INSTITUTE OF NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY - Bodrum, Turkey |
| SERÇE LIMANI |
by Curtis Runnels
Among the many interesting artifacts found with the cargo of the wreck are two rotary querns (handmills), each consisting of a set of two disk-shaped stones. In use, one stone lay flat on the ground and the other was placed upon it. The upper stone was held in place by a central spindle, and it was turned by means of a vertical wooden handle. These handmills were used to grind grain for making bread or porridge. The grain was passed through the spindle-hole from above, and, once between the revolving stones, it was moved to the outer edge by the motion of the stones and it emerged as finely pulverized flour.
Rotary querns are first known among the Romans in the Western Mediterranean in the second through the first centuries B.C. They were invented shortly before that time, probably in Britain. They continued in use down to modern times when they fell out of use as everyday household equipment with the advent of the industrial-scale steel roller mill.
Finds of querns in the eastern Mediterranean world are rare in any period, and almost nothing is known of Byzantine querns. The two querns on the Serçe Limani shipwreck are especially valuable, therefore, as they are well preserved and can be dated with precision. The querns are not small tools: each stone could reach 0.57 m in diameter and weigh up to 37 kg. The smallest stone weighed 20 kg. They are carefully worked, with slots for handles and collars to help funnel the grain past the spindle. They were probably expensive, by Medieval standards, and were intended to last for generations. Used for the grinding of grain by the crew, they must have been an important part of the ship's equipment. Querns may also have made up part of the cargo, as they were especially useful as ballast along the keel. Large numbers of millstones used as ballast have been found on shipwrecks from classical antiquity. They are mentioned also in the transactions of the Jewish merchants in Medieval Cairo in connection with ships cargos.
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The Serçe Limani querns are interesting because they tell us something about the ship's equipment. The finding of Medieval querns allows us to fill in a missing chapter on the history of technology, for they bridge the gap from ancient Roman querns to modern querns, showing us the form and the techniques employed in the eleventh century. The Serçe querns show an important change from their ancient Roman counterparts. Namely, they were designed to be used with a peddle and a "bridge-tree" arrangement, which permitted the user to adjust the space between the two stones, and thus to control the fineness of the flour that was ground.
In addition to the technical refinements, we are also interested in the raw materials used to make the querns. If the source of the millstone could be identified, it would probably tell us something of the route taken by the ship before it sank. By allowing us to identify the sources of craft products that are mentioned in Medieval documents, it would undoubtedly aid us in reconstructing the small-scale reality of Medieval trading networks.
The grayish-white stone used for their manufacture may be described as a vesicular, silicified, rhyolitic tuff. Its vesicular texture makes it very rough, yet light in weight. The tuff, which is mostly a volcanic glass, is quite hard, and this too would have been useful for a quern. Unfortunately, the sources of this raw material are unknown. A proper survey in the eastern Mediterranean of such sources for the Medieval period has yet to be carried out. Outcrops of similar rock in this volcanically active region are likely to be distributed widely throughout western Turkey and the Levant.
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One intriguing possibility is that the source of the Serçe querns may have been located on the Aegean island of Melos. This island is famous as a source of obsidian, a black volcanic glass used for the manufacture of sharp cutting tools. Obsidian began to be exported from Melos to the mainland of Greece 13,000 years ago, and it has been found in the Indiana University excavations at Franchthi Cave in the Argolid. Quern quarries of much later date are known from Melos. In Medieval times, querns, along with millstones for water mills and windmills, were exported to all parts of the Aegean. The earliest evidence for rotary querns manufactured from the distinctive Melian stone are found on mainland Greek sites of the l3th and l4th centuries A.D. The Melian stone and the material used for the Serçe querns is very similar, and an analysis of thin sections from the Serçe querns shows that the querns may be from the Melian quarries, but this identification is based on only two small samples and cannot be considered definitive. If the querns are really from Melos then they would be the earliest examples of querns from that island. This would not mean that the Serçe Limani ship went to Melos to pick them up. The documents of Medieval merchants in Cairo show that querns in small numbers could be picked up at many transshipment points along the ship's route.
We do not know if the querns were part of the ship's equipment or of the cargo. Modern experiments have shown that an hour or more of grinding each day may have been necessary to supply bread to a crew of five or six sailors. The querns were probably used to grind grain carried on the ship, for it is easier to store and preserve grain than flour, in order to supply the sailors with their daily bread. The presence of two querns is explained by assuming that one was a spare in case anything happened to the first. It is interesting that the larger and better-made quern showed signs of wear on its grinding surfaces, but the smaller "spare" quern showed no signs of use. There is a problem, however, with this interpretation. Despite the exceptional state of preservation of metal artifacts from the wreck, no traces were found of the handles or the spindles that would have been necessary to operate the querns. Unless these parts were wood, which has decayed, we must conclude that the querns had not been fitted out for use, and were part of the cargo. Fortunately, we do not have to accept this hypothesis. Modern day querns sometimes have metal handles and spindles, but as often as not they have wooden fittings, and it is safe to conclude that expensive metal parts would not have been used where wood could have been used. The lack of fittings for the Serçe querns need not trouble us, and in the final analysis I think that the querns were everyday tools used aboard the ship.
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