Greek fire

Description

An archaic name for a flammable liquid mixture that probably contained wood chips or Sawdust soaked with Rosin and/or Pitch. Greek fire may also have contained Sulfur, Quicklime, Petroleum, and calcium phosphide. The dangerous liquid was invented about 673 and was used by the Byzantine fleet to set fire to other ships. Greek fire was said to keep burning even in water.

Synonyms and Related Terms

Byzantine fire; wildfire; liquid fire

Authority

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 672

• Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at http://www.wikipedia.com Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire (accessed Sept. 30, 2005)

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000