"Bronze warship ram reveals secrets " Topic

"Known as the Belgammel Ram, the 20kg artefact was discovered by a group of British divers off the coast of Libya near Tobruk in 1964. The ram is from a small Greek or Roman warship – a "tesseraria". These ships were equipped with massive bronze rams on the bow at the waterline and were used for ramming the side timbers of enemy ships. At 65cm long, the Belgammel Ram is smaller in size and would have been sited on the upper level on the bow. This second ram is known as a proembolion, which strengthened the bow and also served to break the oars of an enemy ship.

Leading marine archaeologist, Dr Nic Flemming a visiting fellow of the National Oceanography Centre, co-ordinated a team of specialists from five institutes to analyse the artefact before it was returned to the National Museum in Tripoli in May 2010. Their results have been published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

Dr Flemming said: "Casting a large alloy object weighing more than 20kg is not easy. To find out how it was done we needed specialists who could analyse the mix of metals in the alloys; experts who could study the internal crystal structure and the distribution of gas bubbles; and scholars who could examine the classical literature and other known examples of bronze castings…."

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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

This rather old news. It is also strange that the association of a specific ship type to this fitting was made in the first press articles and refers to no single ship type but the function of a scouting or despatch vessel. They are just handy small galleys, illustrated in the Althiburis mosaic without masts – do not have to have a ram but a cutwater.
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Page 133
A bronze proembolion means a warship intending to fight with its ram. Its function is to ward-off the impact of the target's superstructure which would roll onto the attacker's stempost as it rammed. This argues against a tesseraria. Ancient bronze casters were aware of the problems of trapping bubbles of gas in the casting but could not totally avoid it. They had no radiography kit but could visually check after casting or test for a good audible ring to the piece. Otherwise no one would know until the ram broke in use.
much more here
nautarch.tamu.edu/pdf-files/Pridemore-MA1996.pdf