Jeffrey G. Royal

The landscape of the naval battle at the Egadi Islands (241 B.C.)

The final battle of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, the battle of the Egadi Islands, took place in 241 B.C. Finds of multiple bronze warship rams, helmets, and amphoras, destined for a Carthaginian garrison on Sicily, confirm the naval battles general location and define its landscape.1 The finds suggest new lines of inquiry into the battles precise location, the resulting landscape of battle débris, the dimensions of rams and warships in the 3rd c. B.C., and hypotheses for fleet construction and composition during the First Punic War. Subsequent publications will provide more detailed discussions of ram manufacture and their morphology, as well as the inscriptions present on the rams.

Regular ArticlesAnalysis of hull remains of the Dor D Vessel, Tantura Lagoon, Israel

A relatively closely spaced set of unpegged mortise-and-tenon joints was the significant element revealed in the 7th-century AD shipwreck, Dor D. It provides additional information for the transitional period of shipbuilding in the Mediterranean, and together with additional wrecks it establishes a better database for ship construction in the 4th–11th centuries AD. The preliminary conclusions tend to draw a slightly more complicated picture of the general evolutionary trend, since they present some features that have traditionally been considered as a disappearing technique.