Roman ship graffiti in the Tower of the Winds in Athens

Abstract

Two Roman ship graffiti were identified on the interior walls of the Tower of the Winds on the northern slope of the Acropolis of Athens. Both represent a type of ship with a massive pointed projection on the lower fore part, the head of a figure on the upper fore part and a small rectangular sail on the top of the bow. This is an oared type of ship with an additional main sail. As yet there are no motive parallels (in Contemporary pictorial sources) known of. The most similar type is the ship of the Neumagen monument. Furthermore other details of the graffiti, such as the thole pins and the sail with possibly »multiple sheets« at the foot of the sail, allow us to consider some unusual parallels in shipwrecks and representations of ships from Northern Europe including the Baltic Sea.