Ancient Mediterranean Shipyards and Harbours

Since no remains of any boats dating to the early part of the Mesolithic have been discovered we have to surmise that they were either fire hollowed dugout canoes, reed boats or skin and frame construction, all feasible with the technology of the time. Such boats would have been constructed as and when needed in sheltered bays. Maintenance would have also been carried out at disparate locations as required.

As ships became more sophisticated and standardised, special facilities, shipyards, were needed. The early shipyards may have been no more than slipways, but they were locations where materials could be amassed, skilled artisans could build ships, launch them, and, when necessary, draw them from the water in order to repair them.

The emerging Bronze Age civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Assyrians, Mitanni, Babylonia, Elamites, Cypriots, Canaanite city states, and Egypt, created an enormous demand for status goods from foreign lands.

As trade increased throughout the Mediterranean, so too did the need for sheltered docking and cargo handling facilities, in other words ports and harbours. Favoured coastal sites such as at Ugarit, Ashkelon and Ashdod in the Levant, Troy and Miletus in Anatolia, Tiryns and Pylos in the Aegean, and Kition, Enkomi and Hala Sultan Teke on Cyprus, developed into maritime trading centres, some would argue emporia. Sea going merchants of all nationalities were creating a new middle class and getting rich in the process.

Although not strictly in the Mediterranean, the oldest shipyards and harbours in the world are to be found on the shores of the Red Sea. The Egyptians had such a huge influence on maritime engineering and ship design in the Mediterranean theatre that it would be remiss to omit these foundational sites.