Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Roman Galley from Ben-Hur



Here is something you don't just run into every day. This is one of the model Roman galleys used in the production of the 1959 epic Ben-Hur. It is located inside the Baltimore Convention Center. (The Sheraton next door has awesome Maryland She-crab soup by the way) It was donated to the Mayor and citizens of Baltimore by the family of Peter S. Atsaides and renovated by the Vocational Education Department based on photos from the MGM archives and historical sources. Sorry about the quality of the pictures. This was only one of about a dozen large ship models in the Convention Center, including a very impressive model of the USS Constellation (the frigate, not the sloop-of war that is actually in the Harbor two blocks away)








I really liked the attention to detail on the ballista, catapult and my personal favorite, the ram.



BTW, unlike in fiction, the Romans did not usually use slaves to man the oars in their galleys. So there.

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