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 Mediterranean coast, from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel to Egypt. As shipping was one of the most important transports for trade, 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 of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Gibson 1994: 34-42), mosaics, coins, even engraved on walls, such as on the wall at the crusader castle in Akko Israel. It is important to mention that in ancient times artists tried to convey a precise image of the objects they represented, thing that helps us to understand the exact appearance of the researched 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 discovered in 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 1st century BC. Unlike wooden boats, remains from ancient reed boats have not been found, since they decay with time. Nevertheless, their uses are known to us from literature and artworks. Furthermore, from the 2nd century AD and onwards, decorating churches (Fig. 13) and rich houses (Figs. 8, 11, 12) with mosaic floors started to become a common custom in this region.