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0:34

Hello, and welcome to another episode of

0:37

the Ancient Orphan Podcast. My

0:39

name is Jaspo Orthaus. I'm the editor

0:41

of Ancient Orphan Magazine. With me is

0:43

Murray Dom. He's the assistant editor. And

0:46

we have a returning guest, Steven Nesachian,

0:48

who's been on the show, I think,

0:50

about two years ago. I

0:52

don't know, two, three. He was

0:54

probably during COVID time, so that was kind

0:57

of nebulous. But we're all

0:59

very interested in blunt naval trauma, so

1:02

we decided we'd get him on again

1:04

and talk some more about Rams, which...

1:08

Well, we'll have to navigate a little bit

1:10

carefully because that was a pun unintended, but...

1:13

So many, so many naval cuts. Yes.

1:18

We'll have to be a little bit careful because,

1:20

you know, this is obviously an audio-only

1:22

show. And describing Rams

1:25

might be hard to do.

1:28

But maybe I should

1:31

sort of introduce what we sort of

1:33

know about ramming up

1:35

to all the discoveries near Agadiz.

1:39

I think I'm not wrong in saying that

1:41

in the early 1980s, the athlete

1:43

ram was discovered, which is about 600 kilos,

1:45

I think. It's a Tron's

1:48

monster of a thing. And

1:51

we had a handful of

1:53

other ones, much, much smaller, in

1:57

various museums, too, in Germany, I think. one

2:00

in Greece and really not very

2:02

much evidence of the physical ram.

2:04

Of course, we have descriptions, we

2:07

have depictions on all

2:09

kinds of sculpture

2:12

and in various

2:15

other ways of looking at

2:17

the things. But we

2:19

had very few examples and the athlete

2:22

ram was thought to be fairly, belonged

2:24

to a fairly small ship, I think, of

2:27

three or four. And the

2:29

most important piece probably for

2:32

determining how big these ships and

2:34

rams is the Actium

2:36

monument, which is the big monument

2:39

that overlooks the Bay of Actium

2:41

where obviously Octavian later

2:43

Augustus won his big battle in 31

2:45

BC. And

2:48

there's a temple complex and at the base

2:50

of the temple complex is a sort of

2:52

a long

2:55

horizontal podium with

2:57

insets for rams. I mean, so

2:59

the actual rams are gone and

3:02

they're thought to be rams that

3:05

were captured from the fleet of Marc

3:07

Anthony and Cleopatra. And they're

3:09

sort of in ascending or descending order depending on

3:11

whether you go from left to right or right

3:13

to left. And we can sort

3:15

of try and

3:18

plug in the rams

3:20

and see what goes where and match

3:22

that to descriptions of what the fleets

3:24

look like. And I think

3:26

that's where we are. And then there was

3:28

Agadi and now we suddenly

3:30

have about 10 times as many rams as

3:32

we had before. And I think

3:35

you're the first to really

3:37

sort of systematically look at them and

3:39

try to say something about

3:41

raming and rams in general. Is that

3:43

right, Stephen? Collectively,

3:46

all the information together, yes.

3:49

I mean, there's been a few

3:51

people that have looked at rams,

3:53

obviously, Dr. William Murray, right,

3:56

the age of titans, talking about holistic

3:58

babies was a Torn

4:00

the old book torn road on maybes, but

4:03

to just specifically look at naval rams Just

4:06

naval rams, you know how their development

4:09

of them the casting of them Their

4:11

imagery through over almost a thousand years. That's

4:14

what my dissertation. That's what my research is

4:16

based on So solely just the weapon itself

4:19

is my focus. So I guess we can say

4:21

that I'm Zoned in on it

4:23

just specifically on the weapon itself. I'm I'm

4:25

honed in on yeah What's

4:27

quite lucky then that the discoveries

4:30

that Egerty coincide otherwise should be

4:33

running a PhD of the I

4:35

mean you're also in a kind of a unique

4:38

position You're one of the few people who can

4:40

say that you can actually suddenly work with a

4:42

lot of new evidence I mean how often do

4:44

you get to do that in ancient history? I

4:47

mean certainly Archaeologists

4:49

certainly get more evidence In

4:52

general, but so much of it So

4:54

ground-breaking you know, I think yeah, I think one of

4:57

the things I think is that you know these new

4:59

Rams as they discovered and

5:01

analyzed and weighed and measured Changed

5:04

the picture of what boats they were on

5:06

and suddenly what was a

5:08

big ram is now a monster ram

5:10

and and Atypical, you

5:13

know, I believe now they think that the the ram

5:15

on a relatively large ship is Actually

5:17

surprisingly small because it doesn't need to be

5:19

big and heavy it can be you know

5:21

a piercing well, that's that's you Yeah

5:27

What are the agony Rams, you know, what

5:29

what do we find? Where

5:31

they go on can you can you give us

5:33

sort of an idea? I could give you my

5:36

Interpretation from what I've seen from what we

5:38

have at Egerty, you know, we

5:40

have the historical count, right? We've all read

5:42

Polybius and we know what he tells

5:44

us he tells us that before the battle 200 new

5:48

Quinkerings of bill right panta rays. These

5:50

are fives. He tells us straight

5:52

out. That is what they built That's the only

5:54

type of ship built for the eggety battle now

5:57

based on the evidence that we have from the egg gallons

6:00

Most of them come or do you come from the same

6:02

class? Quick back

6:04

up the back up the ship We're

6:07

talking about the very end of the second

6:09

period of the first. Yeah, it's 241 BC.

6:12

Yeah, just right just give that It's

6:16

obviously Yeah This

6:20

is big battle time. Yeah. Yes. This is

6:23

one of the largest You know naval battles

6:25

in the first clinic war which sees a

6:27

lot of naval battles So, you

6:29

know Roman Carthage are going at

6:31

it for years creating multiple navies Mixed

6:34

fleet navies that have triums and quincarems, but

6:37

in this final battle in 241 between

6:39

Roman Carthage Polybius the Roman

6:41

historian tells us that the Romans strictly build

6:44

fives quincarems and to race for

6:46

the specific battle against the Carthage Indians

6:49

and what happens is or what we see in

6:51

the archaeological Evidence is that the

6:54

the Rams that were initially found tended to

6:56

be the same size They

6:58

looked smaller compared to the at

7:00

the Ram and the active monument,

7:03

you know, if you follow, you know

7:05

William Murray's classification system you

7:08

would think that they are triums or smaller and

7:11

he made that argument that they were triums

7:13

But you know as the years passed by Their

7:16

weights changed some of the whale pockets the

7:18

whale pockets are where the ram

7:20

encases the the whale timbers of the

7:23

ship And that is the the giveaway

7:25

of kind of how big the ship would be Some

7:28

of them are widely more spaced and you know

7:30

trying to figure out exactly how big the ship

7:32

is is difficult to determine But

7:34

we've found Rams that are a little

7:36

bit larger than our average size. So maybe

7:38

we're looking at You know

7:41

if Murray says they're triums, maybe this

7:43

is a quincarene, right or you know

7:45

Maybe this is a four but recently

7:48

we found a smaller ramp Then

7:50

our average size would say so now we're

7:52

looking at a mix fleet and we have

7:54

to remember these are also Roman

7:57

and Carthaginian Rams and we

7:59

might have some some old

8:01

Roman Rams that were taken in

8:03

a previous battle by the Carthaginians

8:05

and reused. So we don't,

8:08

it's hard to determine which

8:10

Rams are coming from which fleet, but

8:12

we do have a collection of Rams now that

8:15

have an average. But many do have no.

8:17

We do have 27 Rams, 27 Rams,

8:20

which is in the archaeological record. If

8:23

you go, once my dissertation is published,

8:26

I have a list of the

8:28

Rams that have been discovered and there's

8:31

39 Ram or Ram-like artifacts that are

8:33

in the Mediterranean and 27 come from the

8:36

Agate site, which is just astonishing, right?

8:39

In context, right? In context

8:41

on the sea floor, you know, with

8:43

other things found in context like

8:45

swords, amperos, helmets, coins, right?

8:47

Scattered on this huge battle. Is there

8:49

any wood left? Any

8:51

timbers? Yes, there are some timbers found

8:54

inside these Rams. They are

8:56

the Sopra and Tendenzel Damare in

8:59

Sicily who oversees the project along

9:01

with RPM North Foundation and the Society

9:03

for the Documentation of Simmerged Sites. They

9:06

all work together on this project to conserve

9:08

the wood, conserve the Rams, etc.,

9:11

etc. But they're working on the timber

9:13

part of them. And the timbers

9:15

are, they tell a completely different story,

9:18

right? About, you know, the construction of

9:20

these ships, the complex nature

9:22

of the ship's construction. It's probably pegged

9:25

more than Tenden-Joanry, which is

9:27

the standard of shipbuilding during this period

9:29

and most, for most Ram-bearing

9:32

warships are built with pegged more than Tenden-Joanry. I

9:34

mean, yeah, the wood survives in these ships for,

9:36

you know, 2000 plus years. One

9:38

of the main reasons is that, you know, these Rams probably

9:41

once the ram was, the ship was struck,

9:43

the ram probably, you know, either

9:45

fell off or the ship was taken apart by the

9:47

waves and then went to the sea floor. And then,

9:50

you know, after a few years, probably, you know,

9:52

Octopi actually make their homes in these rams,

9:55

like, you know, junk and rocks and stuff. So

9:57

it actually helps preserve the wooden side because they... other

10:01

material from coming in the back. So

10:03

you're saying that probably the ships themselves

10:05

did not sink. Oh, I think we

10:07

knew this, but the galleys didn't sink.

10:09

They were just either broken up on

10:12

the surface of the sea and or the

10:14

rams just broke off and It's

10:17

difficult to say because if we look at the

10:19

copper spikes that we find in the back of

10:22

the rams in the bottom plate and the cowl,

10:24

which are the top and the bottom, that's

10:26

where they connect to the front of the prow of the

10:28

warship. They're almost found completely

10:30

intact. Even with rams

10:32

that have battle damage, they're found still

10:35

intact. So that would indicate

10:37

to me at least that they didn't

10:39

strike and then rip off. The

10:41

ship was struck and then fell apart probably

10:44

and then it went down or pieces went down and

10:46

the ram went down and the

10:48

drink. It's hard to determine how

10:50

fast rams go down. Yeah,

10:53

yes, a lot of rams. We'll have to talk about

10:55

that later. So

10:58

if we want to step back to the

11:00

classification for a second, I think

11:02

that we should look at Polybius and what

11:04

he says. He's really

11:07

spot on with his narrative for most part. I

11:11

think that the new landmark Polybius is

11:13

coming out soon, if you guys didn't

11:16

know, but the new landmark Polybius is coming out. I

11:18

think William Murray has a section in that where

11:20

he does reevaluate the classification

11:22

that he did before and we

11:25

discussed it previously. It

11:27

might be that Polybius is right that

11:30

these are quincarems, but also there's

11:32

a possibility that this is a mixed

11:34

fleet. We might have a six,

11:37

whether that's a Roman six or Carthaginian six, there is

11:39

a six here. We

11:41

might have a few trirams. This

11:45

is indicated by the ram size because now we

11:47

have the average class, whatever the class

11:49

may be based on the argument, but then

11:51

we do have bigger rams and smaller rams or

11:54

bigger ram, smaller rams. We

11:56

do have that and they come from this battlefield

11:58

for sure in this cluster. This tells us

12:01

something completely, you know, we believe Polybius

12:03

and either five just tell us about a reevaluation

12:06

of the Acne monument So

12:08

forth because now we have to think about these

12:10

are fives and the size of fives Our

12:13

fives different when we talk about Hellenistic

12:15

fives when we talk about Eastern warships,

12:17

right? If these are fives We

12:19

have to reevaluate the size of the athlete ram

12:21

because that might be a bigger ram now

12:23

And if we reevaluate the size of the athlete ram That

12:26

means the sockets on the Acne monument

12:28

are probably not just from a five

12:30

to a ten But only the largest

12:32

in Mark Anthony Klem path of sleep

12:34

probably Seven eight nines and

12:36

tens with the little the

12:38

smaller sock. I'm saying smaller sockets. They're

12:40

huge these smaller sockets, you know being

12:44

Sevens of a smaller variety, right

12:46

these it's so difficult to

12:49

tell with Rams now that we have more

12:51

because there's you know Local varieties and you

12:53

know each ram is uniquely cast or

12:56

each ram. Yeah Tells

12:58

you a completely different story and

13:01

is unique to each warship. So it's you know,

13:03

the more we find the more difficult

13:05

it is to Fit

13:08

all this information together and make you know

13:10

assumptions or interpretations about it Let me give

13:12

us some indication and we just said

13:14

that that ram is 600 kilos was that 1300 pounds? Somewhere

13:19

in that range how big is the average?

13:23

Ram and you find that egg at E. I can you I

13:25

think it's like almost 200. I think

13:27

at this point like 200 kilograms Well,

13:30

I would say that's it. That's 200 kilograms. So

13:32

about half One-third or half

13:35

of the athlete ram. Yeah, the athlete ram

13:37

is massive the athlete ram I think in

13:39

terms of where we go like American feet

13:41

is that you know, like six foot Like

13:44

standing on its tailpiece up It's

13:47

pretty tall or seven feet tall, which

13:49

is it's a that's a massive ram It's

13:51

it's made for you know, that style of warfare though

13:53

We think about the style of war fairs and compare

13:55

it into pairing ram the asset ram

13:57

is in the you know, the 200 to

14:00

204 I think it was dated 204 to 164

14:03

and it's made for this naval siege frontal

14:06

ramming Eastern Hellenistic style

14:09

warfare, which the Romans

14:11

never participate in with the Carthaginians. They

14:13

never besieged coastal cities They do

14:15

participate in frontal ramming, which again, we'll talk

14:17

about the damage to these Rams later But

14:20

they don't participate in this style of

14:22

siege naval warfare where they're breaking through harbor traps

14:24

and stuff like that. So the ram designs

14:28

even though they're three bladed right meaning they

14:30

have those three fins to

14:32

penetrate the hull Yeah, you see those on

14:34

on sculpture all the time as

14:36

well Yeah, but if you look closely at the

14:38

design the designs are actually different. So

14:41

is there is there Presumably

14:43

because they're all unique to each ship.

14:45

There's a range of longer

14:48

heavier higher rams

14:50

even on a ship that would be Nearly

14:54

the same design. So

14:56

you possibly therefore have rams that

14:58

are Suboptimal,

15:00

you know, they're trying trying a heavier ram

15:02

like, you know and sticking it on a

15:05

boat that isn't suited to that kind

15:07

of ram It's

15:09

it's such a fascinating and and again,

15:11

you know the complications of Eggity

15:14

though that allows that kind of

15:16

speculation if you've got this range of range

15:19

of Rams that all come from the

15:21

same ship That's that's

15:23

fascinating. Do the the actual Rams

15:27

match, you know just talked about the three

15:29

fins do they actually match the sculptural

15:32

and Lottery depiction but

15:34

I mean there's there's a range

15:36

of In the

15:38

depictions depending on what you're talking about where some

15:41

are more realistic Than others.

15:43

So it's like when we get to Let's

15:45

say you know coins of Augustus that to

15:47

pick Rams I would

15:49

say that you know, if they're looking at the

15:52

roster or things like that Typically, they look like

15:54

real three blade of waterline Rams You

15:56

know the the corona rostrata that has markets a cripple

15:59

on it Right. It's

16:01

a small ram. It has just three blades. It

16:03

doesn't really look that realistic coins

16:05

of Demetrius that have prowls warships

16:08

Those I could say look very

16:10

accurate to archaeologically tested rams But

16:13

then we have rams, you know,

16:15

there's coins that are minted by mark

16:17

anthony in the east and

16:19

they're just They look like

16:22

three little prongs that are hanging down from a

16:24

ship You know, yeah,

16:26

there's a wide variety of what you get and

16:28

that goes into you know Our people who are

16:31

making these depictions actual naval personnel Do they know

16:33

what naval rams look like how have to be

16:36

exposed to naval rams? you know, it's

16:38

a it's a whole other thing that uh That

16:40

we can get into but a lot

16:42

of depictions of rams are

16:44

pretty good and but that then

16:47

again, it's like Since our the

16:49

archaeological record of rams because we only

16:52

have like these 39 and 27 come

16:54

from a very specific period You

16:56

know when we look at coins in different

16:58

depictions or different coins if we look at

17:00

rams in different depictions Are we

17:03

looking at legitimate depictions of? A

17:06

different type of three bladed waterline ram

17:08

or different variety Of

17:10

three bladed waterline, right? Can they have

17:12

a you know, a heavier or thicker

17:14

middle blade? there's a very

17:16

interesting coin by I

17:19

think it's the Crassus it's a

17:21

crassus coin and it's got a

17:23

very good looking it's it's only a three

17:25

bladed waterline ram on the back The coin on the

17:27

reverse but has a very odd

17:29

thick middle blade But you see

17:32

these on roman

17:34

coins In a very

17:36

specific period so are they trying a

17:38

new variety or is this just an interpretation of

17:40

what they think a ram looks like? right It

17:43

is. Yeah, this sort of reminds me of What

17:46

we look into in the in

17:48

a magazine more often is or run into

17:51

Is the classification of roman helmets where

17:53

you have the imperial period you have

17:55

12 subtypes of

17:57

imperial garlic? And it's based

17:59

on on, well, I won't

18:01

say 14 helmets, but in many

18:04

cases, the subtype is like a very

18:06

small number

18:10

of helmets and it's like this is

18:12

just slightly different compared to that and

18:14

you go, is this just the

18:17

individual blacksmith just

18:19

doing it slightly differently or is this an

18:21

actual design difference? And I assume this is

18:23

similar to the questions that you have. Is

18:26

this because they made a change because

18:28

the prow of this particular ship was

18:31

built slightly differently and they needed to

18:33

adapt the ram to make sure it

18:35

fit or is it actually like a

18:37

design decision, we're going to

18:39

build this ram differently because we have a slightly

18:41

different purpose in mind? And then

18:44

the same issue of, oh, and then

18:46

you've got Trajan's column or Mako's or

18:48

Rif's column and what's shown is not

18:50

what we understand from the archaeological record

18:52

and you're like, oh, so we've got

18:54

the typical shield on Trajan's column

18:56

is not the size of the typical shield, not

18:58

that we have a typical shield. That's probably the

19:00

biggest frustration. But

19:03

I think the comparatives of that, that when you

19:05

have an archaeological records where

19:08

the artifacts do match

19:10

the depiction, that throws a whole

19:13

curve ball into the field because

19:15

then you're like, if

19:17

that correlates to other fields where

19:19

we don't have as much archaeology, that

19:22

throws a big spin on it, which is

19:24

fascinating in itself. All right. Should we talk

19:26

about battle damage? Just quickly first,

19:28

of the 27, are they

19:30

all Roman, all Carthaginian? Can

19:33

you tell who made them? For

19:36

the most part, a majority

19:38

are Roman rams. And

19:41

that is already a problem, right?

19:43

Because the Romans won the

19:45

battle. We know that because

19:47

they also won the first Punic War and Claudius

19:49

tells us that they won the battle. So

19:52

that's how we know that some of them are

19:54

likely reused capture grands from the

19:57

Battle of Japana, which happened a few

19:59

years earlier. than the Battle of the Agadie

20:01

Islands in 2.1. But

20:03

we can tell that some Agadie Rams are Roman

20:06

in manufacture. We don't know if they're necessarily

20:08

Roman in use during the battle, but

20:10

Roman in manufacture because they are,

20:13

they have Roman inscriptions

20:15

on the cow nosing, which is the

20:17

top of the ram and

20:19

they have, you know, so-and-so,

20:21

son-of-so-and-so, I approve this ramp.

20:25

And they also have some Roman

20:27

motifs like a Monte-Pattino helmet or

20:30

a winged victory. And some

20:32

other people, I think it's Jonathan Pragg, works

20:34

on the dating

20:36

of the rams or tries to date

20:38

them, give them building periods based on

20:41

the epigraphic evidence or the inscription

20:44

evidence found on the cows. There

20:47

are some Punic inscriptions that

20:50

are on these cows on the tops of

20:52

the rams, but it's hard to

20:54

tell. I would say that most

20:57

of them are post-casted

20:59

inscriptions, where the ram

21:01

has been cast and then they've been,

21:03

the inscription has been carved into the top, whereas

21:06

the Romans, majority of them are

21:09

pre-cast made inscriptions where

21:11

they were built in the beeswax model and

21:14

then cast in bronze and

21:16

they're not incised into the ram itself

21:18

or added later. They're not like fusion

21:21

weld to the cow. So

21:23

we know for sure that the Roman manufactured the

21:25

Punic ones. I don't think, some

21:27

of them at least, we can be definitive and

21:29

say 100%, these are Punic

21:32

in manufacture, but we can say that they're Punic

21:35

maybe in use by then. Has

21:37

analysis been made of the bronze of each of the

21:39

rams to be able to say what the chemical

21:41

makeup is? Some of the bronze has

21:43

been analyzed. I

21:46

think like maybe the first six

21:50

have like a full makeup

21:52

done, where it's like, you know,

21:54

some have more bronze, like 80

21:57

or 90%, sorry, more bronze,

21:59

more copper. And then 10

22:01

lead and trace elements of

22:03

zinc some Rams have high percent

22:05

of lead which That

22:08

might tell you something about you know, if

22:11

it's a Carthaginian ram more lead You

22:14

know Could lean

22:16

towards that being like they're rushing to cast

22:18

something and lead might make

22:20

it more malleable or more easier to cast you know,

22:23

I've talked to different people about that subject, but Knowing

22:26

the physical makeup the Ram and

22:30

It's helpful But you know There's such a wide

22:33

variety because it doesn't seem like they're they're

22:35

all cast from at the same time or

22:37

at the same Same place necessarily.

22:40

Yeah, yeah, and then they

22:42

bang together and that one happens Well,

22:44

they bang to get so when they bang together, I couldn't

22:47

imagine what the sound sounded like It

22:51

must be horrifying But these

22:53

of the 27 Rams that they have now

22:55

we have now You know

22:57

the the initial ones found at the Eger the Islands

23:00

in the early 2000s They

23:02

found were just completely sheared down the center

23:05

You know So a ram to look at a

23:07

ram has you know three blades on one side

23:09

three blades on the other side the cow leading

23:11

up the center and the bottom plate leading

23:13

down the bottom and Two of them

23:15

were just sheared straight down the center and only

23:18

left either the port side blades or the starboard

23:20

side blades So that

23:22

right there Indicates, you know

23:24

either heavy ramming or ram to ram

23:26

strikes by hitting another ship directly in

23:29

its run We

23:31

do have Rams Roman Rams

23:33

that have some of their fins bent

23:36

in different directions bent upwards Completely

23:38

ripped off from the core of the

23:41

ram, which is just the center piece

23:43

of bronze just the Rams completely torn

23:45

away Some

23:47

Rams did have wood between their

23:49

fins meaning that it struck

23:51

a ship Sunk

23:54

and took part of the enemy ship with

23:56

it and there's wood between the fins still

23:58

of the enemy ship with you That's

24:00

just wild. Imagine finding a sword, right? Still

24:02

an enemy soldier, right? It's like you're finding

24:04

a ram still in an enemy ship and

24:07

then some of the rams have

24:09

different variety of pieces that have just

24:11

been blown off. Like it must have

24:13

struck and the casting in those parts

24:15

either had bubbles or fissures under the

24:17

surface that you can't see based on

24:21

an eye inspection. And once it

24:23

struck, the vibrations in the force went through it

24:25

and just popped off either part of the towel

24:27

or the bottom plate or all

24:29

of a sudden the interior just blew open. We

24:32

have some rams, one of the bigger

24:34

rams at least that I like had its

24:37

whale pockets in the back just

24:39

completely shot outwards. It

24:41

looks like it hit something and then it's weird

24:43

that where the boat would meet the whale

24:45

timbers would meet the pocket just blew open

24:48

backwards. So

24:50

it pushed back onto the ship so hard that

24:52

it? That it blew open, yes,

24:54

correct. The suggestion

24:57

of combat that the timbers stuck

24:59

in them and the damage to

25:02

them just is remarkably

25:04

visceral because you don't know. I'm

25:07

sure that if you were, well,

25:09

probably not very easy to,

25:12

maybe it is, I don't know, if you're

25:14

a physicist, you can probably calculate the forces

25:16

involved and maybe the speeds that would have

25:19

been required to get a

25:21

ship to develop

25:23

such force. I mean you have to

25:25

calculate what the weight of the

25:27

entire ship is and the momentum but, well, we

25:29

have Olympias, we can? I

25:32

don't think it would be willing to allow

25:34

that to happen. No, no, no, but you

25:36

know how we have an idea how much

25:38

Olympias would weigh and how much I think

25:40

it weighs about 40 tons with crew and

25:42

everything. Yeah. It's one

25:44

of those. The reconstruction of Olympias, does

25:47

the RAM of Olympias have to be

25:49

redesigned? Yeah, the RAM of Olympias,

25:51

I don't think was, I mean it

25:53

was never accurate to start with because it's based

25:55

off the actual RAM. So

25:58

if they were building a trireme, they started off with a RAM. that

26:00

was never really a trimering ram and I think they

26:02

knew that and they kind of made it smaller but

26:05

even then you could look at the ram

26:07

on the Olympias and it's the atlet ram

26:09

spitting image. So yeah, it would

26:11

probably be better if they either

26:13

used one from Agadee as a reconstruction

26:15

even though it's Roman it might be

26:18

not a trimering but the one in

26:20

the Parais Museum which

26:22

is just the port side of a ram console

26:24

it's been half due to battle damage might

26:26

be a better look for

26:28

the Olympians. It's one of the few topics that

26:30

my brother and my brother is a metallurgical

26:33

engineer and you know I'm

26:35

the ancient historian opera singer.

26:38

We don't have many conversations where we can

26:41

meet but his

26:43

main topic today is the effect

26:47

of metal fatigue and what happens to

26:49

metal under stress and pressure obviously mostly

26:52

to do with buildings and

26:54

bridges but talking to him

26:56

about with some of the battle damage on

26:58

weapons and

27:00

suddenly starts talking and spouting all the

27:02

stuff about the material

27:05

makeup of metals and

27:07

one of my favorites is you know the

27:10

common term today is copper alloy not the

27:12

word bronze and my brother

27:14

got on a high horse which is nice

27:16

to see which is that if

27:19

it's got zinc in it it's

27:22

brass if it has any

27:25

other metal except zinc

27:29

it's bronze so us saying

27:31

copper alloy we're essentially saying bronze but

27:33

it's like okay so if it's got

27:35

tin yes it's bronze if it's got

27:37

other metals magnesium whatever it's bronze so

27:40

it's like it's bronze so

27:42

you know we're not going to start calling

27:44

it the copper alloy age which seems to

27:46

be but that I think what you were

27:48

saying before about

27:50

the different chemical makeups of these

27:52

rams where the metallurgy has been

27:55

analyzed could absolutely be

27:57

experimenting with you know the

27:59

effect of metal. effects of battle damage that they've observed

28:01

and going, right, well, we don't want that

28:03

to happen. Let's try this, you know, making

28:05

it more malleable with more lead for instance.

28:07

So I mean, all that. That requires that

28:09

somebody would have recorded the kind of, and

28:12

be aware of what

28:14

it might be if you put different metals

28:16

in it and how much of everything it

28:18

means. Yeah. Do you have any indication

28:20

that they knew that might make a

28:22

difference? I'm not too sure about that.

28:24

I mean, the rams themselves, some

28:27

of the Egedy rams do have markings in the back which

28:30

some have argued that their relation

28:32

to the amount of beeswax weight

28:35

to bronze that is needed. So

28:37

there is some kind of, you know,

28:39

discussion amongst the casters and the creators

28:42

of the model that this model weighs

28:44

so much. Once you take it off,

28:46

this is how much bronze is needed.

28:48

That's the only evidence from the rams directly that

28:51

we have where we can actually see the markings

28:53

left in the casting from the maker,

28:57

basically. And there's tons of other making

28:59

marks on these rams from

29:01

the model makers. But that's the only

29:03

thing you can get from the ram in terms of like, you

29:06

know, did they think about the bronze or how

29:08

much bronze was used. We do have

29:10

some later fixes to the

29:12

rams that don't match

29:14

the initial bronze used. It

29:16

looks like there was a, like

29:19

a later weld or maybe not

29:21

a weld, maybe just like a pour of bronze into

29:23

one of the upper fin surfaces. So like the top

29:25

of the ram near the cowl of

29:27

one of these rams, there must have been

29:30

a hole in the casting. So they must have

29:32

filled the interior of the ram with

29:34

some kind of a factory clay and then

29:37

poured molten bronze

29:39

into the section and then let it

29:41

fit. The idea of running repairs

29:43

on a ram is... We talk about beeching ships.

29:48

Was this a repair or just sort of

29:50

a factory? It must have been

29:52

a factory repair. It must have been done before the

29:54

ram was put on the ship because the interior, you

29:57

would have to get into the interior to do this. There's

30:00

no way to remove the ram from

30:02

the bow to make this repair. It had to be

30:05

done And I have to miscast it must

30:07

have been a aftercast Repair and then

30:09

it was put on because there's other holes that

30:11

haven't been repaired that if they were battle damaged

30:13

They would have been repaired. Is there any evidence

30:16

of battle damage repair on any of these rams?

30:18

Yes, there is actually there's Yeah,

30:21

so there's I think it's eggety one

30:23

one of the earlier Rams found Has

30:26

a crack in its towel That

30:28

looks like it would have had Like

30:32

a piece a patch of bronze held on to it

30:34

with some lead Because it's like

30:36

these two like little insects where they've carved out

30:38

and put it on there Thinking

30:41

that that would probably hold it in place Which

30:44

it obviously didn't but there's

30:46

there's probably some of these these breaks

30:49

and fissures that were likely fixed You know after

30:51

the battle was done But some of them are

30:54

most of them were likely done

30:56

after the casting trying to fix casting

30:58

deficiencies Especially if we go by you

31:00

know the narrative the first panic war when they're

31:02

in a rush to build these ships Yeah, the

31:04

car Virginia's that's like we're not casting them

31:07

to the highest standard like the asset ram

31:09

is an amazing cast whereas,

31:11

you know these They're

31:13

beautiful Rams. Don't get me wrong, but you

31:16

look closely at them very closely There's

31:18

you know, there's tons of little holes here

31:21

and there the surfaces are even

31:23

though the fins are not necessarily even throughout

31:26

You know things of that nature so there's in a

31:28

hurry and it's it is a lot of trouble

31:30

to Melt down this the oldest

31:32

bronze and make into a new Ram and make

31:34

a new mole Yeah,

31:38

everything again doesn't make you

31:40

wonder what that approval Inscription

31:43

means like yeah, the bottle looks nice. Go ahead

31:47

Presumably lots of locations, which is why again

31:49

you can have a different mix of metal

31:52

You know, and then they're all rushed to a to

31:55

a location where the ships are being constructed

31:57

I mean they must have been casted near

31:59

the ship shipyard I assume

32:01

because when I did the casting

32:03

of my ram, right, I built a full-scale

32:05

ram based on a replica,

32:08

not a replica, reconstruction of

32:10

amalgamation of rams. I found

32:12

that, you know, when you build this beeswax model for

32:14

the ram, it's very rigid

32:16

and it can sit for a long time

32:19

but, you know, you shouldn't let it sit

32:22

too long because it will start, the gravity

32:24

of it will start pulling it apart and

32:26

it will misshape from the bow and then

32:28

you want these rams to be fit tightly

32:30

onto the bow, right? You don't want

32:33

no give because then it will rip like, you

32:35

know, we talked about the one ram ripping apart.

32:37

You want them to fit tightly so when the

32:39

ram strikes another ship, the ramming forces

32:41

will not only hit the ram but will

32:43

distribute through the whale timbers, through the stem,

32:45

through the bottom plate, into the keel and

32:47

the rest so you have an

32:49

efficient ramming vessel. So I think that

32:51

they're probably casted somewhere nearby but we

32:53

haven't found or we

32:56

archaeologists haven't found casting

32:58

pits for rams maybe

33:01

because they're done on the beach and once they're done, they,

33:03

you know, clear them up. Who

33:05

knows, right? I don't know. Do

33:08

we know of any any wharfs?

33:10

Well, we know that tyrames or

33:12

any galleys were built. Well, there's

33:14

cottage, presumably, building shipyards there. Well,

33:16

yeah, we have the shipyard, the ship

33:18

sheds in various places but, yeah, those

33:20

are tight designs that, you know, the

33:23

galley fits in there exactly which is

33:25

maybe not the spot where you want

33:27

to build the thing because we need

33:29

a lot of people running around them.

33:32

But based on the the ram that

33:34

I built, you need to know,

33:36

obviously, you're building the beeswax model on

33:38

the bow of the ship. You

33:40

have to, right? Because of because of

33:43

this the nature of which the direct

33:45

loss-wise casting system works. So

33:47

the ship needs to be built. Yeah, the

33:49

ship is ready. You got the prow, all

33:51

the timber in place and then you put

33:53

the model on Yep. So

33:55

you build the entire you can build when

33:57

you build ships in antiquity during most

34:00

of antiquity, you build them peg medicine or

34:02

morse tendon shell first meaning you put you

34:04

lay the keel, you build the outside shell

34:06

first. You can build everything up and

34:08

to the prowl, you don't have to finish the entire ship

34:11

but then you have to pitch

34:14

the bow, right? You have to put

34:16

pitch or pine resin on the bow to

34:19

you know, watertight the timbers

34:21

but also create a working surface for the

34:23

beeswax because I found out

34:25

that raw beeswax or heated beeswax will

34:27

stick to wood and not come off. Oh

34:30

yeah, it gets into the porous wood, yeah.

34:32

Yeah, exactly. So, a pinch works

34:34

perfectly because pitch is just you know, good

34:36

enough to where beeswax sticks to it but

34:39

releases when you pull it hard enough but

34:41

it doesn't necessarily stick to

34:44

the beeswax where you

34:46

can't take it off. So, you have to build the ship, pitch

34:48

the bow and then once you

34:50

have that finished bow with the pitch on it,

34:53

the pitch also helps to create a little bit

34:55

of a few centimeters of more

34:57

surface, right? Because when you cast something, it's

34:59

always going to shrink and I

35:01

guess Murray can ask his

35:03

brother what is about this shrinking process

35:05

of bronzes because every bronzer creates

35:07

shrink, it doesn't matter you know

35:10

and it's ridiculous. Well, that's where the

35:12

formula comes in because presumably through experience,

35:14

they would know we would lose 4%

35:17

size based on the chemical makeup of

35:20

what we're putting in which is again,

35:22

just the fascinating science of it and

35:24

the exacting nature of that.

35:27

They must have known that in this process

35:29

or they pitched the bow and

35:31

then you create this beeswax model but you must

35:33

have been or the beeswax model makers must have

35:35

been working closely with the shipbuilders because

35:38

you have spikes in most

35:41

of these archeologically tested

35:43

bow timbers that we find in rams but

35:46

the spikes don't cross in

35:48

the rams themselves. You

35:51

don't want to cross spikes in rams

35:53

or prowse because you'll break the

35:55

wooden timbers inside but you

35:57

can't see the spikes anymore once you pitch

35:59

the bow. So you have

36:01

to be talking to the guys to be like, okay,

36:03

where'd you set the spikes in

36:05

the wooden bow? Okay, now you

36:07

pitched it. Okay. So

36:10

the spikes that you used to put all the timbers

36:12

together. Yeah. Yeah. So

36:14

it's like you put the timbers together, the

36:16

prowl, you've spiked it. So now it's stuck.

36:18

Now the wood cannot compartment. You pitched it.

36:20

Now they're hidden. Right. And

36:22

now you create a beeswax model and you have to create

36:24

the holes for the spikes

36:26

that will be later placed into the

36:30

warship while it's

36:32

in the beeswax model. Right.

36:34

Because it's really difficult and we don't

36:36

see any postcast holes, indicators

36:39

that they're drilled later. They

36:41

don't do that. They create the holes freecast. The

36:43

only ram that has a postcast hole

36:45

is the Polonikka ram. And

36:47

it looks like someone tried to drill an extra hole and

36:49

crack the bottom plate. So

36:52

you know, you have, they had, there's some kind of more

36:55

conversation going on between the ship builder and the model

36:57

maker and the caster. This is a very highly

37:00

intricate process and each ram

37:02

tells you a little bit more

37:05

about this process because in

37:07

each ram, right, the casting, once

37:09

you made the beeswax model, they're taking it

37:11

off, they casted it, direct loss by casting,

37:14

right? One ram or one model,

37:16

one ram. Some

37:18

of these rams are more finished than others. They've

37:21

been cleaned and scraped down. Some

37:23

rams have not been

37:25

scraped down, meaning they're not finished. So you see

37:27

like wax comb marks, dribblets,

37:30

right? Like we see in other archeologically

37:32

tested statuettes and stuff like that.

37:34

But some of these rams are really given

37:37

a raw deal. I mean, they

37:39

just, you know, looks like someone's

37:41

like, okay, my job's done for today. Take it

37:43

off and cast it and the entire bottom of

37:45

the ram is just unfinished. It just

37:47

have like, you know, lines and lines and

37:49

lines. It's underwater. That's underwater. Yeah, that might

37:51

also, yeah, no one will see it. But

37:54

that might also suggest, as you say, the rush to

37:57

complete them in time for the battle. Amazing.

38:00

Yeah, that is a great point. I

38:02

think that does point to that is that some of

38:04

these things are definitely rushed

38:06

into production and They're

38:08

like, you know once you heal the

38:10

seams with the wax Okay, we don't have to

38:12

finish the entire surface and you know, like Jasper

38:15

said, oh, it's it's gonna be underwater Just flap

38:17

it on them put it out there these

38:20

27 Rams same place same

38:22

time Mostly do you know you

38:25

said they had inscriptions are they the inscriptions by

38:27

the same? People so that

38:29

you know that they were probably produced Same

38:32

site or same at least the same time.

38:35

So I think that based on what I read

38:37

and also what Craig says I think there's two

38:39

varieties At this or three varieties

38:42

actually at this point two main

38:44

inscriptions Latin inscriptions where

38:46

we can kind of guess Around the

38:48

year that this person was the the quaister

38:50

weister right the person in charge of knowing

38:53

out the public funds So

38:55

there's one set with

38:57

the guy's name. I think it's Marcus Please

39:00

because forget right this moment. I

39:02

don't have it in front of me forget the

39:04

exact name and then there's a another one Oh,

39:07

I wish I could remember now. I can't remember and

39:09

then there's another set of inscriptions

39:12

So two Latin inscriptions one with one

39:15

guy and no son of whatever whatever and

39:17

then another one So it

39:19

seems to be too definitive building periods for those

39:22

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they

39:25

were built in the same time or at the

39:27

same time Right, it could have

39:29

been he was quaister for this many years or

39:32

this amount of time and they were casted between those

39:34

times And then eggety one

39:36

is unique because eggety one has

39:38

an inscription that is not like the

39:40

other ones It looks like it was it's a Roman

39:42

inscription and it says a board

39:44

of six men approved this Ram

39:46

which is Interesting

39:48

because we don't really have

39:51

evidence necessarily

39:53

for naval

39:56

Boards we kind of I

39:58

mean that's Yeah,

40:00

yeah, I mean that's three not six.

40:02

Yeah So it's kind of

40:05

like that's what I'm saying. It's like we do

40:07

boards, but do you very sorry a doom being

40:09

about us? Yeah, so it's like six men I

40:11

mean we do have stuff later like Augustine period

40:13

evidence I remember this 241 and

40:16

that ran its board of six men that seems

40:18

pretty early in the

40:20

first Punic War whereas the Rams with the

40:24

Defined Latin inscriptions seems

40:26

like they are probably more eggety in this this

40:28

eggety one ram Might

40:30

be an earlier maybe a captured one

40:32

That's been an old old cast where

40:34

they were you know We still had money

40:36

and maybe this is a board of six men

40:38

from some locality and I don't know it's

40:41

a question that People

40:43

have worked through that are better at Latin

40:45

and definitely better at interpreting inscriptions than I

40:47

am Think

40:50

I've read a long time ago

40:52

some about article about how

40:54

long ships might last in

40:57

service Do these because

41:00

you know that these are Rams

41:02

were used for space made for

41:04

a specific ship Presumably if

41:07

a ram has been in service for 20 years

41:09

and the ship has been in service for 20

41:11

years Yeah, and then you can't date them well

41:13

enough. I guess I mean you you could take

41:15

a guess and say like maybe It's

41:18

been around this Rams been around for 10 years max

41:21

Maybe I mean, that's that's so

41:23

difficult. I wouldn't want to put my name on that

41:25

one That's it's really difficult to say I mean ships

41:27

ships can last a long time if you keep on

41:30

right putting pieces in et cetera Et cetera that

41:32

the problem is with Rams, right? It's like it's

41:34

a bronze piece if it gets damaged You

41:36

can only fix the exterior if you remove it

41:39

that putting it back on itself You get a

41:41

situation like with the USS Constitution where it's

41:44

been in service for 200 years But

41:46

there's very few timbers that were in there when

41:48

it was built sooner or later

41:50

everything gets replaced So so these 27

41:52

we can date and site very specifically

41:54

and you said that we're about 39

41:57

Do we know the other 12? Can

42:00

we be specific about

42:02

what, when they date to

42:04

and well, obviously where they're

42:06

from even? So we have the the

42:08

Acid Ram, right? Tallanistic,

42:10

I think it's like, was

42:13

it 200s, 146 around there? That's

42:15

probably Ptolemaic. Far Eastern Mediterranean? Oh

42:18

yeah, yeah, yeah. So

42:20

that's, we know it's a Ptolemaic Ram

42:22

based on the decorations that

42:24

are on it. We

42:27

do have a fragment of a Ram

42:30

that was found at the excavations of

42:32

the Acne Monument. So

42:34

there is a small bronze fragment of probably a

42:37

Ram, I would say it's part of probably one

42:39

of the Rams that was found. It was found

42:41

in the ground in front of the socket. So

42:45

it's a fairly large piece. I'd

42:48

only weighs like six kilograms, but

42:50

it looks like based on, you know,

42:52

I've looked at 3D

42:54

models of reconstruction of the sockets and

42:56

ranching the sockets. It looks like a

42:59

bottom section of one of these Rams. You

43:02

kind of get like, if you look at the Agatey

43:04

Rams and some of the other Rams, and

43:06

you see like the scraping marks, the wax working marks,

43:08

you can kind of get an idea that like, oh,

43:10

this side's the inside of the Ram, this side's the

43:13

outside of the Ram. If you want

43:15

to believe that this is a fragment of a Ram, which

43:17

I really, I'm pretty sure that the

43:19

acting fragment is a fragment of a Hellenistic

43:23

Ram that fought in that battle. So we do have that,

43:25

and that was found at the mining site. We

43:28

have the Apple Joni Ram, which

43:31

is in, was found in eastern,

43:33

east, northeast Sisling. The

43:36

date on that is disputed. It's like

43:39

somewhere between 250 to 50 BCE. That

43:44

one's, that's an odd, it's an odd

43:46

Ram. It's got very thick blades, but

43:49

also in the interior, they found

43:52

bow timbers, but between the bow timbers,

43:54

between the Ram and the bow timbers,

43:56

they found extra sheathing of metal,

44:00

Which I don't know if that

44:02

was to make a space. Probably reused or something? Yeah,

44:05

I mean, there's an argument it could be it

44:07

was reused. Maybe the RAM was cast too

44:09

big and they tried to fill it with space. Maybe

44:12

it was to stop corrosion from the

44:14

wood, right? You know, this

44:16

or that. It's got these

44:19

odd little things that are going on with

44:21

it. One of the spikes is doesn't

44:23

match the rest. You know,

44:25

was a spike poured a poured spike or

44:27

the you know, they poured molten bronze into

44:29

the wood. I

44:32

don't know if I believe that. But

44:34

it does have these odds and ends

44:37

that doesn't make sense. We

44:39

have not a three

44:41

blade of waterline ram, but we have a

44:43

proambolian. Which is a subsidiary ram

44:46

that sits higher up on the bow or higher up

44:48

on the stem of a worship. That

44:50

is used to basically either

44:52

stop your worship from going fully into

44:54

the other worship or helping

44:56

you hit the rowers at a

44:58

higher level. But you know, proambolian is just

45:00

a smaller ram basically on a worship. We

45:03

do have one of those from Belgammel.

45:05

I think that's northern Libya is where

45:08

they found that. And that's one of the

45:10

that's the only for sure three

45:13

bladed proambolia or proambolian.

45:16

Proambolian is plural. Proambolian that

45:19

we have. So it's a three blade design, but

45:21

it's a proambolian, which is really cool. And

45:23

it's got the similar design of a

45:26

waterline three bladed waterline ram. But

45:28

it has a hook and a nice

45:30

curvature to it. So we

45:33

know that it's a proambolian. The

45:35

phleonic ram in Pisa, which is I think is

45:37

the one of the most unique ones because it

45:39

doesn't look like any of the other ones. Typically,

45:42

when we see rams

45:45

in the archaeological record, they have the

45:47

three blades that are more or less even.

45:50

Then they have like this this rib on the

45:52

fin. Phleonic ram has no ribs.

45:56

It's very uneven throughout. It's

45:58

very bad casting. almost

46:00

the head of the ram, it was completely split off from

46:02

the body, meaning it must have struck something

46:04

and then just

46:06

the casting around the headpiece was just bad

46:09

and just ejected from the front. But

46:11

the fins tell you a story because the fins aren't

46:14

even so. There's probably a difference

46:16

in fin creation for these ramps

46:18

and sculpting them straight

46:21

to the bow of the model

46:24

or creating them in a mold and then attaching

46:26

them to the core of

46:28

the beeswax model and that kind of tells you

46:30

that. But we do a

46:33

bunch of other rams like Parais,

46:35

Panepolos Ram, there's like a unpublished

46:38

poem Bolian in Germany,

46:40

Bremerhaven Ram in Germany, I don't know

46:42

if I'm missing it. Oh there's that Mithridatic Ram that

46:44

they found in the Black Sea and I guess it

46:47

is Russia, right? It's like a,

46:50

it kind of looks like the rams, if

46:52

we can say rams, look at the entrejence

46:55

column, right? There's ships with the curve, the

46:57

curve, the bow that they might have some

46:59

people say, oh those are rams. It kind

47:01

of actually looks like that. I don't know

47:03

if I could consider that a ram, maybe

47:05

like a bronze in casing. So

47:08

we do have a nice variety but

47:11

mostly three-bladed waterline rams and obviously

47:13

mostly from Agadi

47:15

and then mostly these rams

47:17

are found either in Greece or

47:19

obviously after it's found in Israel. I

47:21

think I hit them all on us. Yeah, nice.

47:24

Yeah, but

47:26

nice to a podcast, beautiful. You

47:28

said that your thesis is planning

47:31

on being published once you finish

47:33

in complete. I mean it will be published

47:35

through Texas A&M University once I'm done and

47:38

it's on like you know ramming development,

47:41

the production of rams, mostly

47:43

based on my archaeologically, my

47:47

experimental archaeology projects where I went through the

47:49

process of casting rams and

47:51

then what is it, you

47:53

know naval rams, popular cultures, right,

47:55

imagery, iconography, things like

47:57

that and then just discuss. discussing

48:00

what we know or what we can

48:02

get out of Polybius and the Battle

48:04

of the Agate Islands better

48:07

reconstructing classes and stuff like that. And

48:09

is there a plan to publish it more

48:11

widely after that or not

48:13

yet? I mean not yet.

48:15

I'm currently working with RPM

48:18

and the rest of the people at the Agate

48:20

site especially Dr. William Murray

48:22

to create a website where

48:25

these Rams will be housed and all the information will

48:27

be put up and

48:29

published there. Yes. So hopefully that

48:31

will come out once all this stuff is done.

48:34

So yeah that's been in the works

48:36

for a while. So I'm excited to

48:39

see that come through with

48:41

everybody in the project involved. Time has flown.

48:44

We'll probably have to have you back on and

48:46

talk about more. Ram

48:49

stuff. Yeah I mean that

48:51

sounds interesting to me. Thank

48:56

you very much for joining us. Thank

48:58

you guys.