Research Note

Istanbul Galleys

Fred Hocker

The galley in the naval museum in Istanbul has been documented by professors and students from Texas A&M University's Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Dendrochronological dating indicates that the oldest parts of the hull may date to the 16th century, but that most of the timber is from an extensive rebuild in the 19th century. The rebuild involved some changes to the shape and configuration of the hull, but there are still traces of the original hull form and arrangement. Unfortunately, the student who was in charge of drawing up the results died several years ago, which has slowed down the publication of the project.

The galley was in use until the 19th century, usually as a transport for the sultana (sultan's wife), but may have been originally built as a war galley. Drawings of it (inaccurate) were published by Admiral Paris. Speculation by some authors that the vessel is even older and was captured from the last Byzantine emperor in 1453 is not likely to be true, as the hull form and arrangement are much more typical of the 16th century and later.

The Yenikapi finds are now up to 27 hulls in various states of preservation, many dating to the 9th and 10th centuries. Some of these are long and narrow, but how much they will tell us about "classical" galleys of the Renaissance is uncertain. There is a large Venetian galley from the 14th century that was excavated about five years ago at San Marco in Boccalama, a drowned island in the Venetian lagoon. It is currently being studied by Mauro Bondioli.

Several Swedish row barges from the 18th and 19th centuries survive in the collections of the National Maritime Museum, and a copy of one of these is still used to carry the royal family on state occasions. These are not really galleys, but large rowboats. Two of the galley sheds built to house the inshore fleet in the mid-18th century survive (I can see them from my office).
{Fred Hocker - Vasa Museum}

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