World of naval dockyards - Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus - Insula Portuosa |
World of naval dockyards - Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus - Insula Portuosa |
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Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus
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During the Byzantine period, Cyprus retains her role as a naval island. From Arab sources we know that a Cypriot fleet of 22 vessels is pillaged in Latakia. (Kemal al-Din, RHC Or III, 578). In 1097 Emperor Alexios Comnenos sends general Butomites to Cyprus to acquire ships and money. Climatic conditions and the configuration of the coastlines in the Mediterranean, as well as the political alignments led crusaders use Cyprus as a port of call. Often though the island was used as a potential base for launching attacks against Islam. We know from documents that Cyprus contributed with ships to the various naval leagues that were formed under papal auspices after 1330 to combat piracy in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus contributed 6 galleys. King Hugh IV of Cyprus sent 12 galleys and 12 pamphiliae against the Turks in 1336 and 21 galleys a year later. In 1343 Cyprus provided four galleys out of a total of 20. It is obvious from the documents that Cyprus built ships during the medieval period. The indications we have as to the existence of arsenals are scarce and mainly derive from the chroniclers, or the pilgrims who stopped to refuel in the island on their way to the Holy Land. It is widely accepted that the Ottomans, being themselves a nomadic folk and distant to the sea (as their Muslim faith declares), used the knowledge and the experience of various seafaring people of the Eastern Mediterranean and managed in that way to build one of the mightiest fleets in the medieval world. From the 14th century onwards, the Ottomans created arsenals around Constantinople, reusing the old Byzantine ones. In this manner arsenals existed in the Propontis, on the shores of the Black Sea, in the Aegean and of course in Cyprus. Venetian Marino Sanuto in his Diarii. describes the life of the shipbuilders that were brought in from the Greek island of Chios and other pilgrims such as Marsigli, Olivier and Tournefort describe conditions in the Ottoman arsenals. Arsenals are likely to have existed in Cyprus in Lapithos, in Kyrenia, in Famagusta, in Larnaka, in Limassol and in Paphos.
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