Reconstructing a Roman Warship

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

M.VIB.M. :lol:

[lup_alb]

I have a romanian book about naval modelism and it has the reconstruction of a liburna. If you think it will help you I can scan it. The book is out of print. It is "Corabii strabune" (aproximative translation=Ancient ships), by Cristian Craciunoiu, Editura Sport-Turism, 1983. The author has done some models for the Naval Museum in Constanta and he was quite apreciated.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Hey Lup!! welcome to the EU!!!!!

M.VIB.M.

[Praefectusclassis]

Is the book worthwhile for the pictures alone? I see you can get it on Abebooks easily enough although not cheap. I'd certainly appreciate scans.
HJ: No, it won't be like that ship but still impressive.

[Robert]

I would prefer the reconstruction by Marcus Fichtinger as opposed to the ones from the Masala site. There is something wrong with the superstructure, mainly the position of the shields on the upperdek. The decking in of the rowers would provide good protection from missiles, so this would be a logical addition, were it not that the Mainz ships, though of a smaller type, use the shields directly for that purpose. The Mainz reconstruction (small scale model, follow the link i posted earlier) also looks great and very plausible. The people at Mainz are briljant and most scientific!

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

I would love to help out during the building if that is possible!!! ie help building it.........

M.VIB.M.

[Flavius Promotus]

The decking in of the rowers would provide good protection from missiles, so this would be a logical addition, were it not that the Mainz ships, though of a smaller type, use the shields directly for that purpose.

At least the smaller liburnae most likely had no decking in of the rowers, because when a Roman fleet detachment consisting of 24 liburnae went over to the Batavians, the Batavian oarsmen were able to hinder the Roman deck soldiers - first as if by accident, then openly (cp. Tacitus Historiae 4, 16, 3). Had they been under a deck, this would have been more or less impossible. In another passage of the Historiae, Tacitus writes about a confusion between oarsmen and deck soldiers (2, 35, 1-2).

Jasper, I presume you already know the following article from Olaf Höckmann, but if not, I'm glad to help

HÖCKMANN, O., 1997, "The Liburnian: some observations and insights", in: International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 26, 192-216.

[Robert]

Hi Florian, great to have someone with sailing experience on the forum. My observation was based on an experiment of hauling a galley up on land. They ripped the towwire completely through the woodwork and only managed in the end by securing a sling running back around the stern of the vessel. Different circumstances, I agree, but the design will have to take towing into account and the Rhine near here is very constricted.
Your comment on Tacitus would prove the point on the more open reconstruction as in the first posts of the thread. Perhaps there was a difference in rivercraft and the seagoing version, the Masala wrecks being seagoing. I have understood the Liberna to carry 50 to 80 rowers, so there is nice variation in size of these vessels, some longer and a bit wider then others. Pity we don't have a good riverwreck! :roll:

[Flavius Promotus]

Hi Florian, great to have someone with sailing experience on the forum.

You are too kind :oops:

My observation was based on an experiment of hauling a galley up on land.

A galley in the Netherlands? What kind of type? Tell me more

They ripped the towwire completely through the woodwork

MURDER!!! hock:

and only managed in the end by securing a sling running back around the stern of the vessel. Different circumstances, I agree, but the design will have to take towing into account and the Rhine near here is very constricted.

Maybe they should have pulled out the ship stern first, with a crow's foot in the hawser, so the rope could have been fixed to the threnus beam on both sides of the hull. (the threnus beam is the one to which the two rudders are fixed). Our ship has a pair of oak bollards between the bowcastle and the first pair of thwarts (the benches for the oarsmen), and
these bollards are stable enough to have the galley pulled up a river against a strong current.

Pulling the ship onto the beach should perhaps best be done below a jetty, so the current cannot 'interfere'. On the other hand, natural bays aren't too frequent on the river Rhine nowadays.

I have understood the Liberna to carry 50 to 80 rowers, so there is nice variation in size of these vessels, some longer and a bit wider then others.

There were certainly variations. Even the late Roman galleys from Mainz were not from a completely uniform type. As to the number of oarsmen, H.C. Konen writes somewhere that the liburnae of the Classis Britannica might have had ca. 64 oarsmen each, but I would have to look up the evidence on which this assumption is based. Wolfagng Viereck thought of 54-56 oarsmen, but his reconstructions are not very trustworthy.

Pity we don't have a good riverwreck!

Ay! Before the Mainz galleys were excavated and thoroughly researched, some scholars misinterpreted a passage from Ammianus and came to the conclusion that a typical navis lusoria had only 7-8 men, each :roll:

AFAIK someone wrote somewhere that the County Hall wreck (around 300 AD) might have been a late liburna.

[lup_alb]

I have seen a documentary on Discovery Channel about hauling a viking drakkar ashore and the same thing happened, they broke the keel of the ship.

[Robert Vermaat]

I have seen a documentary on Discovery Channel about hauling a viking drakkar ashore and the same thing happened, they broke the keel of the ship.

How did they manage to do that?? hock: Weren't these vessels built on land in the first place?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

They actually tried rolling it on logs, however on the way down the slope the logs separated and the keel struck a rock with great force, breaking it....

M.VIB.M.

[Praefectusclassis]

The idea of ~60 men to a crew comes from Philp, it's in his book on the digs at Dover harbour, p.109 or thereabouts. They found barracks in the Cl.Britannia fort which had space for about that number of men. On Starr's basis of one centuria = one crew (grmblmumbl, but ok here) this would be the size of one ship's crew or rowing complement only. As I recall Konen suggests that the Boulogne fort had separate barracks perhaps for marines.

[Robert]

Yes, Robert, these vessels were all build on land and regularly hauled up a slipway for maintenace and storage in the winter (as many boathouses attest) BUT this is something completely different then towing a vessel against the current of a modern day river. The naves lusoriae which has been beautifully reconstructed is a much smaller/lighter craft then the liburna under discussion, this larger vessel has more displacement and will have more drag. Towing a vessel puts a lot of strain on the part of the vessel the towrope is attached to. The most logical place to add a (non-original) towing eye for this purpose would be directly on the keelson (protruding through the bow), running the entire length of the vessel and by far the most sturdy piece of wood in a Roman craft. I have plowed through the NAVIS database on wrecks and have not found any towing eyes, so this will have to be somewhat concealed in the proposed reconstruction. I did come across some other great Roman ships, I really like the Blackfriar freighter!
I have seen the documentary as well, an experiment to see if a narrow stretch of land could be crossed to avoid sailing around. From what I recall, the drag of the friction of the keel scraping the ground caused the stempost through which a hole had been drilled to be torn apart, not the impact of hitting the ground. Pulling a vessel up a purpose build and prepared slipway does not compare to towing in choppy water against a swiftly running current. It can certainly be done, but will have to be incorporated in the design from the start.

[lup_alb]

Here is a drawing of the reconstruction ideea for a liburna from a romanian book about models. I will search for the schematics of the model:



Here is the color version: