Theraika Ships

During the excavations in the Cape of Santorini , it was discovered in the South wall of the room 5 ,the "West House", a wall-painting 4 meters long and 43 centimeters hight. It is about a frieze that is the most preserved among all the wall-paintings found in the excavations of the Cape of Thera, and it is exposed today at the Archaeological Museum of Athens. In this frieze we have a detailed and accurate representation of a cavalcade consisted of ships of any size. They are represented to float between two parts and big ships carrying passegers and richly adorned.

Much has been written about the interpretation of this naval pageant: a ceremonial parade of ships or a war expendition? From where do these ships come and where do they go? The cavalcade of Santorini also gives us information about the way of navigating relevant to their type, information about the (ιστιοφορία), the armour of the men, and numerous details that defeat many theories about the history of Aegean of this period, but also beliefs for the shipbuilding and navigation. It is about a (αμφίπρωρος) ship, which can float at both directions, with a simple eversion of the position of the oarsmen. Another characteristic of the ship is that in the (πρύμνη) there is a ram against the enemy ships, as well as the model of a wild cat to terrify the enemies. Most researchers believe that they were advanced ships with a normal skinning, a precessor of the polykopa ships of the geometric ages.

The ships represented in these wall-paintings and vessels, were the ships of Thera (Theraika), which were the first known ships in the Greek region. The wall-paintings are dated back to 1500-1600 BC, about the minoic era. The strange thing is that this knowledge is diminished later, close to 700 BC, when Korinthos presented the first formation of trireme. It measured 40 meters long and utilised 150 oarsmen in three rows and 50 more persons for the rest of their needs.