Boats and Ships of the Bronze Age

During the Bronze Age, boating technology advanced rapidly, and these advances had a big impact on world history. Boats were sturdier and more efficient. Better boats allowed traders to go farther from their homes. This led to more trade with faraway places. Trading routes were established throughout the waterways of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Suddenly, spices, gold, wine, olives, and pottery were being shipped from continent to continent. Although the era is called the Bronze Age and bronze was certainly prized, not all advances depended on bronze. Boats of this era were made of a variety of materials depending on the region where the boat was made.

Atlantic Europe

The Atlantic Bronze Age was a time of cultural and trade exchanges between societies from Scotland down to Portugal. Not only was the shipping industry born, but advances in boat-building and the resulting cultural exchange led to improvements in the designs of shields, swords, and clifftop fortifications.

• The Dover Bronze Age Boat is about 3,500 years old. It was constructed of massive oak planks held together with oak wedges and twisted yew twigs.
• The boat is made in a complicated and sophisticated way. Even modern-day scientists had to study it carefully to understand how it works.
• Originally, the boat was about 60 feet long by 8 feet wide. Around 20 men were required to paddle the boat. It was probably used to transport the raw materials needed to make bronze to the area.
• The boat was discovered 20 feet underneath the streets of modern-day Dover in 1992.

Mediterranean Boats

The Bronze Age boats of the Mediterranean were also made of wooden planks held together with wooden pegs and joints. The hulls were typically built first, and many modern historians believe these boats were made without frames. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the boats were paddled. The more efficient method of rowing became common practice as the age progressed. The invention of steering oars, which were strapped to the hull, also helped popularize rowing as the preferred method of powering these ships.

• The rudder, which makes boats easier to maneuver, was invented around 2,000 B.C.E.
• The galley boat, a shallow longship powered by oars, evolved from these inventions and was one of the most popular ship types in the ancient world.
• Societies developed different boats for trade purposes and for war.
• One way that modern historians know what these boats looked like is that images of them were often painted on vases that survived into the modern age. Different societies depicted very different ships on their vase paintings.

More Bronze Age Boats

During the Bronze Age, the technology for boating and shipping in Asia also advanced rapidly. However, there is less surviving evidence for how these boats looked, how they were built, and how they operated. Historians do know that by the start of the Iron Age, China had sound, advanced boats for purposes of war and trade. Some historians believe the Chinese were using sails by around 1,200 B.C.E., but there is little concrete evidence to support these beliefs.

• The best evidence for how Chinese boats looked and functioned in the era comes from oracle bones. Oracle bones were a major part of the culture and were used for divination.
• Oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty suggest that boats were constructed of large wooden planks connected together.
• The Polynesian outrigger canoe also dates to the Bronze Age.

Additional Resources

• The Greek Age of Bronze Ships
• Ships in Culture and War: The Late Bronze Age Aegean and the Sea Peoples
• Building and Sailing Ships in the Ancient Mediterranean
• Uncovering the Culture of Bronze Age Logboats
• Bronze Age Boat
• Eight Bronze Age Boats Surface at Fens Creek in Record Find
• Egyptian Ship Model Sheds Light on Bronze Age Warfare and Religion
• Ship Images in the Bronze Age
• Odysseus's Boat? New Mycenaean Evidence From the Egyptian New Kingdom
• Late Bronze Age Aegean Ships
• Neandertals, Stone Age People May Have Voyaged the Mediterranean
• Ships and Boats: Prehistory to 1840
• The Bronze Age Boats of North Ferriby, Yorkshire
• Ships and Shipbuilding in Mesopotamia
• 1300 B.C.E.: The Dover Bronze Age Boat
• Snäckedal: The Hill of Ships
• From Sea to Screen: GIS Modelling of Bronze Age Ships in the Cyclades
• The Bronze Age and the Sophisticated Ships of the Minoans
• Sailing Through the Ages: A Mediterranean Odyssey
• The Dover Bronze Age Boat
• Bronze Age Sailors in the Libyan Sea: Reconsidering the Capacity for Northward Voyages Between Crete and North Africa
• What Was Life Like for a Girl in the Bronze Age?
• Everyday Life in a Bronze Age Village Emerges in U.K. Excavation
• Bronze Age Weapons and Tools
• Bronze Age Britain
• Bronze Age Timeline