Naval Battle Warnings

While preparing our digital edition of the Quatri Partitu en Cosmographia by Alonso de Chaves, genuine little treasures pop up everywhere. The author’s clear and detailed writing enables a visualization that is nearly as vivid as if we were personally witnessing the described scenarios, or watching a movie on the big screen in a cinema.

This time, the author immerses us in a maritime warfare scenario, explaining how the various crew members of the ships should act and the role each vessel in the fleet should play during the battle. He provides guidance for both offensive and defensive situations, along with instructions on which weapons to employ and when to use them, as well as the positioning of the ships in accordance with various battle scenarios. Towards the end of the chapter, the author offers a particularly intriguing warning:

“special care must be taken whenever a man is wounded on any of the ships in such a way that he cannot fight. Immediately, he should be placed below deck so that he does not obstruct the movement of people from one side to the other. Also, this is to prevent his comrades from seeing him and becoming disheartened or showing weakness. If the wound happens to be mortal or if he is entirely dead, it is better that as soon as he has breathed his last, he is cast into the sea so that one does not lose heart upon seeing others dead, especially when they are relatives and friends. Thus, there should be no severely disabled men or those without weapons and the will to fight on the deck and deckhouse.”

Reading this paragraph gave me the sensation of watching a movie, arriving at the unsettling part where we tend to close our eyes or shield the screen with our hand, all while maintaining a curiosity to see what is unfolding. Such instructions, unwelcome to offer and receive, were highly real, practical and pragmatic, and contributed directly to the overall success of 16th-century maritime journeys and, in this case, naval battles. [Carmo Lacerda]

Bronze Age Shipbuilding

Indian Ocean maritime history goes back a long time. Trade and fishing industries of ancient civilizations instigated people to explore the seas and develop techniques in shipbuilding and navigation – the earliest ones would have been meant to sail near the coast, and then others already through the deep seas. The archeological and iconographic evidence available today indicates that Arabs and Persians would have already been sailing through the Persian/Arabian Gulf, the strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman during the Bronze Age (about two thousand years BC). The question that scholars ask at this point is not so much whether, but how sailors managed to complete these voyages at such an early stage of history, as well as the kind of technology that may have been involved.

To try and access this information, a group of researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi and Zayed University is working together with a team of shipwrights from Kerala, India, in the reconstruction of a boat from the Bronze Age. The process is challenging, for there is no existing shipwreck from this period – the reconstruction has therefore to be based on every piece of evidence that may help to elucidate the materials and techniques used at the time. These include ancient miniature models, lists of goods recorded in clay tablets and indigenous ship building techniques. The final outcome of the project will be an 8-meter vessel made with materials such as bitumen and wood, or goat hair in the case of the sails. The entire reconstruction process will result in more than that, in the sense that it will provide researchers with a more solid understanding of the maritime technology existing in the Gulf region during the Bronze Age. Once it is finished, the ship will be tested on water and, who knows, perhaps even sailed in the deep sea. [Inês Bénard]