Building a Sea Peoples ship

I've been looking at building some small 28 mm ships for my Bronze age figures for some time.  As a source I took a look at modern reconstructions, mostly based on Egyptian reliefs and the amphoroid krater fragments found at Enkomi Cyprus dated LH IIIB (probably around 1350 BC) which show an elaborate representation of a ship with two classes of men: huge warriors with spotted robes, helmets, and swords, who stand on the deck or the shore, and the little nude men who toil below the decks.

This is the first full naval scene in the history of Achaean pictorial painting.  It is clearly a military scene, and it fits well with the recorded Sea Peoples raids of the thirteenth century, and has similarities with the ship-raiding scenes in Homer 

There is no doubt that this is very similar to the ship shown on the Medinet Habu relief, and thus the type I am aiming for for my Sea Peoples model.  Interestingly such bird headed vessels are depicted on pottery far across the Black Sea and into northern Europe, although the iconography seems to confirm the significant interconnection between peoples as far apart as Pomerania, the Achaeans and Sea Peoples.

To model this for wargaming I needed to bathtub it.   Much as I would love to build a to scale model I have limited storage space.  Essex Miniatures bathub their 15mm model boats, so I'm in good company!  Actually I'm aiming at getting around 16 figures into the model so quite similar to the Essex ones.

I began with the templates.  I intend to do two of these so card formers were needed. 

This took a lot of measurement and planning for the crew spaces.

The deck, in balsa wood.  Card would probably do, but I find the base easier to work with in balsa.

The deck is divided into 20mm wide sections by ribs. The planking will attach to these.

The planking being added.  The 28mm guy is clearly my ship builder!  Well okay,  he's there to check my scaling and keep me right!

A Peleset warrior che ks the height of the raised foredeck.  The birds head beak is deliberately foreshortened to allow easier storage.

Both ships being undercoated.  All they need now is to dry out fully, followed by a snazzy paint job

Homer calls the ships "black," and Odysseus ship is called crimson painted.  I take that to mean decorated upper works and a black tarred hull.

Still some work to do, but getting there.  Uriah the exiled Hititte leads his crew in a sea shanty...

The two boats, still in a basic paint job... undercoated actually.  Uriah glowers at his arch enemy Ajax as they pass...