I read an nice article which goes into depth on what we really know about the size of famous Zheng He's treasure ships from the 15th century Ming expeditions. You are probably familiar with this photo, and the claim that the largest of the Ming vessels were 450ft in length and 180ft in breadth and held 9 masts and so on, numbers which many have questioned. The article is:

Zheng He: An Investigation into the Plausibility of 450-ft Treasure Ships

by Sally K. Church. It's accessible for free on Academia.edu and for those with access on JSTOR

The author here carefully reexamines some of those claims comparing them to the actual contemporary sources. We find that the earliest recorded mention of 450 ft length is from as late as 1597 (and appears to come initially from a novel ?), which is perhaps too removed to be relevant.

Not to repeat everything from the article, and it really is an interesting read, I'll just recap the conclusions on what are the possible ship and fleet sizes according to the scant sources we have. The accent really is on "we don't know" so be careful in interpreting it. I am also doing the recap myself so mistakes may have inadvertently crept in by my action. It is unintentional and if happened I apologize.

So the most secure numbers we can use are ones placing the fleets contingents at 28,000 people and it seems fairly consistent. Number of ships we piece together from various sources, and find numbers ranging from (minimum) 48-60 "treasure" ships per fleet to 100-300 total ships of undefined types (the safest number we have is 250 ships in the 1407 fleets).
One source places crews of a treasure ship at 200-300 men, which is sort of what we would get by averaging fleet contingent with the number of ships. Other, less sure, extrapolations give number of people onboard to maximum 500-700 men. Regarding the dimensions, least is known and much is extrapolated and guessed, but overall we can assume the largest vessels were in the 200-250 feet length range and not longer, and in tons (burden? or displacement?) would be 300-700 tons, and largest wouldn't be more then 1200 tons.

To put it in the comparison with Europe, those maximum sizes are generally in the ballpark yet slightly larger than the largest Europeans ship of the 16th century. Europeans almost never built ships above 180 feet length and fleets of those sizes were exceedingly rare and would be assembled only in the case of war (e.g. Spanish Armada, or Lepanto). Oh, and that's for 16th century. Few if any of the fifteenth century ships and fleets were comparable (maybe the Grace Dieu which didn't really have a stellar career)

Other articles on the same topic:

by same author in collaboration with others: A Naval Architectural Analysis of the Plausibility of 450-ft Treasure Ships

André Wegener, The 'Liao' and the Displacement of Ships in the Ming Navy

Last week at the annual Society for American Archaeology conference, I saw a paper authored by Jesper Nielsen, Christophe Helmke and Fiorella Fenoglio titled “A Dark Horse of the Early Postclassic: The Site of El Cerrito (Querétaro, Mexico) and Its Relationship to Chichen Itza and Tula”. The authors presented an amazing amount of iconographic evidence that linked El Cerrito to Tula and Chichen Itza. In fact, they argued that we should no longer think of Twin Tollans consisting of Tula and Chichen, but of Three Tollans with El Cerrito dominating the region north and west of Tula. Not only does El Cerrito have a pyramid that looks like the Castillo at Chichen (Tula has none), but El Cerrito has a collonaded hall, panels of carnivorous birds, and a building designated as a Hall of Darts. My favorite part of the paper was the slight backhanded comment they made to all art historians and archaeologists for not looking further north and west than Toluca. If they had, they would have noticed these things much earlier.

While I wait for this paper to be published (to some great fanfare and critique), I have delved into Helmke and Nielsen's other publications. This past week I read the following papers:

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• "The Personifications of Celestial Water: The Many Guises of the Storm God in the Pantheon and Cosmology of Teotihuacan" by Kasper Wrem Anderson and Christophe Helmke

Abstract

The Teotihuacan Storm god - evidently a proto-type of the rain deity Tlaalok of the later Aztec - figures prominently in the iconography of this great metropolis. The prominence bespeaks of the importance of this divinity in the ancient pantheon and ritual practices of Teotihuacan. Yet, although the Storm god has been studied by Teotihuacanists for some time, a coherent treatment that identifies and segregates all of its varied manifestations is still wanting. For the ancient Maya the matching rain divinity, known as Chaahk (literally “thunder”), is also known for its many manifestations, wherein each served as embodiment, or personifications, of distinctive atmospheric phenomena. Thanks to the associated glyphic captions that name each of these manifestations of Chaahk we are now in a position to create more sound classification of these diverse embodiment and to begin to tie these to particular types of rains and storms. One of the primary sets of personifications of the Maya Chaahk directions of the heavens. Using Classic Maya as well as Postclassic Aztec and Mixtec data as sources of analogy it becomes clear that we are able to identify some of the more salient manifestations of the Teotihuacan Storm god, to clarify the associated features to provide a template or underlying structure to the ancient pantheon and cosmology of Teotihuacan.

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• "Hidden identity & power in Ancient Mesoamerica: Supernatural alter egos as personified diseases" by Christophe Helmke & Jesper Nielsen

Introduction

Illness is one of the traumatic turning points in life. Accordingly, the relations between disease, its symptoms and the human experience form an important intersection, rife with signification and complex symbolic interaction. In defining ‗cosmology‘ as the culturally-construed and symbolic world around us, maintaining the often precarious balance between health and illness is frequently cast as one of the basic tenets to social stability. Such precepts form the underlying framework for ritual behaviour that treats diseases as personified and sentient beings. In Mesoamerica this view is and was widespread, where diseases are conceptualised as beings that are said to reside in the underworld and which can be addressed and engaged by human interlocutors (Holland & Tharp 1964: 42; Vogt 1973: 61-89; Miller & Taube 1993: 78). Diseases are frequently thought to be caused by sorcery, although socially proscribed excesses such as drunkenness and wanton sexuality are also held responsible (Miller & Taube 1993: 72, 78; Braakhuis 2005: 185). The most feared sorcerers are those who, in altered states of consciousness, can transform into their animal companion spirit, known as <naualli> ~ nāwal-li among the Aztec and <uay> ~ wahy among the Maya (Redfield 1941: 307-308, 327-329; Vogt 1973: 18-19, 22, 85-89; Miller & Taube 1993: 72, 78, 122, 176; Nicholson 1971: 439-442). It is in their zoomorphic guise that such sorcerers attack the supernatural alter egos of others, especially at night and through dreams, thereby causing illness and death (Vogt 1973: 22, 85-89; Miller & Taube 1993: 78). In this scheme, curses are nothing more than the personified diseases of the underworld, which shape-shifting sorcerers control and inflict upon their victims. What is significant here is that these infectious alter egos can be controlled and wielded upon others, thereby forming an integral—although hidden part—of the power and identity of human agents.

Here we present evidence for the antiquity of these notions, for the ancient Maya in particular, within a comparative perspective from the past and present cultures of the central Mexican highlands. We make a case for the identification of personified diseases as the supernatural creatures known to us from their depictions in the imagery and the references made to them in the glyphic texts of the Maya and the ancient metropolis Teotihuacan. The remarkable similarities between these ancient entities and those invoked in the medical incantations and remedies of the colonial period and present day curanderos, offer us an opportunity to identify and refine our understanding of the diseases personified in antiquity. The ancient material appears to represent an arsenal of personified curses, while the colonial texts make mention of these afflictions in the contexts of their cures. The purpose of these texts and our points of entry are thus diametrically opposed, but nonetheless are bound tightly together by the sentient supernatural agents that are the crux of these mediations.

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• "Spearthrower Owl Hill: A Toponym at Atetelco, Teotihuacan" by Jesper Nielsen and Christophe Helmke

Abstract

The important Classic period site of Teotihuacan is renowned for its great size, ancient influence, and intricately decorated polychrome murals. The latter are the focus of the present study, in particular the unique landscape scene from Murals 2 and 3 from Portico 1 of the North Patio of the Atetelco residential compound that depicts a row of toponymic hill signs. The three hills have identical qualifying elements embedded, identified as combinations of an owl and a spearthrower. The murals thus make a repeated reference to a place named “Spearthrower Owl Hill.” The dating of the murals to the Early Xolalpan phase (ca. A.D. 350–450) makes them contemporary with the so-called Teotihuacan entrada into the Maya lowland sites such as Tikal, where hieroglyphic texts make mention of a Teotihuacan-affiliated individual known as “Spearthrower Owl.” From these findings—and based on Mesoamerican naming practices—we go on to suggest that the Atetelco toponym and the historical individual share the name of a common forebear, possibly that of a previously unidentified Teotihuacan martial patron deity. As such, the Early Classic Teotihuacan “Spearthrower Owl” deity has much in common with the legendary Huitzilopochtli of the Late Postclassic Mexica. Our reexamination of the murals from Atetelco shows the enormous potential that further studies in Teotihuacan writing and iconography still have for our understanding of the history and religion of this major Mesoamerican site.

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And currently I am reading "If Mountains Could Speak: Ancient Toponyms Recorded at Teotihuacan, Mexico" by Christophe Helmke and Jesper Nielsen.

All of their papers have been fantastic and I look forward to tracking down more of their work.

For any classicists/ancient historians out there, does Theodore Ayrault Dodge's history of Hannibal still hold up? Operational military history tends to have a longer shelf life than more socially-oriented stuff, but I'm interested in hearing your take.