The stamp shows us a Phoenician merchant ship from Sidon of the second century BCE. the stamp is most probably designed after a bas-relief of a Phoenician trading ship which is now in the National Museum in Beirut.
The Phoenicians were famed in antiquity for their ship-building skills, and they were credited with inventing the keel, the battering ram on the bow of warships, and caulking between planks. From Assyrian relief carvings at Nineveh and Khorsabad, and descriptions in texts such as the book of Ezekiel in the Bible we know that the Phoenicians had three types of ships, all shallow-keeled.
Of the merchant ship they give: she has big-bellied hulls and was much heavier. They perhaps had higher sides too in order to permit the stacking of cargo on deck as well as below, and they had both a convex stern and bow. Their cargo capacity was somewhere in the region of 450 tons. A fleet might consist of up to 50 cargo vessels, and such fleets are depicted in reliefs, being escorted by a number of warships.
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/89 ... -mariners/
Phoenician merchant ship from Sidon, (Saida), 1100 BC.
Phoenician merchant ship: The Phoenicians were a Semitic farming and trading tribe who lived around 2000 BC. until 63 BC who settled in the coastal areas of today's Lebanon and northern Israel as far as Syria. They built a flourishing maritime trade in the Mediterranean. Since it has not been possible to find a complete Phoenician shipwreck, one must refer to historical reports and representations for the reconstruction. The most famous representations of Phoenician ships can be found on wall paintings in the tomb of Pharaoh Kenamon in Drah-Abou 'I-Neggah. The merchant ships, which were more beamer than the less wide warships, had a length of up to 30 m and a width of about 10 m. With an assumed draft of 2 m, the displacement was 200 to 300 t. The ships were probably built in shell first construction, i. H. built by manufacturing the hull with planking (i.e., that the longitudinal seams of the outer skin are butted together) and subsequent installation of the frames. The Phoenician ships had a central mast with a square sail and for better steering on the bowsprit a spritsail,
For steering, she had on both sides of the stern a steering oar. Also noteworthy are the high fore and stern posts and the rope ladder for entering the mast.
Source: Navicula and internet
Benin 1984 90f sg 968, Scott ?
PHOENICIAN MERCHANT SHIP FROM SIDON SECOND CENTURY BCE
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PHOENICIAN MERCHANT SHIP FROM SIDON SECOND CENTURY BCE
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