>Somewhere in Homer's _Odyssey_ there is a passage about
>shipbuilding, with references to tools and construction.
>The _Odyssey_ as we know dates from early in the Classical
>Greek period (600-800 BC), but much of the material is
>considerably older.

Here is the only passage I could find--searching through a
database of Greek texts, not actually reading the Odyssey,
which I haven't done since high school.  I also am NOT verifying
the accuracy of this translation, since relearning Greek,
which I last studied in the late 80s, is not high on my to-do
list right now.  Maybe after I finally build my bench!

To recap:  Odysseus (Ulysses) has been shipwrecked and is held
hostage by the beautiful nymph Calypso on her island.  Finally,
Zeus intervenes and convinces Calypso to let him go, because he
would rather return to SWMBO (Penelope) than have a nymph sugar
mamma .

"As soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, straightway
Odysseus put on a cloak and a tunic, [230] and the nymph clothed
herself in a long white robe, finely woven and beautiful, and
about her waist she cast a fair girdle of gold, and on her head
a veil above. Then she set herself to plan the sending of the
great-hearted Odysseus. She gave him a great axe, well fitted
to his hands, [235] an axe of bronze, sharpened on both sides;
and in it was a beautiful handle of olive wood, securely fastened;
and thereafter she gave him a polished adze. Then she led the way
to the borders of the island where tall trees were standing,
alder and popular and fir, reaching to the skies, [240] long dry
and well-seasoned, which would float for him lightly. But when
she had shewn him where the tall trees grew, Calypso, the
beautiful goddess, returned homewards, but he fell to cutting
timbers, and his work went forward apace. Twenty trees in all
did he fell, and trimmed them with the axe; [245] then he
cunningly smoothed them all and made them straight to the line.
Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful goddess, brought him augers;
and he bored all the pieces and fitted them to one another,
and with pegs and morticings did he hammer it together. Wide
as a man well-skilled in carpentry marks out the curve of the
hull of a freight-ship, [250] broad of beam, even so wide did
Odysseus make his raft. And he set up the deck-beams, bolting
them to the close-set ribs, and laboured on; and he finished
the raft with long gunwales. In it he set a mast and a yard-arm,
fitted to it, [255] and furthermore made him a steering-oar,
wherewith to steer. Then he fenced in the whole from stem to
stern with willow withes to be a defence against the wave,
and strewed much brush thereon. Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful
goddess, brought him cloth to make him a sail, and he fashioned
that too with skill. [260] And he made fast in the raft braces
and halyards and sheets, and then with levers forced it down
into the bright sea." (from book 5--translated by A.T. Murray)

This Calypso doesn't sound too bad to me!  How many of you
(other than possibly Todd) have had a nymph give you a polished adze?

Before you ask, one commentary suggests that the trees used
were dead but still standing.

Have a great weekend.

Brian Welch
Worcester, MA