A team of archaeologists has just recreated a bronze Roman naval ram using ancient fabrication techniques. The ram design was critical in the establishment of Roman naval superiority in the Mediterranean.

The primary weapon used on naval galleys in the Mediterranean for close to a millenium (c. 500 BCE–500 CE) was the bronze ram. The use and devastating force of the ram is described in the ancient accounts of sea battles, but examples of the ancient weapon itself were not discovered by archaeologists until the 1980s. Then, beginning in 2010, archaeologists found twenty-seven bronze warship rams off Sicily, at the site of the battle of the Aegates, (also known as the battle of the Egadi Islands),a Roman naval victory over Carthage of 241 BC that marked the end of  the First Punic War.

The rams, originally mounted on the bows of Roman triremes, quadriremes, and quinqueremes are highly-engineered three-bladed bronze castings.  Exactly how these ancient naval rams were made has been the subject of debate among archeologists since they were discoverd. Initial speculation suggested that the rams were cast in bronze using the sand-casting method with wooden molds. Further examination, however, ruled out this method. The lost-wax method was then proposed as the technique by which rams were made.

“This research can help us understand the evolution of major warships, from the fleets of Alexander the Great’s successors to the vessels that secured Rome’s naval dominance,” says Stephen DeCasien at Dalian University of Technology in China, who is leading the group of researchers, as reported by Taylor Mitchell Brown at New Scientist.

DeCasien and his colleagues, based at Texas A&M University, think they have have worked out the technique used to fabricate the ram. Once they had crafted a wooden replica of a Roman warship’s bow, they layered beeswax onto the surface and sculpted it into the shape of the ram. They then removed this beeswax ram and, using an ancient technique known as the direct lost-wax method, cast it in bronze. The finished bronze ram could then be slotted onto the warship bow, a little like sliding a metal thimble onto a finger.

The final product was a successful reconstruction that matches the rams uncovered near Sicily. “Each ram was uniquely crafted to fit a specific warship’s bow,” says DeCasien. “Artisans achieved this by hand-sculpting beeswax models directly onto ship timbers.”

With a sufficient supply of materials, the Romans could produce rams like this every two to four days using three or four skilled labourers, explains DeCasien.

“The Romans built nearly 1000 warships during the First Punic War,” says Michael Taylor at the University at Albany in New York state. Even just equipping 100 warships with rams might have required almost a tonne of beeswax, he says. “[It’s] quite incredible to ponder the thousands of hives and millions of bees needed to launch a war fleet against the Carthaginians.”

Thanks to Roberta Weisbrod for ccontributing to this post.