Ancient object

The Athlit ram

Bronze warship ram

National Maritime Museum, Haifa

Large bronze casting shaped as a blunt three-finned head, the weapon fitted to the bow of an oared warship at the waterline. — Bronze warship ram, recovered off Athlit · Hellenistic · National Maritime Museum, HaifaNational Maritime Museum, Haifa · photo Hanay · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Object provenance

Record incomplete

Object: Bronze warship ram
Material: Cast bronze, with timber preserved inside
Made: Evidence level: ProbableHellenistic period
Found: Evidence level: DocumentedOff Athlit, on the coast of present-day Israel
Excavated: 1980
Now at: National Maritime Museum, Haifa
Inventory: Not recorded in this catalogue
Identification: Evidence level: DocumentedThe ram of an oared warship

The principal surviving example of the weapon on which ancient naval battle turned. No oared warship hull survives, which makes the ram the main physical evidence for the class.

Not recorded here

Inventory number
Dimensions and weight

Full object record

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How to read the evidence labels

Evidence level: Documented: Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
Evidence level: Probable: Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
Evidence level: Disputed: Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
Evidence level: Literary: Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
Evidence level: Mythological: Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
Evidence level: Unknown: The available evidence is insufficient to decide.

These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.