North Cyprus Ships and Sea

North Cyprus Ships and Sea, the pure nature of Med. North Cyprus

On the south side of the Karpas peninsula and all along the north coast there are myriads of small coves, most of which would provide safe anchorage for small ships of shallow draught, and many of them show traces of ancient jetties or small harbour installations in North Cyprus. Up to the 1930s caiques used to call at small North Cyprus bays to collect agricultural produce, but to-day this has almost ceased. There are two reasons for this; one is that with industrialisation in this century and with the coming of large steam ships the harbours were too shallow, because a marine terrace lies submerged just offshore, so that only Famagusta can take ships of a draught up to 24ft. North Cyprus Kyrenia harbour is busy, though small, but a new deep-waterh harbour to the east of the town is changing the picture. The second, historical,, reason for lack of shipping has been the fear of piracy. This dates back even earlier than the Arab raids of the 7th century AD and settlements have been located away from the shore and facing inland so that they cannot be seen from the sea. For example the Coast of the Achaeans, the district around Phlamoudi (Turkish, Mersinlik), was traditionally a short route for invaders from the north through to the bay of Salamis. Christodoulou comments that 'for many centuries Cypriots have been landsmen with a land outlook, the sea rarely entering into their lives or literature. Until two generations ago, it is said, most people died without having ever set eyes on the sea'. Yet it was not always so. At many times in her history Cyprus has been an active exporter not only of her famous copper, but also of those goods which leave very little to show on the archaeological record; wheat from the fertile Mesaoria and timber from the mountain forests. Going back still further, there must have been several limitations for prehistoric seafarers. With no compass to guide them, sailors would find it essential to keep in sight of land for as much of the journey as possible. The season for sailing was short and confined to the relatively storm-free summer months. For traders coming from the west, the route headed towards the Dodecanese islands, along the coast of Anatolia until one drew level with Cape St Andreas. Then either one went due east for Syria, or south, round Karpas to the eastern harbours of North Cyprus, Salamis and beyond.19 Lucian's dialogue The ship, or human wishes, describes what could go wrong on the grain run in the opposite direction, from Alexandria to Rome, if a westerly gale blew up close to Cyprus. Instead of rounding the western tip of Cyprus, the ship had to make for Cape St Andreas and thence to Gelidonia on the shore of southern Turkey. It is often said that market forces did not apply in a prehfstoric situation, and that trade was not centrally organised, but was in the hands of small shippers. A trader who owned a boat would pick up a cargo at one port, journey to the next, sell his stock, take on something else (the region's speciality probably), travel on and repeat the whole process. This was 'tramping'; trade would have been haphazard and such concepts as balance of payment would be irrelevant. It was in fact still an accepted method of Mediterranean trading and navigation up to the 16th century AD as Braudel has emphasised. But evidence is mounting for a different kind of trade operating at the same time, termed 'point-to-point', where prestigious goods would be collected from a trading port and taken direct to a place where there was a special demand for them. An example would be the wrecked Late Bronze Age ship at Ka§ on the south coast of Turkey, which had about 200 copper ingots on board. (Whether they came from Cyprus or somewhere else is still a matter of debate.) It is clear, too, that often in Cyprus there were busy shipyards down by the sea, building ships for other nations. So far very little work seems to have been done to locate them.

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