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[248] γόμφοι are wooden pegs, such as shipwrights call ‘trenails,’ as distinct from “ἦλοι”, which are of metal.

ἁρμονίαι may represent some simple form of mortice and tenon, by which one piece of wood is made to fit into another, so that it can be driven home with a few blows of the hammer. Brieger (Philolog. 29. p. 193 foll.) understands by “ἁρμονίαι” strips of elastic wood, e.g. a young sapling split longitudinally, pinned across the flat timbers at the bottom of the hull, in which interpretation “γόμφοι” and “ἁρμονίαι” would be very closely connected: the real joint being the “ἁρμονίαι” pinned down by “γόμφοι”. (See Appendix on Homeric Ship.) Herodotus uses the word in his description of the Egyptian boats (2. 96), “τὰς ἁρμονίας . . ἐπάκτωσαν τῇ βύβλῳ”, but there he is only speaking of the joints between the planks which needed calking.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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