Archaeology: The Ships of Homer’s Time Are There to Be Explored

Then he fenced the whole from stem to stern with willow withes to be a defence against the wave, and strewed much brush thereon.

—The Odyssey

With the help of the sea nymph Calypso, far-wandering Odysseus prepared to sail for home across the wine-dark sea. But when he had finished his boat, why did he cover the bilge with a layer of brushwood? Generations of scholars have sweated over the passage without producing a satisfactory answer. One theory holds that brush is only a mistranslation of ballast; some classicists argue that Odysseus was merely making a bed. A few despairing translators have ignored the brush entirely. Not until recently, when archaeologists learned to skindive. was the puzzling passage explained.

Protected Treasure. The invention of Aqua-Lungs, says University of Pennsylvania Archaeologist George F. Bass in The American Scholar, has opened rich opportunities for students of the past. Ever since the Stone Age. says Bass, men have sailed the Mediterranean. Often their ships came to grief, carrying to the bottom samples of the goods and treasures of each period of history. Under the deep, still water, the wrecks and their cargoes rested for thousands of years, protected from the plundering hands of later generations.

Then came Aqua-Lungs, and sportsmen skindivers rummaged in ancient wrecks. They pulled out interesting souvenirs, but since they lacked the archaeologists’ precise knowledge and delicate skills, they learned next to nothing. The wrecks are now in trained hands. Archaeologists themselves are dressing in flippers and Aqua-Lungs and diving to ancient wrecks to excavate them properly.

One such archaeological dive, says Bass, concentrated on a Bronze Age wreck found by sponge fishermen in 90 ft. of water near the Turkish coast, off Cape Gelidonya. With the same finicky techniques that archaeologists use on land, the water-borne scientists photographed the ancient vessel from above by swimming over it with underwater cameras—a preliminary process already reported in the National Geographic. They marked the crust of lime that covered the remains and carefully chiseled it into chunks that were lifted 3 to the surface by inflated plastic balloons. Bit by bit the wreck was moved ashore and reassembled.

Floating Factory. Months of leisurely study showed the wreck to be a small merchantman about 30 ft. long. Fragments of pottery dated it back to around 1200 B.C., the late Bronze Age that Homer wrote about. Bits of planking preserved under the cargo show that the ship was probably built of Syrian wood and in Syria. She must have touched at Cyprus, the ancient copper center, to pick up a ton of copper ingots, stamped with Cypro-Minoan signs. She also carried ingots of tin, probably from Syria, that have long since turned to white oxide. Packed in wicker baskets, are fragments of broken bronze tools, weapons and household utensils. Apparently the ship was a floating factory, turning copper, tin and bronze scrap into equipment for warriors, farmers and housewives of the Homeric Age.

Some of the unbroken tools, bronze adzes and axes, must be much like those that Calypso gave to Odysseus; the planks of the sunken ship are joined with dowels, just as in Odysseus’ craft. And under the mass of copper ingots, the diving archaeologists found brushwood with the bark still on the twigs. Even after 3.200 years, the stuff could be identified as coming from Cyprus. Undoubtedly it had been spread to protect the planking from the heavy ingots. So scholars need no longer be bothered about the brushwood of the Odyssey. Thanks to skindiving colleagues, they know now that Homer meant exactly what he said.