Bireme (two banks of oars)
Birreme (remeros en dos niveles)
- Date
- c. 750 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Sidon, Lebanon
- Credited to
- Phoenician shipbuilders
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A galley with two superimposed banks of oars, doubling rowing power without lengthening the hull. Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh (c. 700 BC) depict Phoenician biremes.
It is debated whether the two-level layout was Phoenician or Greek, and how it relates to the single-bank pentekonter; the Nineveh relief is the earliest pictorial evidence.
What it led to
- faster warships of shorter length
- the move to triremes with three banks of oars
- Phoenician and Greek naval dominance of the Mediterranean