surfresearch

surfresearch.com.au

johnstone : sea-craft prehistory, 1980

Paul Johnstone : The Sea-craft Prehistory, 1980.

Extracts from
Paul Johnstone: The Sea-craft of Prehistory.
Prepared for publication by Sean McGrail.
Routledge and Keegan Paul Ltd., London, 1980.

Introduction.
Sewn boats and catamarans.

Page 178

So these three seals link up with modern and medieval craft to give us an apparently coherent succession of types from the early reed craft to contemporary dhows. Another very interesting thing about this line of development is that in many ways it matches that of the Mediterranean, the primitive craft elaborated with the appearance of metal tools into the double-ended masted merchantmen.
Yet the eastern craft have a recognisably different style all the way through, a style that is still reflected in some of the contemporary craft from that area.
The later two seals also go some way towards answering the question put earlier as to what craft carried on the trade between Mesopotamia, Bahrain and the Harappan civilisation.

Sewn Boats

But there are still a number of interesting problems to be settled, even if we know the outward shape of these craft.
One point that does seem virtually certain is that they were sewn-planked. Historical accounts of this practice, which survived until recently in these waters, have been summarised by Hornell. (27)
The Peri plus of the Erythraean Sea of the first century AD mentions it, as well as vessels called madarata being built at Ommana on the south coast of the Arabian Gulf.
As Hornell points out, this seems to be related to the Arabic word 'maddarr'at', meaning 'fastened with palm fibre'.
Then early in the tenth century AD, Abu Sayd reports that sewn-plank ships are a speciality of the shipwrights of Siraf, as opposed to the nailed vessels of the Mediterranean, and that the holes for the stitches were filled by oil mixed with various materials.

Shortly after this, accounts by European travellers to the East begin to appear, with duly patronising comment on the method of fastening ships' timbers. Marco Polo described the local craft as wretched affairs of which many were lost because they had no iron fastenings and were stitched together only with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut.
Then Friar Odoric, who died in AD 1331, sailed to Bombay from Ormuz in a 'bark compact together only with hempe', and the same technique was noted by Vasco da Gama, Ralph Fitch, John Eldred and many others in succeeding centuries.

A number of primitive craft continue, or did until recently, to use this method, notably the mtepe and the mtepe-dau of the Lamu archipelago on the East African coast.28 Alan Villiers reported seeing sewn fishing boats on the Hadramaut coast of South Arabia just before the Second World War, (29) and further east, perhaps the most famous example are the masula surfboats (Figure 13.11) of India's east coast.
Thomas Bowrey, who was a pepper trader in India from 1669 to 1679, has left a good description of these :(30)

"The boats they [of the Coromandel coast] doe lade and unlade ships or vessels with are built very sleight, haveinge no timbers in them, save the thafts [thwarts] to hold their sides together.
Their planks are very broad and thinne, sowed together with cayre [coir], being flatt bottomed and every way much deformed ...They are so sleightly built for convenciences sake, and realy are most proper for this Coast."

No iron at all is used in their construction, and Bowrey's drawing (Figure 13.12) does not quite get right the stapling effect of the stitches on the

Page 179

... outside, which recalls yet again the carvings at Sanchi, which include a craft of the second century BC fastened in precisely this way. (31)
But perhaps more significant is the parallel observed by l!. V. Wright between the construction techniques of the sewn mahadalpuras of Ceylon (Figure 13.13) and the Ferriby boats. (32)
Evidently sewn planks with moss caulking held in place by oversewn battens is a characteristic technique of early metal technologies.

Page 184

13. I 7 Bowrey's late seventeenth century drawing of an Indian 'cattamaran' raft (Hill, MM, vol. 44, 1958, p. 209).

Nevertheless it is interesting as showing both the sail in use on rafts and also the existence of yet another type of craft in the area.
In the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, particularly on the eastern coast of the sub-continent, the continued and useful existence of the many forms of raft to this day recalls a situation that was probably much the same thousands of years ago.
As Bowrey said of his 'cattamaran' (Figure 13.17), 'they will boldly venture out of sight of the shore, but indeed they Swim me (in generall) as naturaly as Spanyall dogs.(53

No iron at all is used in their construction, and Bowrey's drawing (Figure 13.12) does not quite get right the stapling effect of the stitches on the
outside, which recalls yet again the carvings at Sanchi, which include a craft of the second century BC fastened in precisely this way.31 But perhaps more significant is the parallel observed by l!. V. Wright between the construction techniques of the sewn mahadalpuras of Ceylon (Figure 13.13) and the Ferriby boats.32 Evidently sewn planks with moss caulking held in place by oversewn battens is a characteristic technique of early metal technologies.

Footnotes

Paul Johnstone: The Sea-craft of Prehistory.
Prepared for publication by Sean McGrail.
Routledge and Keegan Paul Ltd., London, 1980.

surfresearch.com.au

Geoff Cater (2011-2015) : Paul Johnstone: Sea Craft of Prehistory, 1980.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1980_Johnstone_Sea_Craft_Prehistory.html