The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2018) 47.1: 45–56 doi: 10.1111/1095-9270.12294 Gyptis: Sailing Replica of a 6th-century-BC Archaic Greek Sewn Boat Patrice Pomey and Pierre Poveda Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, MCC, CCJ, Centre Camille Jullian, F-13000, Aix-en-Provence, France, pomey@mmsh.univ-aix.fr, poveda@mmsh.univ-aix.fr A sailing replica based on the archaeological remains and structural analysis of the 6th-century archaic Greek sewn boat Jules- Verne 9 was built in Marseille as part of the city’s European Capital of Culture 2013 programme. Full-scale reconstruction allowed investigation of specific aspects of the methods used to build a shell-first, sewn-plank, and lashed-frame vessel, as well as learning the gestures and know-how of the original shipbuilders. The first two seasons of sailing trials, including short journeys in the Bay of Marseille and longer, coast-hopping expeditions, reflecting the uses of the original vessel have taken place and are reported here. © 2018 The Authors Key words: sailing replica, experimental archaeology, sewn boat, Marseille, archaic, Jules-Verne 9. S tudies of shipwrecks lead, in the best cases, when there are sufcient archaeological remains, to graphic reconstruction of the original ship and, much more rarely, to sailing replicas. The experimental approach remains fundamental, however, insofar as it allows hypotheses concerning the construction methods employed to be validated, the gestures and know-how of the shipwrights to be rediscovered, and to establish a ‘chaˆ ıne op´ eratoire’ and assess its use and performance. In this respect, if experimentation may take many forms, the construction of a sailing replica is the most advanced stage (Crumlin-Pedersen and Vinnet, 1986; McGrail, 1992; Coates et al., 1995; Crumlin-Pedersen, 1995; Pomey and Rieth, 2005; Bennett, 2009). Sailing replicas of ancient ships based on archaeological data and carried out within an experimental archaeology programme have remained quite rare in the Mediterranean until now. Only Kyrenia II, a replica of the Greek 4th-century-BC wreck (Katzev and Womer-Katzev, 1989; Katzev, 1990), and Olympias the floating hypothesis of a Greek 5th-century trireme (Morrison and Coates, 1989; Coates et al., 1990), both built in Greece in the 1980s, and lastly, the Ma‘agan Mikhael II, replica of the Greek 5th-century-BC wreck, recently launched in December 2016 (Kahanov, 2014– 2015) can meet these criteria. In France, since the construction of a hypothetical replica of an ancient trireme in 1861 by A. Jal and H. Dupuy de Lome at the request of Napoleon III (Pomey and Rieth, 2001)— the earliest experiment in naval archaeology ever conducted—no such programme had been undertaken. The construction of Gyptis, the sailing replica of an archaic Greek sewn boat of the 6th century BC, today partly fills this gap. Jules-Verne 9 wreck The project started in July 1993 with the discovery in Marseille of two archaic Greek shipwrecks during excavations in Place Jules Verne, assigned to the nautical archaeology team of the Centre Camille Jullian (Pomey, 1995) (Fig. 1). Abandoned near the shore, towards the end of the 6th century BC, both are wrecks of boats built by the middle of the century by the second generation of the Greek colonists from Phocaea who founded Massalia-Marseille around 600 BC. As a result, these wrecks reflect shipbuilding techniques in use in Phocaea and in the Aegean Sea during the archaic period, which Greek settlers brought with them to Marseille. Due to their exceptional interest, both wrecks were preserved to be presented to the public. They were recovered at the end of the excavation and sent to the Arc Nucleart laboratory in Grenoble for conservation and restoration (Bernard-Maugiron, 2007). Since 2013, they have been on display at the Marseille History Museum. While lying one against the other in the same archaeological context, the remains correspond to two diferent boats (Pomey, 1998, 2001, 2003). The larger wreck, Jules-Verne 7, with a preserved length of 13m, is that of a small sailing merchant vessel, originally about 15m long. Its construction corresponds to the technical transition that marks the adoption of the © 2018 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2018 The Nautical Archaeology Society. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.