In James Cameron’s film Titanic, there’s a deleted scene where a crew member, played by Irish actor Liam Touhy, is seen, bottle in hand and half drunk, tossing deck chairs into the sea so that passengers without spots in the insufficient lifeboats could stay afloat while waiting for rescue. This actually happened; it was the […]
Ships
Posted inBronze Age Archaeology
The Lost Shipyards of the Nordic Bronze Age, an Enigma Hidden in Plain Sight
The Nordic Bronze Age, marked by its iconic imagery of ships carved into rocks and metal objects scattered throughout Scandinavia, has always left an unsolved enigma for archaeologists: where were these ships built? Despite the abundance of ship representations in the region’s archaeology, direct evidence of prehistoric shipyards has been extremely scarce. Now a new […]
Posted inGeography
By 2100, Ships Could Sail Year-Round Through the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic, Changing Geopolitics and Global Trade
A team of researchers led by Pengjun Zhao has presented a revealing report on the future of maritime trade in the Arctic, specifically along the Northern Sea Route. This study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, explores how climate change could allow navigation along this route year-round by the year 2100. Currently, Arctic […]
Posted inClassical Archaeology
The minimum impact speed to break a ship with the ram of an ancient trireme is 1.3 knots
A recent study has shed light on the capabilities of ancient triremes, revealing that the minimum speed needed to break a single plank of an enemy ship with a ram is 1.3 to 3 knots. This finding highlights the technical sophistication and advanced understanding of naval engineering in antiquity. Triremes, famous for their efficient design […]
Posted inClassical Archaeology
Part of Ship’s Hull in the Antikythera Shipwreck and Evidence the Wreck May Include Another Vessel, Discovered
The 2024 mission to the Antikythera shipwreck took place between May 17 and June 20, as part of the 2021-2025 research program conducted by the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece and supervised by the Underwater Antiquities Service of the Ministry of Culture. Exceptionally good weather conditions allowed the team to make significant progress in […]
Posted inAncient Rome
The Battle of Drepana, the Greatest Roman Naval Defeat in the First Punic War, was Foretold by Chickens
A while ago, we dedicated an article to the long siege that the Romans subjected Lilybaeum to, the last Carthaginian stronghold in Sicily. We then pointed out that this episode, which determined Rome’s victory in the First Punic War, was marked by a series of land and naval battles and that in one of them […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
The Genoese Brothers who Disappeared in Search of a Spice Route in the 13th Century
In the late 13th century, two Genoese brothers with a musical surname embarked on the daunting adventure of finding an alternative spice route. Their idea was to reach India with two galleys, aided by sailors from Majorca, but after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, they were never heard from again. They may have shipwrecked while […]
Posted inSecond World War
SS Richard Montgomery, a Ship Filled with Explosives, Wrecked Since 1944 in the Thames Estuary
If any reader is a boating enthusiast and owns a boat, they will know that there are some places where it’s dangerous to sail. One of them is the Thames Estuary, near the town of Sheerness. There’s a sandbank called the Nore that has quite a bad reputation, as we’ll see. But what’s really concerning […]
Posted inAncient Rome
Naulochus, Agrippa’s Great Naval Victory over Sextus Pompey that Raised Octavian to Power
After the death of Julius Caesar, Rome was plunged into a civil war. Another one. If the previous had been due to the power struggle between the deceased and Pompey the Great, this time it was between the heirs of Caesar’s legacy and the assassins. The former, Octavian and Mark Antony, agreed to an alliance […]
Posted inArchaeology
British Warship Wreckage Sunk off Florida in 1742 During the War of Jenkins’ Ear Identified
Archaeologists from the United States National Park Service have identified the archaeological remains of HMS Tyger, an 18th century British warship, within the boundaries of the Dry Tortugas National Park. The park consists of seven small islands of reefs and sand located about 113 kilometers west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. Built […]
