Mediterranean ship types

The Cycladic model was probably invented there. But like all cultures in the Mediterranean they sailed on Egypt. Some of them deep into Egypt on the Nile as for instance to Hierakonpolis. Who were first big traders the Phoenicians or the Minoans

Cycladic ships, Phaistos desk, Phoenecian ships, Herodotus, Hyperboreans, Ekenberg, trier, trireme, rock-carvings, duck-head ships, ritual boat, Medinet Habu, Phoenician coins, Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, figure-head, Aegean ship, Kalnes, reed-boat, Naqada, Gerzeh, year ritual, votive ship, Syrian ship, round Greek shields,

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Cycladic ships

 ... Somewhere between the half-moon shape and the right angle is this shape with one end high and in an angle. It was first noted on "frying pans" made of terracotta and as they were found at the Cyclades they believed the origin to the area. They date them to around 2500 BC. They have counted 20 - 30 oars, but do not know for what use the pans were made. We see the shape on the Phaistos desk from Crete too. It is the little picture in the corner. However it is difficult to see what is on the crossbar. The Cycladic ships have a fish as forehead and to that something like a cloth.

They compare this with painting from the Naqada/ Gerzeh Age 4th millennium whatever it is. Archaeologists do not know about time as a reference and write for each other not for others to understand. I think they mean excavating in Gerzeh Egypt and the results dated to fifth and fourth millennium BC. See Flinders Petrie's reports. The cloth was a symbol for marriage and perhaps they meant that a ship was a marriage between the man and a dolphin.

It is then natural to see this painted ship as an "intruder" at Hierakonpolis far down the Nile. We see the normal Egyptian Nile boat above

In many rock-carvings in Egypt and in Scandinavia we see a cabin on the boat. It is hard to tell if it is for the crew, for the captain, for the idol, for the high priest/ yearman or idol of votive… see also Macehead

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 This one is from rock Simris 27 in Skåne … press for overview made by Burenhult in 1973. It is the best of a few similar in southern Sweden that maybe have the shape after the Cycladic ships. --- Right now other German students have discovered it and announce it as a scoop in the night photo

It was a document for the Doctor's degree and I suppose archaeologist G. Burenhult used many students in summers for the gigantic job of documenting rock carvings in East Gautland and rest of South Sweden. The method was simple by making a square net and draw the figures on a paper.. It is not reliable if one want all details I have seen. Nowadays they rather rub it into film but the weak point is that it does not cleverly separate layers of different age. Night photo could sometime show shades that else would hard to see on transfer to film. Still this is never accurate science but we can do our best to get the details that often tell very much.

On the Simris 27 nearby nearby on the rock there is the motif with Four Timeguards carrying long staffs with procession axes as head of the staff. The tradition was copied in far north with some kind of Elk-head instead. These could be compared with finds of big bronze blades from early Bronze Age around 2000 BC also in Skaane.

Another type is the forehead with a long throat and it make us think about Cycladic origin. Once I bought bronze figurines of horses said to be copies of original Greek figurines. They have exceptional long necks.

We can date the long-neck seahorses by this section of the Ekenberg rock-carvings. But are they real ships?

The sword knob dates the carving to about 1200 BC. If we look at other details, the man under the sword is looking for something? Is it from the Adonis/ Attis myth from Ugarit? Under the ship there is a "balance". Maybe they told the principle of bartering so that balance between seller and buyers price is achieved. In this big rock-carvings there is also a quadruple spiral of the same type we see in the ceiling in Knossos and on some other site there is a rosette from the same rock. Next picture is also from the same rock however we do not know if it is contemporary.

Did they get the idea to a sledge from the ships or vice versa? In Egypt they use this method when transporting votive ships.

Early trireme or longship

Greek longship ca 1700 BC of Egyptian type

It is difficult to find pictures of early Mediterranean ships. In Egypt we can generally expect the crescent shape born out of reed ship with its high stem ending in the trident shape or something like that. The Minoans with Thera as brother and the Cycladic sailors seem to have dominated the Mediterranean even westward. So we could look at the frescoes at Thera for the time before the eruption 1644 BC. At the long fresco we could take a cut with three main types of ships the ferry, the high-sea ship and the row boat as seen on this big cut

Many archaeologists have in common that they are local patriots tied in their thinking to their own "isolated culture". Odd exception is that the English and some others seem to be tied to Roman culture and see only as far back as the Romans. This has to be said when we look at the Greeks that have been telling me they invented it all. I noticed on TV that the children still are educated that way today.

The Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos met this attitude when he found frescoes in the Thera style in the Nile Delta. That could only mean that Minoans were settled in the Delta around 2000 BC. Nothing strange in that. Sumer and Elam used the term tamkarum = bull-fold since the early caravans used beast as burdens in the early days … see Sumerian ships. Out of these developed enclaves and colonies as we see they were present at Naqada, Saqqara, the Nile Delta and Sinai as a few examples from fourth millennium

… From later times we see that the Phoenicians build colonies and started joint venture with local people as their wisdom. The Greeks did not adapt the idea and the Romans demolished old cultures like Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Celts … strange people those Romans -;)

This is the stern of a crescent-shaped ship from the island Thera in the Aegean Sea.

Then it is dateable before the "big bang" about 1644 BC according to latest dating. It looks as if they mounted the ram on the ship afterwards and created the first trireme. Others want to see it as gang-plank. Anyway there is no other ram on the 11 ships at the fresco.

In this case it seems that the painter did not really know the idea of the ram since it is place in the stern. So we can deduce that it came in use then. Here it is just some planks that are mounted afterwards in the stem and not a natural part of the ship. The ram looks at first in profile like a fin but is in the opposite end in front and was used as a spear against an enemy. We have to look at how people stand and how oars or paddles are oriented. Observe that paddlers look forward and roars backward.

At least the Phoenicians were peaceful traders. In the colonies they were innovators and were specialised in finding new things to trade. However since they transported valuable goods they must have guards.

We can call it Raurby type since it is on the cutlass from my place in childhood this is dated to early Bronze Age.

From this we can see that they drew out a narrowing end. This is more art than picturing reality and sop it is in many images on the rocks. People with no knowledge copied others and wanted maybe to draw a beautiful ship. On that path the beautiful ships are created. Maybe some misunderstood the ram to be a fin as here and we see it as special feature on Norwegian rock-carvings. The rounded ends we see on the Sumerian reed boats for the river. They have dated this to ca 1700 BC.

From rock-carvings Simris 19 we see that they knew the same type. There is also a horse in the same carvings so they knew that fellow then and maybe earlier but seemingly they had no interest before they began to make the "wild ride"

Both types would not have been seaworthy on the high sea, I suppose. We see other Sumerian and Egyptian boats in Traundelag Norway and we may wonder how they could picture them exactly? We know that Egyptians made models, so perhaps some Norwegian "on tour" got some souvenir? What did they want to say?

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Ship from Bohuslen and Oslo that could have been copying trireme type

On both we see a clear ram maybe as characteristic detail. These are exceptions and elsewhere we are in doubt since they look more like high stem ships and the main figurehead are in the end with tail. The right from Oslo has the "outer stern" bound to the inner like at the Sumerian reed ship. We are always confused as long as we have no real finds. There are tens of thousand ships on our rocks with high stem and stern and mostly with the "tail". For more Scandinavian ships see for instance Aril Hauge http://www.arild-hauge.com/helleristngbild.htm

Goose or duck as figurehead

We find the shape also at A) Westland Norway, B) in Bohuslen, C) at Haugsbyn.

Unique shapes always catch our eye and could be like a fingerprint. The duck/ goose- head we find in ships during the period of the Sea People around 1200 BC http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol074ic.html

Philistines maybe? Known by the headgear.

In Medinet Habu Ramesses III tells about the battle. The Hittites, Egypt were attacked and Ugarit was destroyed. At that time the Achaeans had a colony on Cyprus and they maybe got help from the motherland in Greece and they think some sailors from south-west Anatolia joined the fleet. The horned Apollo Keraiates is known from Cyprus. … see Apollo with horns On the other hand some investigators means that the horned Sherden came from Sardinia, although maybe the Minoans earlier influenced those people

Here there are maybe Achaeans from Cyprus and Greece. The horns associate to Cyprus and Apollo Keraeates.

The Egyptians have tight hair or headgear and the shield is oblong with rounded top. Science is still debating and knows not for sure from where they come. Not much of the Mediterranean is left since we know that they also plundered the Levant in the sweep. The Philistines wore a "showing brush" but so did people in the Aegean archipelago.

Some say Achaeans were in the battle and on the Phaistos desk from Crete we find this head.

We do not know, whether the image is native or from somewhere else. If we look carefully, we see that a part of the Sea People wore helmets with horns. Another detail is the round shields from Greece. That we know later than this picture. The conclusion may be that the Sea People were a "league" of several Mediterranean people.

An interesting part is the shape of the goose-headed battleships of the Sea People. However some Egyptian ships has goose-head too. There is a term The Great Cackler and that means maybe the Goose that gave birth to the World Egg if I remember it right. The first scream of the baby tells that the (private) world begins with the Great Cackler.... In Sumer they would begin with Light when the baby "step out to the big World"

However at the Night Sky of Ramesses IV ca 1190 BC we see a bird on a pillar and the same we find in Babylon later. It seems to be in the place of Cancer and then traditionally at midsummer solstice. The Phoenicians had Hands and the sun in the new moon in that place. Maybe we should conclude that in some places they used a waterbird in time symbolism around this time. Since the boat/ ship was used to express time it is also natural that we see bot with duck/ goose as figurehead. In last millennium we have the Eagle in symbolism and time symbolism is growing more and more varied in the Old World

Middle European and Mycenaean bird culture 1300 - 700 BC

We would not believe that Middle Europeans furnished a fleet for the Sea People. But this culture is spread over most of Europe and even some artefacts are imported to Scandinavia. I have a kettle wagon with bird decorations in mind. The kettle was fashion for a while and we have to see the "Celtic Gille" around the kettle. Gille = clan feast

Anyway they think the Mycenaeans used galley with bird head. The artist at Medinet Habu has drawn only one type of ships and that could mean they simply choose the one that was easiest to draw and represented the most usual type.

Maybe we should also mention Homer and some lines about the Argonauts

"Doves, however, play a central role in the passage of the Argo through the two Petrai Kyaneai or through the Symplegades ("Clashing Rocks").The safe passage of a dove signaled the Argonauts that they might safely follow. As the dove is well attested as a cult symbol, we may imagine that the Argo's prow or stern was decorated with a dove representing the patronage of Hera, or Athena, or perhaps Peleia, the Minoan-Mycenaean dove goddess. A bird depicted on the prow of Theran Ship 4, on ships represented on a Mycenaean sherd from Phylakopi and elsewhere. As late as on Cyprus ca 700 BC we see a bird-head on prow"

For those who analyse Homer and time before 1000 BC it is natural to see the expedition eastward to Caucasus for gold. Someone has tried that a sheepskin could be used to catch the gold in the stream. There is still the enigma "From where the Mycenaeans got the gold?" They think these "merchant" ships used only 20 oars. It would be a natural development to 50 oars, bireme and trireme. It is about the same in Nordic myth where the biggest would be 33 if I remember right

Phoenician Seahorses

Seahorses from relief in Babylon when the Phoenicians deliver cedar from Lebanon

Normally we get this description, "The Phoenicians were merchants and traders, and even if they colonised certain strategic spots in today's Syria, Cyprus, Libya, Tunisia, Italy, Malta, Algeria, Morocco and Spain, they were never warlords".

Firstly this is about last millennium most of it. For some reason they always forget Boeotia as colony in Greece and the joint venture with Sparta. They forget also that according to Herodotus 4:42, the furthest voyage the Phoenician sailors ever undertook was the circumnavigation of the African continent, accomplished on the orders of the Pharaoh Necho c. 600 BC. The journey is supposed to have taken three years and the navigators sailed westwards from the Red Sea. King Salomo hired Phoenician for a journey to India/ South Arabia from the Aqabah Gulf.

Two subsequent voyages were undertaken from Cartage: ca 450 by Himilco, who sailed round Spain to the British Isles, an area known to the Phoenicians as "Tin-Land." and ca 425 by Hanno, who seems to have sailed through the Pillars of Hercules to the Gulf of Guinea.

It is maybe natural that most eurocentric people are interested only in known ancient people and that mean Mediterranean and Middle East … even if the British are interested in the tin trade. Few are interested in the Indian trade eastward how far we do not yet know However the Phoenicians sailed much farther and Herodotus would not know about for these reasons. The Phoenician traders kept it secret when they told like a shield to their amber’s trade.

‘Now that the Phoenician’s had seen the amber gathered from the sea, they determined to keep the secret for themselves and thus guard the lucrative trade. When the fleets returned to Syria, many were the tales told of perils to the north, of lodestones which would draw the ships to destruction on hidden reefs, of whirlpools which would suck them down to the bottom of the ocean, of witches who enchanted men by turning them into beasts, of terrible sea serpents, and awesome monsters. So well did these ancient sailors spin their yarns that for many centuries afterwards mariners feared these mythical perils’.

Herodotus did know only a little about the Hyberboreans = northmost Northerners as he wrote 440 BC in Book IV 323 - 36 about Nordic girls and gifts coming to Artemis' temple at Delos

"But the persons who have by far the most to say on this subject are the Delians. They declare that certain offerings, packed in wheaten straw, were brought from the country of the Hyperboreans into Scythia, and that the Scythians received them and passed them on to their neighbours upon the west, who continued to pass them on until at last they reached the Adriatic. From hence they were sent southward, and when they came to Greece, were received first of all by the Dodonaeans". See also Girls at Delos

It seems he is not quite sure but surely the "tourism" went by the Adriatic path over Austria to river Oder. Another path was via the Russian rivers to Black Sea. At that time the sea route was still kept secret. I think my examples of Nordic ships, artefacts and other remains show that there must have been contacts and maybe in both directions from early Bronze Age and maybe earlier.

I separate Greek and Phoenician model of ship however we can not date them. According to written evidence the Greek connection would be later than the Phoenician. However we do not really know who designed what. We have the characteristic detail ram designed before 1644 BC and the Greek vase painting show often a ship with 90 degree stern. However we get a little help in catching the ideas and be prepared, the types were mixed in the Mediterranean and we do not know much about small boats.

What I write about the Scandinavian culture those days could be a question for the rest of West Europe. I want to get the whole picture so that for instance I could ask if the Handman brought some cultural item from India. Fortunately they have found the today oldest boat ca 2000 BC at Ferriby England. That is proof they were able to build clinker build ship for bigger ships for the high seas. There are some younger samples from Scandinavia and more could come in future.

Lack of substantial evidence make us think that these thinks did not exist. Our rock-carvings are difficult to date exactly and they have spread the word that all carvings are from Bronze Age and that restricts the thinking. Still we have evidence for import of artefacts and ideas since 4th millennium

The Age of the Hand

For more about the Phoenician heydays see Cadmus the Handman … here we should only mention the ships and the trade. The lattice board could be model for Nordic images and the stern is commonly used. In South Scandinavia we have maybe 20 hand or arm carvings. We have also signs of "Four hands" and wheels with 4 hands that originate in the calendar corrections made around 1200 BC by the Egyptians. The Phoenicians used Cancer/ Hand as fix stars of "going beneath"

The spiral and hand in one and same picture on rock-carvings from the Hand Age. On some ship image from south we see a staff in stern

This stem is from a stela in Cartage founded ca 814 BC. The Phoenician style came together with the Hand.

Maybe they called the Phoenician the Handman. The gestures with hands seem to be a greeting of the sailors. "Hello I am unarmed, Peace". Cadmus seems to be the first "Dragon Killer" and there is a long cycle of tales about his deeds. At least they knew how to handle the Sea Ragon

We see seahorses in Scandinavia too. The shield we find in Aegean symbolism

In the rock-carvings we see some Phoenician ships and other motifs telling about the visits. No wonder that ancient writers also wrote about ugly and odd beings with head in stomach, dog head, one-footed and one-eyed and so on.

Pegasus at Lerfald

Horses from a grave ca 800 BC Trondheim museum

My friend Sonny Berntson brought me a couple of photos from Trondheim Museum and I felt I had to put them on the ritual timeline. The area is exceptional since in the big field with 1200 figures at Lerfald we have the origin of poem Voluspa from the Edda. In verse 20 we learn that Three Midwives arrived from south in 4th millennium ... see comment at Water Mother. On the rock we see that. In other places in the area we find 4th millennium Egyptian reed ship and high-sea ship and more

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At Lerfald we see a fleet of Greek type seemingly with the Horse as figurehead. I guess they have put the Horse on ship for some reason

Around 1000 BC the Phoenician temple at Hazor shows that they used the Whale Kaitos as fix stars but also Hand/ Cancer, Tanit sitting lady and the Snakes. And some stele in Cartage is showing the same. However in middle last millennium the fix point of spring equinox had moved so the Phoenicians made a merge of Whale and Pegasus Horse to be Hippocampus. There is a coin from Tyre ca 450 with Melkart of the Sea riding the Seahorse. Around the same time the Greek used Pegasus at coins.

What is the cupmark on the symbolising?

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Tyre coin with Seahorse, trireme with Spartans as guard. Cartage made the Horse totem and Tanit was the sitting goddess

On the back the flying Sun in Egyptian style. On other coins they have a star and we get tied to the heavenly sphere as usually. Before the privatised power they always used rather heavenly deities as the nominal leader. I suppose it was convenient to blame the lofty idols if something went wrong … here in Sweden our present leaders/ "gods" of all kind never make mistakes -;)

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Details "Three Horses" as a sign from Armenia and from Dolstorp Bohuslen

In Caucasus an Armenia are more rock-carvings that look similar to the Nordic style. Maybe it is the very old Volga-trade? At Dolstorp they are together with ships and warriors wearing horned Helmet and swords with winged chap. That date to Halstatt time 800 - 400 BC. In Rigveda we read that they used trisected year with a goat in lead for the seasons and we get Three Goats

Detail from Askum Bohuslen

We see half year Snakes and they show a gap for the 11 days needed to align sun and moon year. The horses are dragging a Time-wheel each and the other marked with "second". In Bohuslen there are maybe a dozen rock-carvings on the theme that a "sun" is connected to the horse in some way. This is marking that spring equinox is in Pegasus/ Horse. The period continued to the first kings that used a Horse in Vi on their coins early 11th century

In Golden Age during great migration 45 % of nearly 1000 golden bracts has the Sun Rider as motif… see The Flying Horse

Now it is easy to see this wooden work as a "time rose". This is the other of Sonny's photos and it dates the Horse around 800 by the archaeology.

Late trireme as seen on Phoenician coins

This is the normal sketching of the late time warrior trireme

The name it got from three rows of crew and soon they placed rows in galleries and in more floors. The ship got also a big square sail. But Egyptians used sail already in 4th millennium and we see it on the ship from Thera. We see the oar in "tail" and in stem there should be a ram. . The Egyptians often mounted two steering oars on their big ships. In Sidon and Byblos the trireme was naturally a symbol of power besides the other details

The Persian king in chair with driver and servant Egyptian style

The different rulers did not affect "business as usual" before the Romans in 64 AD. The Persian king often rides in chariot or on the reverse there in Byblos is a picture of him fighting a lion alternatively a Lion biting the neck of a bull, i.e. the Mesopotamian Lion biting the Hittite/ Phoenician Bull. That kind of symbolism was used as late as in the early medieval Church. Under the trireme they have mostly the "Seahorse"

There are many shekels from the 100 years before Alexander and 400 - 323 BC. Sidon, Tyre and Byblos have all different style. The trier model we can perhaps draw more than 1000 years from that. Sidon's shekels has often a text or a relief of "Sidon's Mother" Astarte and under the Greeks Tyche = Roman Fortuna. Often there is an Egyptian touch in the style

On this coin we see the eye in stem. Some would get scared and in the unconsciousness it affects the mind.

Ancient warfare was much about scaring. The Minoans told that they have a copper giant wandering and guarding the island. The megalith buildings surely made people think that there is a giant around. The same is case in Skaane, Sweden where they have Giant Finn, however he seems occupied in the crypt of the dome in Lund where he embraces a pillar for whatever reason? Even in battle the tactics were about scaring. That is why the stem was furnished with an eye and sometimes a lion-head as figurehead.

This coin is from Sidon around 400 BC and we do not see the crew

In the symbolism of this type of coins there are two or three Hoplites. Hoplites with crest in helmet were warriors from Sparta and Lakonia Greece were the Phoenicians started industries and maybe got guards instead. In stem there is the eye and above the Lion-head. The Seahorse seems to be a merge of Pegasus and Whale/ Kaitos that was fix-stars of spring equinox at the time

Hot new in DN June 3rd 2006 from Skottefjellet vid Ferlevsfjorden Bohuslen

Some interpreter knew immediately that this is a "sun ship". I did not know there are so many suns??? And why the hole in the sun. I would rather compare with the Mediterranean tireme/ bireme as seen on coins from middle last millennium. In Mediterranean motifs we often see shields along the rail.

One of 16 bronze shields from the hoard in Stenhusbacken VG

The shields are too fragile for fighting so it could only be for ritual use. On our rocks we have many motifs that seems to have been like "latest news" that naturally also could include real sample from the trader. On one rock wehave 15 5 - 6 meter long spears and I would guess that it is the news about the phalanx of Philip the Macedonian. Surely the news about shields also came from south and it stayed Nordic fashion until Age of the Knights. The Viking ships are drawn with a row of shields along the rail.

This little detail from Backa Bohuslen could be a humorous image taken from a coin

Aegean ships

Minoan goddess at a seal ring " at tour" with two horn/ bull altars. The Water-snake was symbol of fertility and we have also the Snake Goddess with a skirt of Akkadian type with frill.

On the Danish isle Bornholm we find a lot of influence from Greece. This is a mix of the Cycladic and Greek ships. The island become skilled in working with thin gold plate and that they must have learnt in Greece.

Then we can have a look at ships from Mycenae painted on vases and compare them with a ship at Vitlycke, Bohuslän. It is the upper one.

Naturally we should mention Baltic amber as possible trading objects. However as whole we find many more cultural objects of trade. Still they have found amber in Greece. They have analysed that it has been imported on mainly two occasion 1725 - 1675 and the other time around 1200 BC.

They speculate in peace gifts to the king. But much of the amber is found in warriors' graves and they were probably as guards on the ships. There was not much "money exchange" and much of the trade was like bartering with gifts between the two parts. Still we have the late example of Nordic gifts to the temple at Delos. The gifts were sent through a known route of people Herodotus tells.

As we can expect the visits of traders were occasional in early times. The traders at first wanted to recognise what they could get and what they could bring instead. For the various trade see Ezekiel

Another picture on the theme Greek ships from Kalnes Norway. Observe the headless animal that is seen also in Egyptian astronomy

There are a lot of "Aegean" rock-carvings at both sides of the Oslo fjord. The area was called Viken before the kingdoms and Bohuslen belonged to the area. There is the find of a short text in Minoan at Kongsberg then "silver mountain". Originally they could collect "silver hair" direct from the rock and that is why the Minoans wrote "purest pure" since it can be manufactured as such.

They think the Minoans collected silver and went to Egypt and bartered with gold. Anyway we see the Aegean influence just in that area. We should also mention Ekenberg in East Gautland where we find an Egyptian bronze sickle on a rock and ships of the Mediterranean type.

The Minoans were maybe the first to trade "ox hides". That is the trade shape of copper they spread in the entire Mediterranean. Like later Achaeans, Myceneans and Phoenicians they had at least some colony at Cyprus for mining and trading copper. There is no need for talking about nations and warlike tribes when it comes to traders

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In left lower corner do two oxen draw the two-wheel chariot. At right a find from the Lassithi cave near Knossos at Crete

On our rocks we have also four-wheel wagons drawn by two oxen and sometimes the wagon seem to be ritual symbol. Naturally we have also the normal battle or luxurious chariot drawn by two horses. This is just an example of import that seems to begin with Minoan traders.

We do not know much about their ships but in the early glyph script there is a symbol of a ship with mast and of the half-moon type that seems to be the early model in the Aegean besides the Cycladic type. The fleet at the fresco of Thera is all ships of that type.

This is the normal Greek ship with a ram we are presented.

Here we see also round Greek shields. We do not know much about the normal life in the land of heroes and Olympic gods. They invented almost everything if we believe it, but not the normal rural life. However the ship perhaps remained the old Cycladic type with a high stern and sometimes symbols for the hero there too. We Barbarians should be on our knees when speaking about the Greeks, of course?

They had ships without ram too

On this section from Möckleryd Blekinge we see different types of time-boat since it is time symbolising

Just as we believe some ships are real, we see the cargo is a little boat and the little "ban-i-ban" symbol besides. Then we can expect it to be the Ramadan adding the five days to the sun year.

More of type ritual boat or time-boat and now from Vaestlandet Norway. The upper one would sink very rapidly.