Phoenician joints () is a locked
mortise and tenon
A mortise and tenon (occasionally mortice and tenon) joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right ...
wood joinery technique used in shipbuilding to fasten watercraft
hulls. The locked (or pegged) mortise and tenon technique consists of cutting a mortise, or socket, into the edges of two planks and fastening them together with a rectangular wooden knob. The assembly is then locked in place by driving a
dowel
A dowel is a cylindrical rod, usually made of wood, plastic, or metal. In its original manufactured form, a dowel is called a ''dowel rod''. Dowel rods are often cut into short lengths called dowel pins. Dowels are commonly used as structural ...
through one or more holes drilled through the mortise side wall and tenon.
The
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
ns pioneered the use of locked mortise and tenon joints in nautical joinery to secure the underwater planking of seagoing ships. The use of pegged mortises and tenons in shipbuilding spread westward from the
Levantine littoral. Examples of the use of Phoenician joints in the ancient Mediterranean include the
Uluburun ship, dated , and the
Cape Gelidonya
Cape Gelidonya ( tr, Gelidonya Burnu or Taşlık Burnu, from el, Χελιδωνία, ''Chelidonia''; la, Chelidonium promontorium), formerly Kilidonia or Killidonia is a cape or headland on the Teke Peninsula in the chain of Taurus Mountains, loc ...
ship dated to .
By the first millennium BC, Phoenician joints became a common edge-to-edge fastening method.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
shipbuilders adopted the technique of Phoenician joinery. Roman writers credited the joinery technique to Phoenicians by calling it or . The ancient Greek historian
Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail.
Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...
reported that the Romans copied the locked mortise and tenon technique from a Punic warship that ran aground in 264 BC. They exploited this technique to their advantage early in the
First Punic War
The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and grea ...
in 260 BC which allowed them to build a fleet of 100
quinquereme
From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare. Ships became increasingly large and heavy, including some of the largest wooden ships hitherto con ...
s within a period of two months.
History
Phoenician joints postdate the sewn watercraft lacing joinery technique. Archaeological finds have revealed transitional watercrafts integrating elements from both mortise and tenon, and other joinery techniques.
Chinese Neolithic societies used the locked mortise and tenon method, but did not use a separate rectangular tenon nor edge-to-edge plank joining.
The locked mortise and tenon method occurs as of in non-nautical Ancient Egyptian joinery, but not in hull-planking, which only featured unlocked mortises.
In the third and early second millennium BC, the
Ancient Egyptians employed a similar technique, however, the mortise and tenon joints were not locked in place using pegs. To ensure ship hull stability, the Egyptians used their unlocked fastening technique together with other methods of wood fastening. An example of this technique is the
Fourth Dynasty
The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other ...
Khufu funerary ship (), an intact long
Lebanon cedar
''Cedrus libani'', the cedar of Lebanon or Lebanese cedar (), is a species of tree in the genus cedrus, a part of the pine family, native to the mountains of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. It is a large evergreen conifer that has great religi ...
lashed-lug vessel, that was unearthed in the
Giza pyramid complex
The Giza pyramid complex ( ar, مجمع أهرامات الجيزة), also called the Giza necropolis, is the site on the Giza Plateau in Greater Cairo, Egypt that includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Men ...
. The barque's cedar planks were joined together using unlocked mortise and tenon, and two types of lashings between bordering
strake
On a vessel's hull, a strake is a longitudinal course of planking or plating which runs from the boat's stempost (at the bows) to the sternpost or transom (at the rear). The garboard strakes are the two immediately adjacent to the keel on ...
s and, from
sheer to sheer. The mixed use of unlocked mortise and tenon with wood lashing is also attested in later ancient Egyptian ships from
Lisht
Lisht or el-Lisht ( ar, اللشت, translit=Al-Lišt) is an Egyptian village located south of Cairo. It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I. The two main pyramids were ...
() and
Dashur (). The use of pegged mortise and tenon shipbuilding in Egypt is not supported by material evidence before around 500 BC.
The Phoenicians pioneered the use of locked mortise and tenon joints in nautical joinery to secure the underwater planking of seagoing ships. The use of pegged mortises and tenons in shipbuilding spread westward from the Levantine littoral. According to McGrail, this joinery method could have given rise to the Phoenicians' reputation for seafaring excellence. The hull of the
Uluburun ship, an early Phoenician/Canaanite vessel dated , is the earliest evidence of pegged Phoenician joints used in Mediterranean shipbuilding. The ship's hull was built with Lebanese cedar, with oak tenons. Additional early evidence of Phoenician joint usage comes from another Canaanite shipwreck in
Cape Gelidonya
Cape Gelidonya ( tr, Gelidonya Burnu or Taşlık Burnu, from el, Χελιδωνία, ''Chelidonia''; la, Chelidonium promontorium), formerly Kilidonia or Killidonia is a cape or headland on the Teke Peninsula in the chain of Taurus Mountains, loc ...
in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
dated . The Uluburun and Gelidonya ships allowed scholars to date back the Phoenicians' maritime activity to an earlier period when it was thought that Canaanite seafaring did not start before the first millennium BC, and that maritime trade in the Eastern Mediterranean was solely conducted by Mycenaeans.
By the first millennium BC, Phoenician joints became a common edge-to-edge fastening method in the ancient Mediterranean. Greek shipbuilders abruptly abandoned the laced wood technique and adopted the Phoenician joinery. Scholars posit that Greek shipbuilders acquired the mortise and tenon joinery technique from the Phoenicians. Phoenician influence on Greek shipbuilding technology resulted from contact between the two people during the Phoenicians' westward colonization.
By the middle of the first millennium BC shipbuilders developed deeper understanding and expertise in the locked mortise and tenon joints as evidenced in the fourth century BC Kyrenia shipwreck and the third century BC wreckage of the Marsala Punic warship.
In 264 BC, the Romans seized a Phoenician
penteres
From the 4th century BC on, new types of oared warships appeared in the Mediterranean Sea, superseding the trireme and transforming naval warfare. Ships became increasingly large and heavy, including some of the largest wooden ships hitherto co ...
that ran aground.
Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail.
Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...
reports that the ship served as a model for the Romans' fleet ships; they realized the advantage of using Phoenician joints in shipbuilding, as the lumber used in edge-joined ship
strake
On a vessel's hull, a strake is a longitudinal course of planking or plating which runs from the boat's stempost (at the bows) to the sternpost or transom (at the rear). The garboard strakes are the two immediately adjacent to the keel on ...
s does not have to be
dried
Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. This process is often used as a final production step before selling or packaging products. To be consider ...
. Early in the
First Punic War
The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and grea ...
in 260 BC, the Phoenician joint technique allowed the Romans to build a fleet of 100 quinqueremes within a period of two months.
The technique is also seen in Vietnam. Excavation carried out in waterlogged burials in
Dong Xa in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
revealed the adoption of a variety of the locked mortise and tenon technique in the construction of a logboat. The boat dates back to the
Dong Son culture
The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the ...
in the late Vietnamese prehistory (500 BC to AD 200).
Description
The locked (or pegged) mortise and tenon technique consists of cutting a mortise, or socket, into the faces of two planks to be fastened together. A piece of wood called a tenon, usually taking the form of a rectangle, is inserted into each mortise to join the two planks together. The assembly is locked by driving a peg (or dowel pin or
treenail
A treenail, also trenail, trennel, or trunnel, is a wooden peg, pin, or dowel used to fasten pieces of wood together, especially in timber frames, covered bridges, wooden shipbuilding and boat building. It is driven into a hole bored through two ...
) through one or more holes drilled through mortise side wall and tenon. This technique is known as Phoenician joint when applied to shipbuilding.
Etymology
The origin of the term Phoenician joinery comes from the Latin, since Roman writers credited the joinery technique to Phoenicians by calling it or . The Latin term is known through the extant writings such as that of
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write histo ...
. In his treatise on agriculture, ''
De agri cultura'', Cato describes the construction of a wooden disk used in oil presses using locked mortise and tenon joinery; he refers to the technique as , thereby crediting Rome's enemies.
means Punic and derives from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and , which were used mostly to refer to the
Carthaginians
The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...
and other western Phoenicians. These terms derived from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
word (), plural form (), an
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
used indiscriminately to refer to both western and eastern Phoenicians.
translates to the English "coagment" meaning to join together or unite.
See also
*
Lashed-lug boat
Lashed-lug boats are ancient boat-building techniques of the Austronesian peoples. It is characterized by the use of sewn holes and later dowels ("treenails") to stitch planks edge-to-edge onto a dugout keel and solid carved wood pieces that form ...
*
Phoenician expedition
*
Phoenician Ship Expedition
The Phoenician Ship Expedition is a re-creation of a 6th-century BCE Phoenician voyage conceived by Philip Beale. The replica of an ancient Phoenician ship departed from Syria in August 2008, to sail through the Suez Canal, around the Horn of A ...
*
Sewn boat
A sewn boat is a type of wooden boat which is clinker built with its planks sewn, stitched, tied, or bound together with tendons or flexible wood, such as roots and willow branches. Sewn boat construction techniques were used in many parts of the ...
*
Ship Sarcophagus
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
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* {{Cite book , last=White , first=K. D. , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W1ssAAAAYAAJ&q=Greek+and+Roman+Technology.+Aspects+of+Greek+and+Roman+Life. , title=Greek and Roman Technology , date=1984 , publisher=Cornell University Press , isbn=978-0-8014-1439-8 , language=en
Joinery
Watercraft components
Shipbuilding
Science and technology in Phoenicia
Ancient technology