The first record of a Leviship in any sense of the term dates back to around 5500 BME (Before Modern Era) in the Etrusean Calendar. The description is by the lioness warlord Serrin of Arnath, a city-state now part of Etrusea, saying that her unnamed foes:

"...had harneſth a rocke of ſingular ſize that they dide plath divers archers upon, & dide equipe with ſale that it mite be ſteer'd..."

Such early Leviships were little more than rocks with flat upper surfaces, sometimes carved down into bowl shapes to protect their crews from counter-fire. Plate 7 of the collection of Samara Palace, said to be an engraving by the great inventor Latifah of Narsus, is a series of illustrations on methods for anchoring, boarding and working a raw Levistone block, and even at that time (~4550 BME) it appears these were well developed and considered proven.

It is widely accepted that Latifah constructed the first wood-framed Leviship for the Sultan of Narsus in 4520 BME. The "Star of Narsus" was a hexagonal construction with bronze-reinforced wooden walkways connecting six carved Levistone blocks with projecting prongs, each carrying a mounted ballista (a technology that would be lost around a century later when the state of Narsus collapsed) with a central platform mounting a full-sized siege catapult. This fearsome engine was steered using sails mounted on the central platform, and is described in many accounts from the surrounding states. It appears to have ultimately disintegrated in a storm some time around 4400 BME: Narsi Oak timbers found at the bottom of Lake Culden in Brecht are widely believed to be the remains of the Star.

The development of the steel anchor bolt was a key step in the transition to modern Leviships; frame Leviships like the Star of Narsus were built around and between the Levistone boulders, while bolted Leviships could be attached directly to them. The first bolted Leviship, the Principality of Jasua's Moneta, was constructed around a row of five boulders which were arranged in a line, making her largely immune to issues with buckling in uneven winds which plagued the frame ships. Moneta still did not completely enclose her Levistone; Leviships of the era always used unrefined blocks or boulders, and their size required the stones project above Moneta's deck and below her underside.

Around 1200 BME the Basram alchemist Miguel di Fortuna conducted his famous experiments with Levistone, as part of his inquiries into what his field had always considered a divine or supernatural material. Among his discoveries were the first methods of mass-producing refined Levistone, and that when heated in a copper vessel designed to protect it from open flame, the resulting stone would increase its lift greatly; he would later conclude this was proof that Levistone was a method of converting phlogiston into mechanical motion.

His observations led to drastic refinements in Leviship design. The first vessel to incorporate his ideas was Majestic Princess, the royal yacht of Queen Emelia of Semanua, now part of Aludra. This vessel set the pattern for centuries of wooden Leviships, using six heating chambers with spherical stones over wood burners, allowing her to be constructed with a continuous keel like a conventional ship.

A scale replica of this beautiful vessel can be seen in the collection of the Alurna Museum of Culture; the ship herself was dismantled when Emelia's granddaughter Queen Esmeralda gave the Majestic Princess to the Empress of Aludra as a gift. Her heaters were used in a pair of aerial galleons, while her interior is now the Emerald Wing of the Aludran Imperial Palace.