The Modified Syrian Schooner

This article aims to draw attention to the largely unexpected field of Arab maritime culture in the Levant, a field which deserves to be explored for several reasons. One is because information on change in the Eastern Mediterranean will be useful in a comparative study of the carrying trade in Arab schooners and Arab dhows. There is another reason, too. This sea is one of the few corners of the earth where sail was not driven out of the trades by the competition of steam and the changing conditions in the markets. If steam killed the big sailing ship, the oil engine prolonged the life of the small one. Therefore, if the anthropologist (or, for that matter, the economist) wants to study maritime culture in the era of sail, and wants to do this on the spot, here is one of the few spots where he still can do it. For the schooners there still is a lucrative trade worth competing for, mostly self-contained, but partly because they act as feeders to the great shipping lines. This dual character of the trade mu

Archaeology and Historical Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Psychology