Peer-reviewed
On the construction of the ‘Syracusia’ (Athenaeus V. 207 A-B)
It is perhaps significant that one of the more informative texts on ancient shipbuilding predates the period in which Greco-Roman shipping flourished. It is Homer's description of how Odysseus built a ship () on the island of the nymph Calypso, with which he intended to return to his native island of Ithaca (Od. 5.244-57). The text is of exceptional interest because it gives as early as the eighth century B.C. a stepby- step description of the tenon-and-dowel ‘shell-first’ method typical of Greco- Roman ship-building, which has been so amply confirmed in the last few decades by underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean
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