Iconography of Marine Vessels Depicted in Mosaics and Its Importance to Marine Archaeology

Abstract

This article deals with the iconography of ancient ships, depicted in mosaics of the Eastern Mediterraneancoast, from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel to Egypt. As shipping was one of the most important transports fortrade, and not only in the Mediterranean Region, artists frequently used ships as a subject of their artworks.Ships are depicted on frescoes (e.g. a drawing of a sailing boat in the Church of St. Vartan in the Church ofthe Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Gibson 1994: 34-42), mosaics, coins, even engraved on walls, such as on thewall at the crusader castle in Akko Israel. It is important to mention that in ancient times artists tried to conveya precise image of the objects they represented, thing that helps us to understand the exact appearance of theresearched boats; a trend not common in contemporary mosaic art.The mosaics we are referring to here were predominantly made from tesserae cubes measuring 1 sq. centimeter,but often smaller cubes were used to depict faces (Figs. 11, 12). Mosaics depicting ships have been discoveredin various places such as churches (Fig. 12), public and private houses (Figs. 8, 11, 12), even under a threshing-floor (Fig. 5). In buildings, they were frequently included in stories (Fig. 8) often from Greek mythology(Thesaurus on a boat with Ariadne, Daszewski 1977: pl. 30) and in churches in medallions (Fig. 13).The earliest mosaic we describe in this article is the reed boat from El-Amarna, Egypt (Fig. 14), from the 1stcentury BC. Unlike wooden boats, remains from ancient reed boats have not been found, since they decay withtime. Nevertheless, their uses are known to us from literature and artworks. Furthermore, from the 2nd centuryAD and onwards, decorating churches (Fig. 13) and rich houses (Figs. 8, 11, 12) with mosaic floors started tobecome a common custom in this region.