Roche Fouras, 150–100 BC
Country: France
Place: About 150 m south-west of the islet off Cap Camarat, near Ramatuelle (Var), at a depth of 17 m
Coordinates (approximate): 43.20, 6.68
Type: Small Roman Republican coastal vessel
Identified: No
Dated: Second half of the 2nd century BC to the beginning of the 1st century BC (150–100 BC), based on the amphora stamps.
Beam: Unknown.
Keel Length: Unknown.
Length Overall: Unknown; a small coastal vessel.
Number of Masts: Unknown.
History of the wreck
A first intervention was carried out on the Roche Fouras wreck in 1973 by Joncheray (Joncheray and Rochier 1976), recording hull remains 6 m long and 2 m wide. In 1995, within the research programme Dendrochronologie et dendromorphologie des épaves antiques de Méditerranée of Pomey and Guibal, it was found that the remains had almost entirely disappeared, only a few hull fragments no more than 2.5 m long and one metre wide surviving (Pomey and Guibal 1996: 56); fortunately, these allowed the system of fastening the frames to the hull by plant-fibre lashings to be documented.
Description of the site
The wreck lies at a depth of 17 m. In the excavation of 1976 the keel, eleven planking strakes and fifteen framing timbers, alternating floor timbers and half-frames, were preserved (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Plan of the hull of the Roche Fouras (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 176).
Cargo
The cargo consisted exclusively of Dressel 1C wine amphorae from the Tyrrhenian coast, probably from Campania. Dressel 1C amphorae are abundant in southern Gaul, where the ship’s destination probably lay. A comparison of the stamps ST, A, PA, PAP, ST, SVR, D (Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 179) with those of the Grand Ribaud 1 wreck (Carrazé 1975) allowed a broad date to be refined, from the second half of the 2nd century BC to the beginning of the 1st century BC (150–100 BC).
Ballast
Not reported.
Anchors
Not reported.
Guns
Not applicable.
Iron concretions
Not reported.
Hull Remains
The keel, eleven planking strakes and fifteen framing timbers were preserved (Figure 1). There is little evidence on which to base a length and burden for the Roche Fouras ship, but from the size of the surviving remains it can only have been a small coastal vessel.
Keel, keelson and mast step
The information on the keel from Joncheray and Rochier’s excavation is very limited (1976: 171), and Pomey’s descriptions of the partial remains are the only ones available. The keel has a very square section, 9 cm wide and 8.50 cm high, becoming rectangular towards the end of the hull, where it measures 12 cm wide and 15 cm high, indicating the proximity of the bow or stern of the ship (Figure 2). The keel has a very pronounced notched rabbet, about 3 cm on each side face (Figures 2 and 3), so that from inside the hull, compared with the position of the garboard strakes of polygonal section (pinched bottom), the keel seems to lie in a lower plane, 2.5 cm down, without the floor timbers touching the backbone.
The keel is joined to the garboard strakes by mortises and tenons, the mortises being 5.5 to 6.5 cm wide, 1 cm thick and 4 cm deep, spaced 8 cm apart on average. There is no evidence of the pegs that locked the tenons, which have been lost.
Figure 2. Section of the keel with the joint to the polygonal, sculpted garboard strake (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 172).
Figure 3. Section of the keel, in transverse, side and top views (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 172).
Frames
Fifteen frames survive, with a fairly wide average room-and-space (malla) of 18.4 cm, in which floor timbers and half-frames alternate. The floor timbers are very tall in their central part, 30 cm moulded, decreasing to 8 cm at the ends, and very triangular in the central part of the hull. They have a limber hole of square but very irregular section, 5 cm high (Figure 7). The half-frames have a square section 9 cm a side, or practically square, 8 × 9 cm, which gives a framing in which the floor timbers are three times as high as the half-frames (Figure 5). These end on the garboard strake in a bevel, and also have limber holes of rectangular section.
The framing is fastened to the hull by plant-fibre lashings locked by wooden treenails 1.7 to 1.9 cm in diameter. Their arrangement in the half-frames is completely regular, a pair of treenails (with a connecting groove of 5 cm) alternating with a single one, at an average spacing of 10 cm. Once assembled, the whole joint was protected with pitch, which also improved watertightness. On the outer face of the hull there is no evidence of channels or grooves to protect the plant-fibre lashings, nor on the underside of the frames. For the tall floor timbers, the holes were drilled obliquely through the side faces (Figure 4), a method also observed in the Madrague de Giens wreck1 (Rival 1991: 231). Detail of the internal lashings of frame D11 is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 4. Idealised sections of two floor timbers and a half-frame of the Roche Fouras (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 178).
Figure 5. Longitudinal section showing the difference in height between the floor timbers and the half-frames (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 172).
Figure 6. Detail of frame D11 with the internal lashings (drawing by Rival, CCJ-CNRS; unpublished, from the doctoral thesis of Marlier).
Figure 7. Shape of the limber holes of the floor timbers (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 172).
Planking
The hull has eleven strakes, with an average width of 12 cm and a thickness varying between 2.8 and 3.9 cm. Only in one case is a bevelled scarf joining two lengths of strake recorded. The garboard strake is polygonal and sculpted, slightly rounded on its inner and outer faces (Figure 2), about 10.5 cm wide and 5.5 cm thick, and together with the keel forms a robust backbone. The second strake, 4.2 cm thick where it meets the first, decreases to 3.7 cm at the edge in contact with the third strake, levelling out the sharp angle created by the rabbet and the polygonal garboard strakes. The second strake has mortises 6 cm wide, 0.7 cm thick and 7 cm deep. The locking pegs were driven from the inside, with diameters between 1 and 1.2 cm, towards the outside of the hull, where their diameter is 0.9 cm. There is a great difference in size between mortises and tenons (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Fragment of a hull strake showing the great difference in size between the mortises and the tenons (after Joncheray and Rochier 1976: 172).
Ceiling, thick stuff, and wales
The 1995 campaign recovered some fragments of ceiling strakes 21 cm wide and 1.7 cm thick, without fastening marks, as Joncheray and Rochier had already noted for the upper face of the floor timbers (1976: 174).
Caulking
The frame lashings were protected with pitch once assembled, which also improved watertightness.
Size and scantlings
A small coastal vessel. The keel measures 9 × 8.5 cm (12 × 15 cm near the ends), the floor timbers up to 30 cm moulded, the half-frames 8–9 × 9 cm, at a room-and-space of 18.4 cm, and the planking 2.8–3.9 cm thick.
Table 1. Scantling of the timber remains of the Roche Fouras Shipwreck
| Timber | Sided [cm] | Molded [cm] |
| Keel Near the end | 9 12 | 8.5 15 |
| Keelson | – | – |
| Maststep Mortise | – – | – – |
| Buttresses | – | – |
| Floor timbers | – | 30 (centre) 8 (ends) |
| Half-frames | 8–9 | 9 |
| Room-and-space At central frames | 18.4 (avg.) | |
| Planking Garboard Second strake | 12 (avg.) 10.5 – | 2.8–3.9 5.5 4.2 to 3.7 |
| Ceiling | 21 | 1.7 |
| Main mast Ø Chock | – – | – – |
Planking and ceiling: sided = width, moulded = thickness.
Wood
Not reported.
Bibliography
Carrazé, F. 1975. L’épave « Grand Ribaud A ». Cahiers d’Archéologie Subaquatique 4: 19–58.
Joncheray, J.-P. and Rochier, R. 1976. L’épave de la Roche Fouras. Coque du navire, estampilles sur amphores. Cahiers d’Archéologie Subaquatique 5: 167–180.
Pomey, P. and Guibal, F. 1996. Dendrochronologie et dendromorphologie des épaves antiques de Méditerranée: épave de la Roche-Fouras. Bilan scientifique du DRASSM 1995, 56–57. Paris.
Rival, M. 1991. La charpenterie navale romaine. Matériaux, méthodes, moyens. Travaux du Centre Camille Jullian 6. Paris: CNRS.
Notes
1 “…the triangular shape of the faces of the floor timbers obliged the carpenters to drill through ever more of the height of the floor timbers as they approached the centre of their timber. This drilling difficulty was partly avoided by adopting nailing in the first three strakes of planking, precisely where the height of wood to be drilled is greatest” (Rival 1991: 231; translated from the French).