Nile shipwreck & Herodotus

From another list.
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> From <https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2019%2Fmar%2F17%2Fnile-shipwreck-herodotus-archaeologists-thonis-heraclion&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C74ef2ac21b6b4162570d08d6abd6c6b4%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636885336295078049&amp;sdata=gVWLmPBa9Qgfq6XpQOwp7ZH2nJU3LI4hQ4l3sY2i464%3D&amp;reserved=0>:
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> 
> Nile shipwreck discovery proves Herodotus right – after 2,469 years
> 
> Greek historian’s description of ‘baris’ vessel vindicated by
> archaeologists at sunken city of Thonis-Heraclion
> Dalya Alberge
> 
> In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt
> and wrote of unusual river boats on the Nile. Twenty-three lines of
> his Historia, the ancient world’s first great narrative history, are
> devoted to the intricate description of the construction of a “baris”.
> 
> For centuries, scholars have argued over his account because there was
> no archaeological evidence that such ships ever existed. Now there is.
> A “fabulously preserved” wreck in the waters around the sunken port
> city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed just how accurate the historian
> was.
> 
> “It wasn’t until we discovered this wreck that we realised Herodotus
> was right,” said Dr Damian Robinson, director of Oxford University’s
> centre for maritime archaeology, which is publishing the excavation’s
> findings. “What Herodotus described was what we were looking at.”
> 
> In 450 BC Herodotus witnessed the construction of a baris. He noted
> how the builders “cut planks two cubits long [around 100cm] and
> arrange them like bricks”. He added: “On the strong and long tenons
> [pieces of wood] they insert two-cubit planks. When they have built
> their ship in this way, they stretch beams over them… They obturate
> the seams from within with papyrus. There is one rudder, passing
> through a hole in the keel. The mast is of acacia and the sails of
> papyrus...”
> 
> Robinson said that previous scholars had “made some mistakes” in
> struggling to interpret the text without archaeological evidence.
> “It’s one of those enigmatic pieces. Scholars have argued exactly what
> it means for as long as we’ve been thinking of boats in this scholarly
> way,” he said.
> 
> But the excavation of what has been called Ship 17 has revealed a vast
> crescent-shaped hull and a previously undocumented type of
> construction involving thick planks assembled with tenons – just as
> Herodotus observed, in describing a slightly smaller vessel.
> 
> Originally measuring up to 28 metres long, it is one of the first
> large-scale ancient Egyptian trading boats ever to have been
> discovered.
> 
> Robinson added: “Herodotus describes the boats as having long internal
> ribs. Nobody really knew what that meant… That structure’s never been
> seen archaeologically before. Then we discovered this form of
> construction on this particular boat and it absolutely is what
> Herodotus has been saying.”
> 
> About 70% of the hull has survived, well-preserved in the Nile silts.
> Acacia planks were held together with long tenon-ribs – some almost 2m
> long – and fastened with pegs, creating lines of ‘internal ribs’
> within the hull. It was steered using an axial rudder with two
> circular openings for the steering oar and a step for a mast towards
> the centre of the vessel.
> 
> Robinson said: “Where planks are joined together to form the hull,
> they are usually joined by mortice and tenon joints which fasten one
> plank to the next. Here we have a completely unique form of
> construction, which is not seen anywhere else.”
> 
> Alexander Belov, whose book on the wreck, Ship 17: a Baris from
> Thonis-Heracleion, is published this month, suggests that the wreck’s
> nautical architecture is so close to Herodotus’s description, it could
> have been made in the very shipyard that he visited. Word-by-word
> analysis of his text demonstrates that almost every detail corresponds
> “exactly to the evidence”.