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Aegean merchant ship
A type of hybrid sail-and-oar merchant vessel used in the Aegean world for coastal and Mediterranean trade, which revived around 1000 BCE with the re…
Timeline
- c. -1000–-800Athens–Piraeus · AtticaAfter the decline of Mycenaean civilization, maritime trade shrank for a time; in the Geometric period Greeks rebuilt coastal settlements and harbors, and small sail-and-oar merchant ships again carried inter-island and coastal cargo, with pottery and metal goods as the main exchange items.
- c. -750–-500Gulf of Corinth · PeloponneseDuring the great age of Greek colonization, merchant routes reached Italy and Sicily to the west and Asia Minor and the Black Sea's southern coast to the east; hulls and rigging were gradually improved, and merchant ships became the core tool of colonial settlement and supply.
Sources
- The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship — J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, N. B. Rankov (2000)
- Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World — Lionel Casson (1971)