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As your modern, 'scientifically designed', anchor hurtles towards the bottom, the chain rattling satisfyingly as it is dragged out of it's locker, you might find yourself wondering how long man has been using anchors to prevent boats from drifting away from a chosen spot.
Perhaps there are examples still to be uncovered - archaologists combing new sites change our 'history' on a regular basis, or at least our knowledge of it. So far, then, the oldest known signs of man fastening his boat are the ship models found in the Egyptian tombs. In 2000BC there were signs that man used papyrus ropes and cone-shaped stakes to secure ships to the shore. Four hundred years later, models came equipped with grooved stones and also perforated ones.
In 1400BC, King Tutankhamen was buried with ship models equipped with T-shaped stones and four hundred years after that, the Greeks are known to have been using stone anchors. Five centuries later, in 500 BC, the Greeks had started to combine iron hooks with the stones. Three hundred years earlier, bronze anchors were being cast, in Malta, in the form of a two-armed hook, without a stock.
In 400BC a coin was cast in Egypt showing a two-armed anchor with a stock and which seemed to have been filled with lead. By 280BC the Greeks were minting coins bearing anchors remarkably like the Admiralty anchors in use to this day.
When Italy's Lake Nemi was drained, in 1929, Emperor Caligula's anchor was found. It was 16 feet long, made of oak, with an iron tip and a leaden stock. The anchor was made in 40AD. There was also an anchor found, dated 130 AD made of iron, sheathed in wood and with a portable stock. This was surprising to many because, until then, it had been believed by 'modern' man that this was an invention of the eighteenth century!
During the first century AD more than a few people were put to death by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea.
St Clement, the fourth Pope, said to have been executed in this way near the end of the first century, was traditionally the Patron Saint of Anchorsmiths, with 23rd of November as his Feast
Day.
Perhaps not many people knew that... tell us about you
and your anchoring techniques, the anchors you favour and why. You
may help someone to hang onto their boat with your input...
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