Unusual wooden watercraft from the past.

The Song dynasty built human powered paddle wheel boats. In fact, Song technology was very advanced.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Radpaddelsch.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty_technology

However, it is the Turtle Ships of Korea that I found most intriguing. They and the Panokseon were used to defeat Japanese naval forces using Atakebune ships. There's much more information on the links below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship

http://www.themanyfacesofspaces.com/MFS-StrangeButTrue-ThingsOther20.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panokseon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atakebune

 

Well, there goes some more of my free time.

You've got me reading about Korean naval tactics in the 1500's with their early emphasis on modern-style ranged firepower, at a time when many of the world's navies (and their Japanese foes) were still operating in the 'grapple, board and engage in hand-to-hand combat' mode used a couple of thousand years earlier by the ancient Greeks.

 

Yep, with the the Internet, there are'nt enough hours in the day to do justice to a desire to know absolutely everything about anything. Long range cannon against muskets and swords! Of course, now you will lave to study Korean history.

Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggest the origins of the Korean people were Altaic language-speaking people from south-central Siberia,[4] who populated ancient Korea in successive waves from the Neolithic age to the Bronze Age.[5] The adoption of the Chinese writing system ("Hanja" in Korean) in the 2nd century BC, and Buddhism in the 4th century AD, had profound effects on the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Natural_History#Korea_Gallery

Then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_carpentry

From every link, another link.

P