The San Marco mosaic ship c. 1150 by Louie da fly - 1:75

[Louie da fly]

17 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

But the small loops hanging outside the gunwale don't look like rope loops to me, since the other rigging ropes are all dark.

Well, yes. This is one of the reasons I put this issue up for discussion.

 

17 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

The small loops being so bright, it seems to me like they were made to stand out,

On the other hand, the Venetian mosaicists were working within the tradition inherited from Byzantium, in which religious motifs and figures seem to have pearls added wherever possible. See the figure below, one of a series of military saints in a fresco in Kapadokya, in what is now Turkey but was then the heartland of the Byzantine Empire. A close-up shows this armoured figure has what appear to be pearls all over his outfit - most impractical in combat!

 

  

So it's possible these are ropes converted to pearls as added decoration, rather than something in the real world. This perhaps ties in with Knocklouder's suggestion, or perhaps not.

 

But my other concern is that as Banyan has pointed out, they're just loops, apparently not connected to anything in particular. Plus the fact that they're draped on the outside of the hull, not on the inside of the bulwarks as we would expect if they were rigging ropes tied off. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions so far. If anyone else has any possible explanations, I'd be happy to hear them.

 

Steven

[Mark Pearse]

23 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

Do the members agree with my interpretation, or are there any other possibilities that come to mind?

Hi Steven

 

Yes, I agree - but not because I have any insight into what they could be. I wish I could help on that. I agree that they just don't look like rope. And there's a randomness...two loops here, none there, etc. I favour something along the lines of rosaries, or charms, decorations..... A mosaic depiction of a ship can't go into too much detail, so it is probably be something either visually obvious or else something meaningful, & relatively minor loop of rigging rope doesn't fit well into either. I'm putting my money on meaningful.

[Louie da fly]

You could be right, Mark. But we're completely in the dark at this distance in time. I've tried to find any and all miracles attributed to St Mark, and there are quite a few, but none relate to these loops.

 

Now, on the surmise that (a) these uprights are extended frames rather than the tops of kevels (or more likely cleats, as in my understanding kevels were a relatively late development), and (b) they're belaying points, then they couldn't be used to belay the bottoms of the shrouds - being vertical, they'd just slip off again. So, if they are part of the rigging system, they must be used to belay the running, rather than the standing rigging. I incline to this view, though I have absolutely no real evidence to back this up.

 

Unfortunately, there are absolutely no 12th century pictures that show how the shrouds or the running rigging are belayed - they just show lines coming down from the masthead and ending at the ship's side, and you're often lucky to get any running rigging at all. The earliest I've seen that show any detail of this kind at all are from the 13th century Cantigas de Santa Maria, from the reign of Alfonso the Wise of Castile (1252-85). The picture below is the best example, and and even this is pretty hard to make sense of. Apart from being at least 100 years too late, it's also from Spain, not Italy.

The next earliest that shows any sort of rigging detail is an illustration from the legend of St Ursula in the Church of San Francis de Palma de Mallorca, from the 1st quarter of the 14th century- and again it's from Mallorca at the western end of the Mediterranean, under Spanish control. At least the rigging of this one makes some kind of sense - the lower shrouds end in blocks that are belayed to the hull - probably to the inner sides of the bulwarks, and the yards are controlled at their after ends by blocks. The fore ends aren't visible, but I'd guess they're each held by a pair of blocks, one belayed at each side of the ship, the weather one slack and the lee one hauled in. 

This will all be useful when it comes to rigging the ship further down the line, but it really doesn't solve the issue of exactly what those uprights are . . .

 

Steven

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Cathead]

Are they oar loops? Were these vessels rowed? They look exactly like the rope loops used for primitive oarlocks on vessels like Lewis & Clark's keelboat.

[GrandpaPhil]

They look like timber heads or bitts to me, or something that fulfills the same function.

 

They could possibly be tie off points for oars or sweeps as well.

 

Possibly dual purpose?

Edited August 1, 2023 by GrandpaPhil

[Ferrus Manus]

Re: post #108

Here's my word of advice from studying medieval ships: There tends to be a large amount of variation from ship to ship, which also extends to the mast tops. Depending on where on the mast you want your top, i would start with trestle and cross trees, then add the top. I would have holes in the floor of the mast top, with the halyard going through a sheave. Essentially, the mast top would not be built on the very top of the mast, but built around it. This is what you see on the Mataro Nao, the oldest extant model ship. 

 

However, if there is a joint between the mast and the top, i would use a scarph joint and a bunch of treenails. You could possibly make this scarph joint stronger by alternating where it is on each side of the joint. 

 

If you want, i could draw you some diagrams. 

[Louie da fly]

3 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

If you want, i could draw you some diagrams. 

Thanks, but no need. I agree with you about the method of getting the halyard up to the sheave through the floor of the top - but Woodrat has made the point that a circular top around the mast would foul the lateen yard as it's moved from one side of the mast to the other, as the vessel tacks - see our exchange of 24 July in this build log. It's very likely the mosaic artist has got this wrong and that the top is mounted behind the mast, in which case the halyard would be handled differently. See illustration No. 1 below (my thanks to Woodrat for this one) for the likely configuration.

Probably the mosaic artist saw and misinterpreted something like this (1332-34, St Nicholas' Miracle of grain ships by Ambrogio_Lorenzetti. Uffizi gallery, Florence), but probably without the metal rings around the top.

On late mediaeval and renaissance lateeners there was a removable piece called a calcet that was mounted - usually with a scarph joint, as you suggest - on top of the mast, to take the sheaves of the halyard. There's a good example in Woodrat's "Venetian Round Ship" build. But the earliest pictorial evidence we have of calcets in the Western Mediterranean is from about 1300, 150 years after this ship, which made me consider the possibility of incorporating the sheaves within the mast itself, particularly with this picture (from the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, 1362 C.E. ) as a guide.

On the other hand, the Ma‘agan Mikhael B wreck of 648 - 740 C.E., a 25 metre merchantman found just off the coast of Israel, had a fully preserved calcet.

So perhaps I should be going with a calcet after all - let's face it, the Mediterranean was a place of great cultural exchange throughout the centuries, and something as obviously useful is likely to have been - and remained -  in widespread use.

 

Steven

 

[Ferrus Manus]

How do you tack a lateen sail circa 1200? Is it different than a normal one? 

[allanyed]

Going back a step, the idea of pearls is not too far fetched, regarding clothing in the Byzantine period, but how this would relate to the loops, ????   Two really good examples are below.  Perhaps they do depict strings of pearls or gems.

[Ferrus Manus]

Just shot Woodrat a text asking for an explanation about the tacking of the lateens. Clearly i'm missing something here, and i don't like not knowing. 

[Ferrus Manus]

It seems like the yards on some of the ships pictured weren't that long, and might not have been lateen, maybe closer to a modern day lugger sail. Either way, perhaps the ships with their tops centered had their yards tack behind the mast. Just my amateur observation. 

 

Another idea! Maybe, the sheaves/calcet were built into the front face of the top, with a hole in the top for the halyard. Would that be plausible at all? 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Ferrus Manus

[Mark Pearse]

4 hours ago, allanyed said:

Perhaps they do depict strings of pearls or gems.

or ceramic beads to weight the pieces of rope, or so the ropes can spin (like parrel beads).....

 

I was taken by the suggestion they were for putting the oars through & rowing. That would explain the apparent randomness, as loops for this purpose would not need to be fixed to the hull & might b moved around. The white dots as weights might then make sense, they would tend to not fall off. 

[Ferrus Manus]

They might have been like the tires we hang off modern tugboats, i.e. to protect the ship's side while at dock. 

[Ferrus Manus]

I also wouldn't be surprused if they were like prayer beads. They must've known that this was a very special ship, that needed God's protection and favor to accomplish its daring task. Plus, the voyage was religious in nature, so it checks out. Perhaps you should use them in your build! 

[Louie da fly]

7 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Just shot Woodrat a text asking for an explanation about the tacking of the lateens.

I've just answered it - I seem to be on this set of messages as well.  

 

7 hours ago, allanyed said:

 Two really good examples are below.  Perhaps they do depict strings of pearls or gems.

Oh, yes. Two of my favourites - the ceremonial glove of William II of Sicily (BTW, have you seen the rest of the regalia? Just as amazing) and the mosaic in Hagia Sofia in Constantinople/Miklagard/Tsarigrad/Istanbul of Empress Zoe with her third husband, Constantine Monomachos - note that his name and face in the mosaic have been altered to update the husband!

 

Thank you everybody for all the suggestions, but I'm afraid none of the suggested uses of these loops is convincing enough for me to include them as part of the model. I think I'll just have to put it down as "unexplained" for the time being. I'll keep an open mind and if I come across any other explanation all well and good. But for the time being, even though it seems to contradict the evidence somewhat, I think I'll keep the interpretation of them being coils of rope hanging from belaying points - they'd really only work for sheets and tacks, though, and I'll have to work out how to belay the vertical ropes such as shrouds and vangs (the rope controlling the top of the lateen yard - there's not really an appropriate English word for these as lateens aren't part of modern English usage.

 

BTW, for a good representation of a calcet with a scarph joint to the mast, look at post #183 in Woodrat's Venetian Round Ship build log at 

 

Steven 

[Ferrus Manus]

I may have solved your bead/rope issue. It would be wonderful to see the tiny details, like prayer beads and other things that just make a ship come alive. That's what i try to do on my builds. 

 

However, given a lack of historical context i may be entirely wrong. It checks out though, as the Christian use of prayer beads originates in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Leaving aside the discussion regarding the "beads", here's the latest progress on the ship. Adding wales in line with the stringers. The first starboard wale below the gunwale in place and the larboard wale clamped and waiting for glue to dry. 

And the clamps removed.

Completing the stringers by adding the bits on the ends.

And the second wale down from the gunwale glued and clamped. I only had two clamps that reached far enough, but my wife had a brilliant idea - use twisted wire as clamps.

I had to be careful with this method to avoid the wire digging into the wood, but it seemed to work pretty well. It only works in very specific instances, but was ok here.

 

Steven

 

[woodrat]

As regards the rather bright ropes hanging over the side, there are a number of illustrations which show this. There is no need to imagine prayer beads or pearls. It was just sloppy seamanship. The ships were probably initially sketched at their moorings with their ropes all ahoo. As to their being bright, the following pic shows bright ropes over the side AND dark pendant ropes. I think the pendant ropes are tarred and the bright ropes normal hemp.

The last pic clearly shows the anchor cable bright. It was just the way they painted rope against a dark hull.

Cheers

Dick

[Louie da fly]

That was the way my own thoughts were going, Dick. Not jewels or pearls, but simply a colour that contrasted with the black hull. The only difference as far as I can see between the ones you've included above and the San Marco mosaics is that the ropes are looped over extended frames rather than randomly distributed, and I don't think there's any significance whatsoever in that difference.

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

...oh. So they're just... ropes. That's really awful, and also ridiculously funny. Come on, Woodrat, you didn't have to ruin it for us that quick! You could've at least let us think we were geniuses for a little longer. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Finalising the gunwale, which hadn't quite reached the stempost due to a miscalculation. I glued in a couple of thin bits of wood to fill the gap, then trimmed them down to follow the line of the wales. I also curved the middle wales further upward at the bow, as the line was wrong. Now they form an intermediate curve between the gunwale and the wale below.

 Putting on the bottom wales - here's the first pair, at the bow. I hadn't bent them quite enough for the curve of the bow, but gluing them to the stempost and the first few frames will secure them enough to allow me to curve them around the "bend" by hand once the glue is dry, and tie the rest of the wale down to follow the rest of the frames.

 

 

Another issue. To allow somewhere to belay the vertical lines, I added a stringer inside the hull in line with the gunwale. But I'm not really happy with it, and I think I might replace it with cleats or something of the sort, to perform the same function. What do you all think?

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

  

[Mark Pearse]

2 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

To allow somewhere to belay the vertical lines, I added a stringer inside the hull in line with the gunwale. But I'm not really happy with it, and I think I might replace it with cleats or something of the sort, to perform the same function. What do you all think?

Hi Steven, bearing in mind I know very little about these particular craft....I think your idea is good but somehow it doesn't look quite right, it's a lot of structure above the deck line. 

[Louie da fly]

Agreed - it's not a wonderful idea to make your ship top-heavy, apart from the extra cost of the timber. But to me it just looks wrong.

 

And there's no evidence either way from pictorial sources or archaeology as far as I know; most wrecks are found with their upper works missing - unless something has been found in the Black Sea that will clarify the issue.

 

Steven 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Well, I've taken off that stringer behind the gunwale - I just wasn't happy with it. I'll find some other belaying method.

 

In the meantime I've been doing some thinking about whether or not to have a calcet. The main problem is that pictures detailed enough to show whether or not a ship had calcets (or perhaps where the artist could be bothered to add that kind of detail) are usually 2 or more centuries after the ship I'm portraying. The pictures from which Woodrat got the calcets for his 14th century ship are admittedly only (only!) 150 years later, but that's still a long time for development to occur, and doesn't help with whether or not a ship from 1150 would have had them.

 

But then I remembered the illustration from the Annals of Genoa (1173-1196) - perhaps only about 20 years after my own!

It seems to me that there is something there at the top of the mast, of a different colour from the rest, and that the top is attached to the rear of it. It would have been nice to see what was happening with the foremast, but unfortunately this is all there is of the picture - the artist ran out of space at the edge of the page and left the rest off (fortunately, though, it shows a rope ladder, which the after mast doesn't).

 

I think I'm going to take this as evidence for calcet, and act accordingly. Now it's a matter of working out a configuration for the calcet itself and how to attach the top to it. A bit of a diversion from building the hull, but I like to think things out in advance. 

 

I've now finished all the wales

and the next step in the sequence should be either the deck beams or the planking. But I'm also thinking ahead to the configuration of the aftercastle/poop and also how the side rudders are going to work.

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

The 'skeleton' framing is coming on very nicely Steven.  Looks great.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[woodrat]

This image is not detailed enough to be sure, but that sure looks like a "hockey stick" poking out the front of the mast . Above it is a smaller mast with a crows nest behind it. I have seen this image before but dont have a large version of it. Can you give me the reference? In my opinion the hockey stick was only used to pull the yard away from the mast to enable lowering as I tried to show in my Yenikapi 12I

I have just found a more detailed pic which looks even more hockey stick like

Cheers

Dick

Edited August 10, 2023 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

On 8/10/2023 at 5:46 PM, woodrat said:

Can you give me the reference?

Unfortunately the entire document is only available (as far as I know) in black and white, but here is the reference - https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9076701x/f118.item - the rest of the manuscript is also well worth looking at - it's replete with all kinds of interesting pictures - quite a few more ships (all galleys IIRC except this one), but all kinds of other things.

 

I agree, the picture certainly looks like a hockey stick calcet with a short vertical "topmast" above it, presumably connected to it, to which the "crow's nest" is attached. How exactly this was configured is something of a problem and I'm going to have to think about it a bit. 

 

On the other hand, regarding the San Marco ships, even if we assume the artists got the "all-around the mast" tops wrong (which I think is quite likely) and they should be only on the back of the mast, nonetheless there's this pointy black thing sticking out above the top itself. Could this be the top of a calcet? And if so, how was it configured?

 

And though one set seem straight up and down, the others are looking suspiciously hockey-stickish . . . particularly the second-last one.

 

  

 

Added to this I'm still trying to work out how a two-sheaved calcet worked (and they all seem to have had at least two)  - I think we had this conversation before - why have two ties? My understanding is that the knight at deck level would have maybe as many as three sheaves, but that it would be paired with a block above it with perhaps two sheaves, and the block would be attached to a single tye that goes through the calcet, adjusted by the halyard running between the knight and the block. So how does a double sheaved calcet fit in with this configuration? It's breaking my brain at the moment. 

 

Steven

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

 

 

I made a balsa mock-up of the aftercastle, to see how it all works. Here's the first version.

This is why I make mock-ups - to see if it works the way it's drawn. It's rather too high - no way anybody can see over it, even though I intend to make the sides latticework. Also likely to make the ship top-heavy. I looked back at the mosaic I was using as my source and realised the aftercastle on this one actually started well below bulwark level, and the other mosaics showed the top of the aftercastle quite low.

So here's the next iteration - I just cut the top off. I thought about lowering the whole castle but decided against it as most of the mosaics show its walls pretty much the same height.

One other thing - it's perfectly rectangular rather than tapered to take into account the narrowing of the stern.

   

But even though this looks somewhat weird, it follows many, many representations of ships of this period,

 

 

so I'm going to continue with it, even though it offends my 21st century sensibilities.

 

I think I've got the heights of the masts correct now, but I won't cut them to length just yet - I'm working on how they're going to be configured at the top, what with the calcet and all.

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Looking really good Steven, those mock-ups are a good way to bowl-out any issues before fitting the actual.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

This is such an intriguing subject.  It's fascinating to watch you unlock clues to the build from the variety of mosaics.