This reproduction is remarkable under only two respects: in the first place, because it represents biremes, although it may be doubted whether the two banks of oars were used at the same time; secondly, the ships have rams. This peculiarity differentiates the Phœnician ships sensibly from those of the Egyptians. (_Dictionnaire des Antiquité grecques et romaines_, p. 25; Dr. ~Moritz Rühlmann~, p. 30.) _It is the oldest reproduction known of boats having rams._ The Phœnicians, by their expeditions along the shores of the Mediterranean, toward Greece, Italy, Africa and even as far as England, according to some authors, while others take them even to the Baltic Sea, exerted a great influence on the art of shipbuilding as it was practised on the Mediterranean. This influence must have made itself felt in the colonies which they founded, and among which Carthage was the most important. There is no doubt that the naval architecture of the Phœnicians differed little from that of the Greeks and from that of the Romans. Let it be remembered, in this connection, that the old models of ships in the Netherlands, for example, remained unchanged for many centuries and that the same fact has been found everywhere else. It is permissible, then, to assume that the types of boats which existed in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages do not depart greatly from those which date from the time of the Romans. If the progressive development of the ship through the ages be considered, it is unlikely that the ancients built ships of fabulous dimensions; on the contrary, their vessels must have been rather small. The first important changes effected in ships were the consequence of the invention of gunpowder, and are not directly related to the evolution of nations. The new direction given to the art of shipbuilding does not coincide therefore with the end of Ancient History and the beginning of the History of the Middle Ages. It seems, then, inexact, under these conditions, to speak of the art of the ancients as of something which forms an isolated whole. If, judging by the models exhumed, the Egyptian ship had already reached a high degree of perfection, the Egyptians were still having recourse to the lights of the Phœnicians, it is evident that the Phœnician ship must have been the better. Therefore, all the old reproductions, without distinction, leave much to be desired, the result, doubtless, of the incapacity of the sculptor or the painter, which still happens very often in our own time.