Two Cultures of Ship Building Ever since its incipience, the boat has been one of the greatest inventions to ever aid humanity. Two civilizations known for their nautical excellence were the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe and the Norsemen of Scandinavia. The Byzantine Empire has been described as a maritime empire by numerous historians (Miller), and the Norse Empire’s naval advancements were a major reason for its success (Hadingham). Both empires were renowned for their technological advancements in the field of shipbuilding. The Drekar Contrary to popular belief, only a small part of the Viking Age, which lasted from 800-1100 A.D. (Lamoureux), included savage raids of unsuspecting villages and monasteries. The Vikings were also traders …show more content…
The Byzantine navy was made of mostly galleys, called dromons ("Navy, Ancient Roman"). These ships were built with the hull being built first and were made with the carvel method instead of the clinker method. Using the carvel method boards are placed end to end in dovetail joints (Galley). The boards were caulked, or glued together, and held together by metal rivets. The boards were made of cypress, cedar, and pine while the ribs of the ship were made out of oak. There were multiple variations of the dromons; larger, heavier ones were designed to withstand the hardship of battle and smaller ones were used as scouts (“Naval Ship”). It is also noteworthy that the dromon was derived from the Roman naval unit, the liburna. Previous galleys of older navies, like the Roman liburna, had a bronze ram at the bow of the ship; however most dromons did not have this battering ram, instead they had “abovewater spurs” (Pryor, 2006). One of the things the Byzantine Empire was famous for was the infamous Greek fire, which was blown from a tube on the ship as a projectile onto other ships wreaking havoc, for the fire would burn even underwater. It was such a devastating weapon that “Its introduction into warfare of its time was comparable in its demoralizing influence to the introduction of nuclear weapons in our time”