidence that frame-based hulls were already being built by the mid-1st millennium AD, about 500 yr earlier than has been commonly accepted.

Type
Methodology: Tree Rings and Plants
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , 2014 , pp. 667 - 678
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barkai, O, Kahanov, Y, Avisar, M. 2010. The Tantura F shipwreck—the ceramic material. Levant 42(1):88–101.Google Scholar
Bayliss, A, Tyers, I. 2004. Interpreting radiocarbon dates using evidence from tree rings. Radiocarbon 46(2):957–64.Google Scholar
Brock, F, Higham, T, Ditchfield, P, Bronk Ramsey, C. 2010. Current pretreatment methods for AMS radiocarbon dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). Radiocarbon 52(1): 103–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 1995. Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program. Radiocarbon 37(2):425–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009a. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–60.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009b. Dealing with outliers and offsets in radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon 51 (3): 1023–45.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, van der Plicht, J, Weninger, B. 2001. ‘Wiggle matching’ radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 43(2A):381–9.Google Scholar
Bruhl, JJ, Wilson, KL. 2007. Towards a comprehensive survey of C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways in Cyperaceae. Aliso 23(1):99–148.Google Scholar
Carmi, Y, Segal, D. 1995. How old is the shipwreck from Tantura Lagoon? The radiocarbon evidence. INA Quarterly 22(2):12.Google Scholar
Casson, L. 1990. Hulls and barrels: underwater archaeology's vital contributions to the history of naval technology. In: Tzalas, H, editor. Tropis II, 2nd International Symposium on Ship Construction in Antiquity, Delphi 1987. Athens: Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Tradition. p 85–6.Google Scholar
Galimberti, M, Bronk Ramsey, C, Manning, SW. 2004. Wiggle-match dating of tree-ring sequences. Radiocarbon 46(2):917–24.Google Scholar
Kahanov, Y. 2011a. Ship reconstruction, documentation, and in situ recording. In: Catambis, A, Ford, B, Hamilton, D, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 161–81.Google Scholar
Kahanov, Y. 2011b. The Dor/Tantura shipwrecks: clues to their construction tradition. Archaeologia Maritima Mediterranea 8:137–51.Google Scholar
Kahanov, Y, Mor, H. 2014. The Dor 2001/1 Byzantine shipwreck, Israel: final report. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 43(1):41–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahanov, Y, Royal, J, Hall, J. 2004. The Tantura wrecks and ancient Mediterranean shipbuilding. In: Hocker, FM, Ward, CA, editors. The Philosophy of Shipbuilding: Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Wooden Ships. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. p 113–27.Google Scholar
Kreutz, BM. 1976. Ships, shipping, and the implications of change in the Early Medieval Mediterranean. Viator, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7:79–109.Google Scholar
Lev-Yadun, S. 2000. Wood structure and ecology of annual growth ring formation in Pinus halepensis and P. brutia. In: Ne'eman, G, Trabaud, L, editors. Ecology, Biogeography and Management of Pinus halepensis and P. brutia Forest Ecosystems in the Mediterranean Basin . Leiden: Backhuys Publishers. p 67–78.Google Scholar
McCormick, M. 2001. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, AD 300–900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McGrail, S. 2008. Sea transport, part 1: ships and navigation. In: Oleson, JP, editor. Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. New York: Oxford University Press. p 606–37.Google Scholar
Mor, H, Kahanov, Y. 2006. The Dor 2001/1 shipwreck, Israel: a summary of the excavation. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 35(2):274–89.Google Scholar
Pomey, P, Kahanov, Y, Rieth, E. 2012. Transition from shell to skeleton in ancient Mediterranean ship-construction: analysis, problems, and future research. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 41(2):235–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Haflidason, H, Hajdas, I, Hatté, C, Heaton, TJ, Hoffmann, DL, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, Manning, SW, Niu, M, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Scott, EM, Southon, JR, Staff, RA, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine 13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweingruber, FH. 1990. Anatomy of European Woods. Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt.Google Scholar
Steffy, JR. 1982. The reconstruction of the 11th century Serçe Limani vessel: a preliminary report. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 11(1):13–34.Google Scholar
Steffy, JR. 1994. Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Steffy, JR. 1995. Ancient scantlings: the projection and control of Mediterranean hull-shapes. In: Tzalas, H, editor. Tropis III, 3rd International Symposium on Ship Construction in Antiquity, Athens 1989. Athens: Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Tradition. p 417–28.Google Scholar
Steffy, JR. 2004. Construction and analysis of the vessel. In: Bass, GF, Matthews, SD, Steffy, JR, van Doorninck, FH Jr, editors. Serçe Limani: An Eleventh-Century Shipwreck, Volume I: The Ship and Its Anchorage, Crew, and Passengers. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. p 153–69.Google Scholar
van Doorninck, FH Jr. 1972. Byzantium, mistress of the sea: 330–641. In: Bass, GF, editor. A History of Seafaring Based on Underwater Archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson. p 133–58.Google Scholar
van Doorninck, FH Jr. 1976. The 4th century wreck at Yassi Ada. An interim report on the hull. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 5(2):115–31.Google Scholar
van Doorninck, FH Jr. 1982. The hull remains. In: Bass, GF, van Doorninck, FH Jr, editors. Yassi Ada, Volume 1. A Seventh-Century Byzantine Shipwreck. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. p 32–64.Google Scholar
Wachsmann, S, Kahanov, Y. 1997. Shipwreck fall: the INA/CMS joint expedition to Tantura Lagoon, Israel. INA Quarterly 24(1):3–18.Google Scholar