The Essential Works of George Rawlinson: Egypt, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Phoenicia, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Persia, Sasanian Empire & Herodotus' Histories. George Rawlinson
been obtained in some parts of their own country, but appears to have been principally derived from abroad, especially from Spain.881 It was worked up chiefly, so far as we know, into arms offensive and defensive. The sword of Alexander, which he received as a gift from the king of Citium,882 was doubtless in this metal, which is the material of a sword found at Amathus, and of numerous arrowheads.883 We are also told that Cyprus furnished the iron breast-plates worn by Demetrius Poliorcetes;884 and in pre-Homeric times it was a Phoenician—Cinyras—who gave to Agamemnon his breast-plate of steel, gold, and tin.885 That more remains of iron arms and implements have not been found on Phoenician sites is probably owing to the rapid oxydisation of the metal, which consequently decays and disappears. The Hiram who was sent to assist Solomon in building and furnishing the Temple of Jerusalem was, we must remember, “skilful to work,” not only “in gold, and silver, and bronze,” but also “in iron."886
Lead was largely furnished to the Phoenicians by the Scilly Islands,887 and by Spain.888 It has not been found in any great quantity on Phoenician sites, but still appears occasionally. Sometimes it is a solder uniting stone with bronze;889 sometimes it exists in thin sheets, which may have been worn as ornaments.890 In Phoenicia Proper it has been chiefly met with in the shape of coffins,891 which are apparently of a somewhat late date. They are formed of several sheets placed one over the other and then soldered together. There is generally on the lid and sides of the coffin an external ornamentation in a low relief, wherein the myth of Psyché is said commonly to play a part; but the execution is mediocre, and the designs themselves have little merit.
Chapter IX—Ships, Navigation, and Commerce
Earliest navigation by means of rafts and canoes—Model of a very primitive boat—Phoenician vessel of the time of Sargon—Phoenician biremes in the time of Sennacherib— Phoenician pleasure vessels and merchant ships—Superiority of the Phoenician war-galleys—Excellence of the arrangements—Patæci—Early navigation cautious—Increasing boldness—Furthest ventures—Extent of the Phoenician land commerce—Witness of Ezekiel—Wares imported—Caravans— Description of the land trade—Sea trade of Phoenicia—1. With her own colonies—2. With foreigners—Mediterranean and Black Sea trade—North Atlantic trade—Trade with the West Coast of Africa and the Canaries—Trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
The first attempts of the Phoenicians to navigate the sea which washed their coast were probably as clumsy and rude as those of other primitive nations. They are said to have voyaged from island to island, in their original abodes within the Persian Gulf, by means of rafts.91 When they reached the shores of the Mediterranean, it can scarcely have been long ere they constructed boats for fishing and coasting purposes, though no doubt such boats were of a very rude construction. Probably, like other races, they began with canoes, roughly hewn out of the trunk of a tree. The torrents which descended from Lebanon would from time to time bring down the stems of fallen trees in their flood-time; and these, floating on the Mediterranean waters, would suggest the idea of navigation. They would, at first, be hollowed out with hatchets and adzes, or else with fire; and, later on, the canoes thus produced would form the models for the earliest efforts in shipbuilding. The great length, however, would soon be found unnecessary, and the canoe would give place to the boat, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. There are models of boats among the Phoenician remains which have a very archaic character,92 and may give us some idea of the vessels in which the Phoenicians of the remoter times braved the perils of the deep. They have a keel, not ill shaped, a rounded hull, bulwarks, a beak, and a high seat for the steersman. The oars, apparently, must have been passed through interstices in the bulwark.
From this rude shape the transition was not very difficult to the bark represented in the sculptures of Sargon,93 which is probably a Phoenician one. Here four rowers, standing to their oars, impel a vessel having for prow the head of a horse and for stern the tail of a fish, both of them rising high above the water. The oars are curved, like golf or hockey-sticks, and are worked from the gunwale of the bark, though there is no indication of rowlocks. The vessel is without a rudder; but it has a mast, supported by two ropes which are fastened to the head and stern. The mast has neither sail nor yard attached to it, but is crowned by what is called a “crow’s nest”—a bell-shaped receptacle, from which a slinger or archer might discharge missiles against an enemy.94
A vessel of considerably greater size than this, but of the same class—impelled, that is, by one bank of oars only—is indicated by certain coins, which have been regarded by some critics as Phoenician, by others as belonging to Cilicia.95 These have a low bow, but an elevated stern; the prow exhibits a beak, while the stern shows signs of a steering apparatus; the number of the oars on each side is fifteen or twenty. The Greeks called these vessels triaconters or penteconters. They are represented without any mast on the coins, and thus seem to have been merely row-boats of a superior character.
About the time of Sennacherib (B.C. 700), or a little earlier, some great advances seem to have been made by the Phoenician shipbuilders. In the first place, they introduced the practice of placing the rowers on two different levels, one above the other; and thus, for a vessel of the same length, doubling the number of the rowers. Ships of this kind, which the Greeks called “biremes,” are represented in Sennacherib’s sculptures as employed by the inhabitants of a Phoenician city, who fly in them at the moment when their town is captured, and so escape their enemy.96 The ships are of two kinds. Both kinds have a double tier of rowers, and both are guided by two steering oars thrust out from the stern; but while the one is still without mast or sail, and is rounded off in exactly the same way both at stem and stern, the other has a mast, placed about midship, a yard hung across it, and a sail close reefed to the yard, while the bow is armed with a long projecting beak, like a ploughshare, which must have been capable of doing terrible damage to a hostile vessel. The rowers, in both classes of ships, are represented as only eight or ten upon a side; but this may have arisen from artistic necessity, since a greater number of figures could not have been introduced without confusion. It is thought that in the beaked vessel we have a representation of the Phoenician war-galley; in the vessel without a beak, one of the Phoenician transport.97
A painting on a vase found in Cyprus exhibits what would seem to have been a pleasure-vessel.98 It is unbeaked, and without any sign of oars, except two paddles for steering with. About midship is a short mast, crossed by a long spar or yard, which carries a sail, closely reefed along its entire length. The yard and sail are managed by means of four ropes, which are, however, somewhat conventionally depicted. Both the head and stern of the vessel rise to a considerable height above the water, and the stern is curved, very much as in the war-galleys. It perhaps terminated in the