Galley

It has occasionally been used for unrelated vessels with similar military functions as galley but which were not Mediterranean in origin, such as medieval Scandinavian longships, 16th-century Acehnese ghalis and 18th-century North American gunboats.

For naval combat, galleys were equipped with various weapons: rams and occasionally catapults until late antiquity, Greek fire during the Early Middle Ages, and cannons from the 15th century.

Initially, gun galleys posed a serious threat to sailing warships, but were gradually made obsolete by the development of full-rigged ships with superior broadside armament.

River boats plied the waterways of ancient Egypt during the Old Kingdom (2700–2200 BC) and seagoing galley-like vessels were recorded bringing back luxuries from across the Red Sea in the reign of pharaoh Hatshepsut.

As an example of the speed and reliability, during an instance of the famous "Carthago delenda est" speech, Cato the Elder demonstrated the close proximity of the Roman arch enemy Carthage by displaying a fresh fig to his audience that he claimed had been picked in North Africa only three days past.

This attracted a business of carrying rich pilgrims to the Holy Land, a trip that could be accomplished in as little 29 days on the route Venice–Jaffa, despite landfalls for rest and watering, or to shelter from rough weather.

Fleets with large galleys were put in action in conflicts such as the Punic Wars (246–146 BC) between the Roman Republic and Carthage, which included massive naval battles with hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of soldiers, seamen, and rowers.

The Romans maintained numerous bases around the empire: along the rivers of Central Europe, chains of forts along the northern European coasts and the British Isles, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, including Trabzon, Vienna, Belgrade, Dover, Seleucia, and Alexandria.

[44] In the eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire struggled with the incursion from invading Muslim Arabs from the 7th century, leading to fierce competition, a buildup of fleet, and war galleys of increasing size.

In the 13th century the Iberian Crown of Aragon built several fleet of galleys with high castles, manned with Catalan crossbowmen, and regularly defeated numerically superior Angevin forces.

[58] From around 1450, three major naval powers established a dominance over different parts of the Mediterranean, using galleys as their primary weapons at sea: the Ottomans in the east, Venice in the center and Habsburg Spain in the west.

Spain sent galley squadrons to the Netherlands during the later stages of the Eighty Years' War which successfully operated against Dutch forces in the enclosed, shallow coastal waters.

Around 2,000 galley rowers under the command of Squadron General Diego de Medrano were on board ships of the famous 1588 Spanish Armada, though few of these actually made it to the battle itself.

[67] Even though the carracks themselves were soon surpassed by other types of sailing vessels, their greater range, great size, and high superstructures, armed with numerous wrought iron guns easily outmatched the short-ranged, low-freeboard Turkish galleys.

[71] Some of the larger vessels were very large with heavier armament than standard Mediterranean galleys, with raised platforms for infantry and some with stern structures similar in height to that of contemporary galleons.

[d] They could effectively fight other galleys, attack sailing ships in calm weather or in unfavorable winds (or deny them action if needed) and act as floating siege batteries.

By 1650, war galleys were used primarily in the struggles between Venice and the Ottoman Empire for strategic island and coastal trading bases and until the 1720s by both France and Spain for largely amphibious and cruising operations or in combination with heavy sailing ships in a major battle, where they played specialized roles.

[83] No large all-galley battles were fought after the gigantic clash at Lepanto in 1571, and galleys were mostly used as cruisers or for supporting sailing warships as a rearguard in fleet actions, similar to the duties performed by frigates outside the Mediterranean.

In the first half of the 18th century, the other major naval powers in the Mediterranean Sea, the Order of Saint John based in Malta, and of the Papal States in central Italy, cut down drastically on their galley forces.

The response came in the building of a considerable fleet of oared vessels, including hybrids with a complete three-masted rig, as well as a Mediterranean-style galleys (that were even attempted to be manned with convicts and slaves).

[90] While galleys were too vulnerable to be used in large numbers in the open waters of the Atlantic, they were well-suited for use in much of the Baltic Sea by Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Russia, and some of the Central European powers with ports on the southern coast.

One was the open sea, suitable for large sailing fleets; the other was the coastal areas and especially the chain of small islands and archipelagos that ran almost uninterrupted from Stockholm to the Gulf of Finland.

Naval conflict grew more intense and extensive, and by 100 BC galleys with four, five or six rows of oarsmen were commonplace and carried large complements of soldiers and catapults.

The huge polyremes disappeared and the fleet were equipped primarily with triremes and liburnians, compact biremes with 25 pairs of oars that were well suited for patrol duty and chasing down raiders and pirates.

[119] The accepted view is that the main developments which differentiated the early dromons from the liburnians, and that henceforth characterized Mediterranean galleys, were the adoption of a full deck, the abandonment of rams on the bow in favor of an above-water spur, and the gradual introduction of lateen sails.

A rectangular telaro, a projecting outrigger, was added to support the oars and the rowers' benches were laid out in a diagonal herringbone pattern angled aft with a central gangway (corsia) running along the centerline.

Practical experiments with the full-scale trireme reconstruction Olympias has shown that there was insufficient space to perform a sliding stroke movement, and moving or rolling seats would have been highly impractical to construct with ancient technology.

[156] Contrary to the popular image of rowers chained to the oars, conveyed by movies such as Ben Hur, there is no evidence that ancient navies made regular use of condemned criminals or slaves as oarsmen, with the possible exception of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Egyptian victory was commemorated on the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu and shows intense close quarters fighting and the use of grapnels thrown into the rigging to capsize ships and throwing its crew into the sea.

If ramming was not possible or successful, the on-board complement of soldiers would attempt to board and capture the enemy vessel by securing it with grappling irons, accompanied by missile fire with arrows or javelins.

A two-masted ship with several sails set
Colourised engraving of a French galley (27 pairs of oars) built according to the design that was standard in the Mediterranean from the early 17th century; Henri Sbonski de Passebon , 1690
A group of 14 small ships of varying sizes on a lake with wooded land in the background
United States ships at the Battle of Valcour Island depicting several " row galleys " similar in function but based on very different designs from Mediterranean galleys; watercolor by Charles Randle
A group of stylized ships propelled by oars, half of them with pointed bows and half with rounded bows in a sea full of fish and other sea creatures
Drawing of warships (pointed bows) and trade ships (rounded bows); based on a wall relief from the Southwest Palace at Nineveh , circa 700 BC.
A small ship with a pointed bow and a upturned stern with three figures performing various tasks
3rd-century depiction of an actuaria from the Altiburus mosaic. A figure is beating the time for the rowers with a mallet.
The prow of a galley on a coin of the Roman Republic of the 3rd century BC
A 3D animation of a elongated ship hull
Animated 3D model of the basic hull structure of a Venetian "galley of Flanders", a large trading vessel of the 15th century. The reconstruction by archaeologist Courtney Higgins is based on measurements given in contemporary ship treatises. [ 32 ]
A galley with its oars out equipped with a small tower-like structure and a group of battle-ready Roman legionnaires standing on the upper deck
A Roman naval bireme in a relief from the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia in Praeneste , built c. 120 BC ( Museo Pio-Clementino )
A panorama of a harbor opening with three small galleys heading out of it with rowers at its oars and commanders standing in the stern
Two compact liburnians used by the Romans in the campaigns against the Dacians in the early 2nd century AD; relief from Trajan's Column , c. 113 AD
A large group of small sailing ships and galleys engaged in battle on an inland sea with a walled town and farmland in the background
Battle between Dutch and Spanish Ships on the Haarlemmermeer in 1573, as painted in 1629 by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom
A galley in port with tent awning over its main deck and a fixed cannon in the bow, pointing forward
The first known depiction of a galley with a fixed, forward-facing centerline cannon; [ 73 ] woodcut by Erhard Reuwich from Peregrinatio in terram sanctam ("Pilgrimage to the Holy Land"), 1486.
A large group of galleys in a bay fighting each other with gunfire and boarding action with land on either side
The Battle of Lepanto in 1571, naval engagement between allied Christian forces and the Ottoman Turks ; unknown painter, late 16th century,
Two galleys attacking a three-masted sailing ship that is considerably taller. One of the galleys is sinking.
Dutch ships ramming Spanish galleys in the Battle of the Narrow Seas , October 1602; painting by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom , 1617.
A large galley in shallow waters with oars out and its deck covered with soldiers. More galleys are visible in background which is partially obscured by white smoke.
A painting of the Battle of Grengam in 1720 by Ferdinand Perrot (1808–41) showing a large Russian galley engaging Swedish frigates at close range.
3D drawing showing how outer planking are attached to each other with tenons that fit into mortises in the individual planks
A schematic view of the mortise and tenon technique for shipbuilding that dominated the Mediterranean until the 7th century AD [ 104 ]
A museum exhibit of a large metal casting similar to three stacked duck bills in the front
The Athlit ram , a preserved ram from around 530–270 BC. It weighs nearly half a tonne and was probably fitted to a "five" or a "four". [ 107 ]
A galley sitting on struts on land under in an open-sided shed seen from the rear
The stern of the modern trireme replica Olympias with twin side rudders
A one-masted bright red galley with its oared raised and a large lateen sail set, billowing in the wind.
14th-century painting of a light galley, from an icon now at the Byzantine and Christian Museum at Athens
A long, slender galley in a port with structures in the foreground and background
A Venetian galea sottile from the late 15th century from Vittore Carpaccio 's Return of the Ambassadors in the series Legend of Saint Ursula . The oars are arranged in groups of three according to the alla sensile rowing method.
The bow of a ship model focused on a raised platform with cannons underneath
The ubiquitous bow fighting platform ( rambade ) of early modern galleys. This model is of a 1715 Swedish galley, somewhat smaller than the standard Mediterranean war galley, but still based on the same design; contemporary model in the Maritime Museum in Stockholm .
Drawing of a cross-section of a galley with oars of varying lengths at three different length. The oars are converging at roughly the same spot in the water.
Modern reconstruction of a cross-section of an ancient Greek trireme, showing the three levels of rowers
Drawing of a galley from the front with oared raised and the crew raising the front mast spar to a vertical position
A 16th-century galley tacking . The crew is in the process of moving the long spar to the other side of the mast after raising it vertically. The sheets have been let off, the brace loosened and the large triangular lateen sail is billowing in the wind; 1884 illustration based on a sketch by Raphael .
A schematic drawing of a galley from the top and as a cross section. The cross section shows the position of rowers. An additional drawing shows the position of an individual rower mid-stroke with his leg chained to the bench
An engraving from 1643 by Claude Barthelemy Morisot showing the layout of rowing benches as well and placement of rowers on a galley with 16 pairs of oars. It also shows a rower at the top of the stroke using the standing rowing technique typical of a scaloccio rowing.
A galley sitting on struts on land under in an open-sided shed seen from the front; it has a large cast bronze ram along the waterline and an eye of Horus painted above the ram.
The ram bow of the trireme Olympias , a modern full-scale reconstruction of a classical Greek trireme
Oared vessels attacking each other with some being up-ended and their crews thrown into the water
The Byzantine fleet repels the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 941. The Byzantine dromons are rolling over the Rus' vessels and smashing their oars with their spurs; Chronicle of John Skylitzes , 13th century.
Birds-eye view of two large galley fleets clashing in battle in a bay
Contemporary fresco of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 that shows the strict formations of the opposing fleets. Fresco in the Gallery of Maps in Vatican Museum .
Colorful image of a Mediterranean-type galley with English and Tudor flags with its oars out and a figure standing in the stern
The Galley Subtle , one of the very few Mediterranean-style galleys employed by the English. This illustration is from the Anthony Roll (c. 1546) and was intended as its centerpiece.