[HN Gopher] Archaeologists find ancient Egyptian warship sunk ne...
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       Archaeologists find ancient Egyptian warship sunk near Alexandria
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 261 points
       Date   : 2021-07-24 01:47 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | sanatgersappa wrote:
       | How do you write "Ever Given" in heiroglyphics?
        
         | prox wrote:
         | This is a good question for r/AncientEgyptian
        
       | JudgePenitent wrote:
       | Fitting that Diodorus should post this to hn.
       | 
       | "So far, archaeologists have explored less than five percent of
       | the ancient city." So still much more to come.
       | 
       | The story of Heraklion is a great example of climate change and
       | its impacts on human civilization.
       | 
       | The other story of Heraklion is its great multiculturalism; it
       | exhibits both Greek and Egyptian influences. I am always
       | fascinated when I hear other nerds describe the process of
       | learning Western history as "begin with the Greeks." And we often
       | base Western civilization upon Greek thought, Roman law. At the
       | same time, I am reminded of the story of Thales who supposedly
       | learned his mathematical talents from Egypt. The interconnection
       | between the two worlds seems obvious to me today, and I often
       | wonder the reasons Westerners usually begin (and, for some, end)
       | with the Greeks.
       | 
       | Hopefully Heraklion/Thonis can teach us more about the
       | interrelations between Greece and Egypt; not only how they
       | traded, but who they sat in between, how long this city had been
       | here, did the Sea-Peoples (Phoenicians if you ask me) trade here,
       | and were the populations of Greece and Egypt far closer in
       | cultural heritage than we acknowledge today.
        
         | opportune wrote:
         | The problem here is that Egyptian culture/connection to the
         | rest of the world changed in massive amounts over time. If you
         | looked at really ancient Egypt you would not find much that
         | could be extrapolated to the "Western civilization" compared to
         | the Greeks.
         | 
         | The period of time where Egypt produced many scholars who we
         | still know by name, and their works and how influential they
         | are, was in the Hellenistic period during which they
         | essentially were culturally Greek. It was a result of conquest
         | and increasing Greek economic/cultural influence across the
         | Mediterranean. Yes it's likely much of that knowledge was due
         | to a kind of syncretization of Egyptian knowledge stretching
         | back Millenia and it finally being recorded and disseminated
         | across the Greek speaking world in a way that was preserved
         | until know, but that's what makes it history. We simply don't
         | have a lot of records about ancient Egyptian scholarship before
         | the Hellenistic period.
        
           | JudgePenitent wrote:
           | >>We simply don't have a lot of records about ancient
           | Egyptian scholarship before the Hellenistic period.
           | 
           | Agreed. As robbiep mentioned, this is probably because of
           | Alexander in general.
           | 
           | >>The period of time where Egypt produced many scholars who
           | we still know by name, and their works and how influential
           | they are, was in the Hellenistic period during which they
           | essentially were culturally Greek.
           | 
           | It is interesting to me, how as soon as the Greeks came on to
           | the scene, this process of identifying thought with
           | individuals (the Socratic method, Platonic dialogues,
           | Pythagorean theorem etc) becomes the standard in the West. I
           | personally believe that this is one of the great achievements
           | of Greece, but at the same time, it has blinded us to the
           | ways that civs tended to create and maintain knowledge in a
           | much more communal process.
           | 
           | >>If you looked at really ancient Egypt you would not find
           | much that could be extrapolated to the "Western civilization"
           | compared to the Greeks.
           | 
           | I agree in general it is easier to relate to the Greeks. I
           | suppose I tend to find very deep civilizational roots from
           | the period 6K~ BCE to about 2k~ BCE, an era which included
           | the rise of the first mega civs like Egypt and Sumer among
           | others. Its the broad outlines that fascinate me; mass
           | religions, class structures, very long distance trade,
           | massive monuments and urban environs, etc. I suppose I tend
           | to see much in common in the broad outlines. (and for me,
           | broad outlines always have a greater impact than any Homerian
           | epic)
        
         | dalbasal wrote:
         | >> am always fascinated when I hear other nerds describe the
         | process of learning Western history as "begin with the Greeks."
         | 
         | A good example of frames being "made up," in the sense that
         | they can be constructed multiple ways.
         | 
         | Another frame might be that Greeks were not "Western" at all.
         | They were simply the western fringe of the greater "fertile
         | crescent" culture. This frame would have made more sense to the
         | Greeks themselves, who considered Egypt the source of much
         | knowledge and urban culture. Writers like Plato credited
         | scholars visiting egypt (Eg his uncle Solon) for bringing this
         | knowledge back, especially during the Athenian golden age. The
         | greek alphabet is also derived from the
         | phoenician/canaanite/semitic alphabet. Archeology of older
         | periods, like the Minoan Greek era, suggest Egyptian cultural
         | influence started very early.
         | 
         | "The West" (also near east, and far east) is actually a Greek
         | concept, and the directions are relative to Greece. Rome is
         | "The West" because its west of Greece. But, both Greek and
         | Roman empires were a lot more active in the east than in the
         | west.
        
           | jhgb wrote:
           | Ancient Greeks _were_ Indo-Europeans, though, unlike any of
           | the contemporary Ferticle Crescent cultures. In many ways
           | that does make them very much western, e.g. their invention
           | of vowel graphemes was one that other western peoples such as
           | Latins /Romans who were also Indo-European and needed them as
           | well could take advantage of.
        
             | bigbillheck wrote:
             | > Ancient Greeks were Indo-Europeans, though,
             | 
             | So were the Hittites, and the ruling class of the Mittani.
        
               | jhgb wrote:
               | True, I sometimes forget how far north the Fertile
               | Crescent reached. Nevertheless, when the Greeks rose to
               | their height the Hittites had already been gone. The fact
               | the Hittite language had to be deciphered in the 20th
               | century attests to the cultural irrelevance of the
               | Hittites for the western world. Compared to that we have
               | whole schools of philosophy for Ancient Greece. We've
               | never needed to rediscover Greece -- it's always been
               | there in the background.
        
               | DiogenesKynikos wrote:
               | The Hittites were gone, but languages related to Hittite
               | were still spoken throughout Asia Minor:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_languages
        
               | wl wrote:
               | We also had to decipher Egyptian. I don't think having to
               | do so speaks to the cultural irrelevance of a
               | civilization.
        
               | jhgb wrote:
               | Yes, and the result of that was that _for two thousand
               | years_ , Greco-Roman culture was directly influencing
               | European cultures while Egyptian was not. That my country
               | produced Alexandreis (a vernacular Czech version based on
               | a French original by Gautier de Chatillon) in the High
               | Middle Ages and _not_ Ramesseis instead is telling:
               | Egyptian culture had been irrelevant to us for two
               | millennia. You had to wait for the 20th century and Mika
               | Waltari to retell the story of Sinuhe.
        
               | wl wrote:
               | If we're talking about Sinuhe, that's on the wrong side
               | of the Late Bronze Age systems collapse. Other than
               | perhaps faint echos found in the Greek epics and the
               | Hebrew scriptures, Mediterranean texts from the other
               | side of the collapse were undeciphered until the 19th
               | century. Ramesses II and Alexander are more than eight
               | centuries apart, with Alexander being on our side of the
               | collapse.
               | 
               | On the other hand, that Greco-Roman culture that was so
               | influential is in no small part Egyptian. Alexandria was
               | a major cultural center of the Greco-Roman world. Egypt
               | was the first nation to convert to Christianity en masse
               | and that influence on Christianity remains today.
        
             | datameta wrote:
             | The Persians were just as much descended from Indo-
             | Europeans as the Greeks were and they were squarely in the
             | Near East by any Greek account. If anything Indo-European
             | ancestry is what can point out commonalities rather than be
             | a source of categorical division.
        
         | 1123581321 wrote:
         | Typically historical books and lessons begin earlier than
         | Greece. Greek is suggested over Egyptian for language learning
         | due to the number of worthwhile works it accesses and its
         | interplay with the next leg of language learning and research.
         | Perhaps more immediately move on to Rome than should but that
         | doesn't condemn the starting point.
        
         | NotChina wrote:
         | See the Amarna letters.
        
         | robbiep wrote:
         | Regarding your fascination about western history 'beginning
         | with the Greeks' I would say the reason why is fairly obvious
         | if you follow the history.
         | 
         | Despite the locus of civilisation being in Mesopotamia and
         | Egypt from 5-6000BCE to 500BCE by the time of this discovery
         | (1-200BCE) Egypt had been conquered by Alexander and the (Mid
         | East and Eastern Mediterranean) world divided between his
         | generals. Additionally, whilst there is so much we don't know
         | of the thought and philiosophy of the area, what has survived
         | to us today in terms of philosophy and law comes from the
         | Greeks and Romans.
         | 
         | So for the very early antiquity, you had mathematics and other
         | vestiges of civilisation flowing from Egypt and Mesopotamia to
         | other parts of the world, and then later the conquest of these
         | areas by the Greeks first and then others.
         | 
         | Anyway, your comments mark you as being well informed on the
         | history so I am sure you don't need a lesson from me, maybe the
         | other point I'd make is that the breadth and detail of history
         | makes generalisations such as 'western history begins with the
         | Greeks' a more palatable launchpad for consumption than
         | breaking down the nuance that inevitably unfolds on more
         | profound study
        
           | jfoutz wrote:
           | If you like, feel free to educate observers of this exchange.
           | All I really believe is that the pyramids are absurdly old.
        
             | tephra wrote:
             | There's this quote that I think is from Dan Carlin and I
             | can't really remember how it goes but something like: "the
             | birth of Cleopatra is closer to us in time than the
             | building of the pyramids in Giza was to Cleopatra".
        
               | spullara wrote:
               | Reminds me that the latest dinosaur period is closer to
               | us then the previous ones start. Human intelligence is
               | not inevitable.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | I've also heard that humans are closer to tuna than tuna
               | are to sharks. Not sure if it's true, but it offends my
               | sensibilities.
        
               | spullara wrote:
               | Sharks are extremely old, ~450m years. They are older
               | than dinosaurs by ~140m years.
               | 
               | https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17453-timeline-
               | the-ev...
        
           | JudgePenitent wrote:
           | >the breadth and detail of history makes generalisations such
           | as 'western history begins with the Greeks' a more palatable
           | launchpad for consumption than breaking down the nuance that
           | inevitably unfolds on more profound study
           | 
           | Absolutely. Your comment on Alexander is correct. It doesn't
           | explain why we _still_ do not teach pre Greek /Roman as a
           | foundation. Yes Alexander encouraged the severing of
           | cultural-historical links; today we can look for and around
           | that, as we know a lot about the pre Greek/Roman civs, and
           | they were arguably more important for setting the
           | civilizational foundations upon which more fortunate
           | individuals copied from.
           | 
           | I guess I wish the launchpad was "begin with the Sumerians".
        
             | Archelaos wrote:
             | I have been teaching European history (with an emphasis on
             | the history of ideas) at university for almost two decades.
             | In those cases were I dealt with the origins of "Europe" I
             | started even earlier than the Sumerians: with the end of
             | the last ice age.
             | 
             | As to the ancient Greeks: I am extremly impressed about how
             | fast and innovative they had become from the 6th century BC
             | onward. But in almost all fields their culture rested on
             | outside precursors: Their mythology includes many stories
             | and aspects that can be found in earlier stories or
             | pictures from Asia Minor; their alphabet is an advancement
             | of the Phoenicians, probably adopted via Cyprus; their
             | early sculpture and metal works clearly shows Egyptian
             | influences, etc.
             | 
             | History in my view is a discipline to tell interesting
             | stories in anwsering interesting questions. And part of
             | this story telling is to tell the stories of the
             | terminology of the very question. So if someone is asking
             | whether the Greeks are the start of the history of the
             | Western world, one has already a lot to think about all the
             | concept included in the question.
             | 
             | What defined being Greek in those days? -- Interesting
             | story: the center of the early Greek culture was the west
             | of Asia Minor which become incorporated for the first time
             | in the Persian empire in the middle of the 6th century BC.
             | Refuges went to southern Italy were they settled in close
             | proximity to Etruscian towns. The Etruscians adopted their
             | more sophisticated craftsmenship for luxury items. They
             | traded it with the Celts from north of the Alps in exchange
             | for iron. The economy in Italy benefited. Larger political
             | units formed. After many struggles Rome emerged as the most
             | supirior.
             | 
             | When does history start? -- Interesting story: People
             | argued that it starts with writing and all else is
             | prehistory, because it is writing which provides us with so
             | much more knowledge about what happend in the past. But in
             | recent years we have seen extraordinary progress in
             | archeology. Both in an extraordinary number of new
             | interesting finds as well as in an extraordinary
             | advancement in new or improved research methods like in
             | dating or genome analysis. In view of this, is the
             | distinction between history and prehistory still
             | appropriate?
             | 
             | Is the concept of the Western world in this context really
             | so relevant? -- Interesting story: There has been a long
             | standing story in Europe about a so-called 'translatio
             | imperii', a gradual movement of the cultural and political
             | center from the East to the West. But a similar story can
             | be told about a movement from Greece towards the East:
             | Alexander, the Sasanians, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (in
             | todays Afganistan), the Indo-Greek Kingdom. And the
             | cultural influence did not stop there. The art of the Greek
             | statue and especially of the high relief was adopted by the
             | Buddhist and Hindu art of India and Southeast Asia and even
             | influenced Chinese art indirectly. If Greek culture
             | travelled both towards the West and towards the East should
             | we not put more emphasis on the Greeks as something that
             | unites Europe, Africa and Asia instead of claiming them
             | primarily for Europe or a Western world?
        
           | fsloth wrote:
           | Well, it's not all greek. For example the glyphs we use in
           | this discussion AFAIK are based on egyptian hieroglyphs that
           | were simplified by phoenicians into phoenician script from
           | which greek and latin writing was then based on.
           | 
           | Greeks did develop their own literacy, but apparently became
           | illeterate again circa 1000 bc - and when they again picked
           | up writing they use phoenician glyphs.
           | 
           | Greek world _did_ suck up most of knowledge that had
           | accumulated and added very much to it, so they _are_ a good
           | reference point.
           | 
           | Greek culture predates Rome's rise - and in some ways also
           | lives longer since East-Roman emperors again used greek.
        
             | robbiep wrote:
             | I don't think we're disagreeing, it's just at what point do
             | you try to pick up the threads of history to try to begin
             | to understand things?
             | 
             | One of the most fascinating things I find of our history is
             | Linear A & B and Minoan civilisation - apparently wiped out
             | by the eruption of what is now Santorini. You just gave me
             | a few new threads to chase with the loss of Greek literacy
             | - my previous understanding was that Minoan civilisation
             | was poised to dominate the Mediterranean prior to them
             | being wiped out and the vestiges eventually coalesced into
             | the greeks, with the minoans acting as the seed
             | civilisation. (With aggressive abbreviation and many
             | potential mistakes for the pedants out there, I do not
             | claim to be a authority here, only a fan)
             | 
             | Another thing I find fascinating is how all the tribes of
             | the Italian peninsula basically organised their cities
             | around a forum with similar architecture and similar god
             | worship well before the romans dominated.... As well as the
             | fact that prior to the Punic wars, Rome was really in doubt
             | as to whether it would dominate the med.
             | 
             | History is amazing and I truly believe that by better
             | understanding it we can better understand ourselves, so
             | often I find myself reflecting that had this element of
             | history been better known then perhaps we could be avoiding
             | this particular aspect of human behaviour... there is very
             | little that is new under the sun
        
               | fsloth wrote:
               | I don't think we are disagreeing on any points either -
               | my intention was to expand the discussion I think. I
               | totally agree history is very interesting.
        
         | NotChina wrote:
         | Also read the adventures of Wen Amun
        
         | ardit33 wrote:
         | Ugh... these comments...
         | 
         | First of all, Greece was not the start of the western
         | civilization. Rome was. They borrowed a lot from Greece (which
         | they eventually conquered) as Greece was more advanced
         | initially. Greeks themselves had borrowed a lot form middle
         | east and north african civilizations/cultures, and initially
         | from the Minonians.
         | 
         | The city you mention, Heraklion, was a Minionan city, which
         | fell on a decline (a volcano/earthquake is thought to be the
         | culprit) eventually was conquered by the Myceneans (greek
         | percursors), who themselves were initially 'barbaric' indo-
         | european tribes/civilization. Greeks were able to adopt, curate
         | and evolve a lot of the knowlege of their neighbors and
         | eventually ascend into being a prominent cultural place and
         | create their own governing system, which was direct democracy
         | for the main cities (Athens and Thebe), as Sparta had its own
         | weird system, and Macedonia (if you consider it greek) was a
         | traditional kingdom.
         | 
         | The flow of knowledge is bidirectional, but some places
         | borrowed more from others, and evolved knowledge, which itself
         | was borrowed by other cultures:
         | 
         | Early Civilization (Mesopotamia, Babylon) -> Egypt - Hittite -
         | Minonian - > Mycenean -> (Bronze Collapse) -> Classical Greece
         | -> Rome -> Western Civilization
         | 
         | Of course I left out a lot of other cultures who contributed to
         | today's 'western knowledge', from the Phoenicians, to Parthian
         | / Persia, to later arabs, and indian and even east asian /
         | chinese indirect contributions. But they were secondary to the
         | flow I described.
         | 
         | Even after the split of the Roman empire in two, Greece was on
         | the Eastern part, so it is are more of a south-east /
         | mediterranean culture/civilization, and not necessary western
         | pre se, but it gave a lot to the western world.
        
           | jhgb wrote:
           | > First of all, Greece was not the start of the western
           | civilization.
           | 
           | Possibly, but if the question is "where in the western world
           | did history start", Greece seems like a fine answer, since 1)
           | it's unquestionably a part of the western world, and 2)
           | history starts with writing, and Mycenaean Greeks are (at
           | least off the top of my head) the oldest culture in the
           | western world the writings of which we can read. So that's
           | the beginning of western history, even if not the root of its
           | civilization.
        
             | chrisseaton wrote:
             | > it's unquestionably a part of the western world
             | 
             | 'Western' means west of... Greece. So Rome, which is west
             | of Greece, was when civilisation moved west and when
             | western civilisation began.
        
               | jhgb wrote:
               | Sure, within Europe, and especially from the perspective
               | of the Great Schism, Greece is eastern. From the global
               | perspective, not so much. I have yet to meet a person
               | who'd argue that the region with Greco-Roman cultural
               | heritage somehow excludes Greece, of all places.
        
           | kitd wrote:
           | _First of all, Greece was not the start of the western
           | civilization. Rome was. They borrowed a lot from Greece
           | (which they eventually conquered) as Greece was more advanced
           | initially_
           | 
           | Er, QED?
        
           | robbiep wrote:
           | I think that what you replied to is the comment _' am always
           | fascinated when I hear other nerds describe the process of
           | learning Western history as "begin with the Greeks.'_
           | 
           | When I think everyone who is also commenting here recognises
           | that that is just a talking point for where to pick up the
           | threads of history.
        
           | bboreham wrote:
           | Are you confusing the Heraklion mentioned in the article and
           | the Heraklion in Crete?
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleion
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraklion
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | > The other story of Heraklion is its great multiculturalism;
         | it exhibits both Greek and Egyptian influences. I am always
         | fascinated when I hear other nerds describe the process of
         | learning Western history as "begin with the Greeks." And we
         | often base Western civilization upon Greek thought, Roman law.
         | At the same time, I am reminded of the story of Thales who
         | supposedly learned his mathematical talents from Egypt. The
         | interconnection between the two worlds seems obvious to me
         | today, and I often wonder the reasons Westerners usually begin
         | (and, for some, end) with the Greeks.
         | 
         | Note that the Greece at the time was not restricted to modern
         | geographical greece:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_Greece#/media/File:Gre...
         | 
         | It was mostly a coastal entity (not dissimilar to Portugal
         | during the age of discovery), but there were greek colonies
         | throughout the mediterranean and black seas, with the exception
         | of the phoenician south-west (the southern spain maghreb), as
         | well as Phoenicia proper (the levant)
        
         | dr_dshiv wrote:
         | Western civilization begins with Pythagoras (b. 570 BC) who
         | deliberately synthesized a large number of
         | cultural/philosophical traditions (Thracian, Syrian,
         | Babylonian, Persian, Egyptian and Greek). In other words, from
         | the very beginning, Western Civilization was about cross-
         | national integration. By 200 BC, Greek was the lingua franca
         | from India (e.g., Ashoka pillars written in Greek) to Egypt to
         | _Britain_ (reference on request).
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | Folks who find this interesting might find the Roman Nemi ships
       | interesting. They were likely large scale pleasure barges.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemi_ships
        
         | eloff wrote:
         | The billionaires yachts of the ancient world. It's a shame they
         | were destroyed in WW2.
        
         | sitkack wrote:
         | > Recovered from the lake bed in 1929, the ships were destroyed
         | by fire during World War II in 1944.
         | 
         | These are fantastical!
        
           | jaclaz wrote:
           | I would add that people would likely be interested to the
           | drainage tunnel that the Romans excavated (emissarium) which
           | is an incredible engineering feat, not only because it has an
           | exceptionally accurate (low, 0,8/1% gradient) slope, but
           | because it was excavated from both sides of the mountain and
           | at the connection there was an error of only a few meters. I
           | don't seem to be able to find a dedicated article/site, there
           | is a description in this .pdf:
           | 
           | http://soci.romasotterranea.it/image/rassegna_stampa/pdf/12..
           | ..
           | 
           | In 1929 the tunnel was re-used pumping in it (with mechanical
           | pumps) the water to be able to recover the wrecks.
           | 
           | Also interesting are reports of previous attempts to inspect
           | the ships in the 15th, 16th and 19th century:
           | 
           | https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/mi.
           | ..
        
             | adolph wrote:
             | Wow, that was a great read and I'm grateful for the English
             | version on the second page.
        
         | devoutsalsa wrote:
         | How do I get an invite one of those boat parties?! They really
         | knew how to party back then.
        
           | Ma8ee wrote:
           | The same as today. Be very rich or be young and very
           | attractive.
        
             | watertom wrote:
             | live in a large metropolis and be a social butterfly, or be
             | a social climber.
        
       | NotChina wrote:
       | Just because the ship was discovered off the coast of Egypt does
       | not mean it has anything to do with the culture and people of
       | Modern day Egypt.
        
         | selimthegrim wrote:
         | It's funny, I don't think you'd say that about today's Greeks.
        
       | busymom0 wrote:
       | I was hoping to see few more pictures of the ship. Does anyone
       | have a better link?
        
         | pp19dd wrote:
         | High-res of that 'spiral' detail: https://cloudfront-us-
         | east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcome...
         | 
         | Unfortunately it seems like all that's available is the 3
         | pictures disseminated by Reuters. The third is an interesting
         | fragment- if those are bore holes, they sure look like they
         | might've had a function. Gallery:
         | https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/egypt-finds-ancient-mil...
        
       | baxtr wrote:
       | _> Some of the techniques used in building the warship are
       | clearly Greek, like the mortise-and-tenon joints (ones in which a
       | tab from one piece of wood fits into a slot cut into the
       | adjoining piece) that hold many of its timbers together. But
       | other aspects of the ship's design and construction are
       | distinctly ancient Egyptian. Those clues, combined with some
       | timbers that had evidently been salvaged and re-used from older
       | ships, suggest that the warship was built somewhere in Egypt._
       | 
       | Everything is a remix...
        
       | markus_zhang wrote:
       | I read: Archaeologists find ancient Egyptian worship near
       | Antarctica, and thought: What? Cthulhu?
        
       | Sebb767 wrote:
       | > Clearly, this was no cargo vessel; ships built to haul cargo or
       | passengers tend to be wider, built for capacity rather than speed
       | and agility.
       | 
       | Wouldn't a wider ship be more agile? Maybe my intuition fails me,
       | but to me it would seem like like a longer ship is far harder to
       | turn (think of rotating one of those large chef knives in water
       | vs a bowl).
        
         | npsomaratna wrote:
         | I think that longer = more rowers; less wide = less mass.
         | 
         | Wouldn't that mean a more powerful and agile ship?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | eftychis wrote:
           | Wide relates in the end to drag. And yes the number of rowers
           | matters -- a bigger ship requires more rowers, thus more mass
           | etc. Generally, there is the "optimization problem" with each
           | such system that a bigger vehicle requires bigger engine and
           | more fuel which means more mass. But here they mainly refer
           | to the ratio of length versus width and from my and above
           | posters guess they refer to the profile of the boat in the
           | water.
           | 
           | Edit: to amend and clarify: mass in a fluid affects
           | displacement (assuming you stay above surface) and thus drag
           | and maximum speed. Here is a crude reference about boat
           | speeds https://www.boats.com/reviews/crunching-numbers-hull-
           | speed-b... -- if I get time I will do more Google fu but I am
           | pretty sure anyone can find the complete derivation online.
        
             | julosflb wrote:
             | The wave making resistance is generally much larger than
             | pure viscous drag/friction on the hull for conventional
             | boat.
        
         | coryrc wrote:
         | On the water, speed is agility, and speed is limited to the
         | square root of length for displacement hulls (which these are).
         | Wider means heavier for a given length, taking longer to speed
         | up, and more friction to overcome.
        
           | pge wrote:
           | wider also means more frontal surface area. Just like a car
           | going through air, less frontal surface area means more
           | aerodynamic (or hydrodynamic), ie lower coefficient of drag.
           | Olympic rowing shells and flatwater kayaks provide good
           | visuals of what a fast displacement hull boat looks like -
           | long and as narrow as possible.
        
             | coryrc wrote:
             | I think GP is thinking about a row boat, how it can turn on
             | a dime quickly, which is true, but not useful in a sea
             | battle.
        
       | eftychis wrote:
       | FYI: The site of the European Institute of Underwater Archeology
       | has a lot of information about the site
       | (https://ieasm.institute/egypt.php?lang=en).
        
         | JudgePenitent wrote:
         | Thanks for posting this!
        
           | state_less wrote:
           | Made me think of this song. I'm skeptical of the last line -
           | might still be a little love.                 The ocean is a
           | desert with it's life underground       And a perfect
           | disguise above       Under the cities lies a heart made of
           | ground       But the humans will give no love
           | 
           | -America horse with no name
        
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