Ancient Egyptian Boats (First Dynasty) – Abydos
Encyclopedia
The Abydos boats were discovered in 2000. At first glance they appear to be a great white, ‘ghostly’ fleet of 14 boat images in the desert sand. They are not the oldest boat remains to be discovered in Egypt as is sometimes proclaimed, but they are extremely important to the history of Egyptian boat design and nautical architecture.
issued a press release in which they described the discovery of the royal solar boats at Abydos. At a site a mile distant from the royal tombs, lines of mud brick uncovered by blowing sand were first noticed in 1988. Although, the Abydos boats are not the oldest boat remains to be discovered in Egypt, nor are they the world's first boats as is sometimes proclaimed, they are extremely important to the history of boat design and nautical architecture. Understandably, these brick remains at Abydos were first thought to be walls. In 1991, an important clarification was made. A research consensus decided that these bricks were remnants of ancient walls after all, but not in the usual sense. They were the boundaries for more than a dozen ship burials from an early dynasty. Each ship grave had its own brick boundary walls. The outline of each grave was in the shape of a boat, and the surface of each was covered with mud plaster and white wash. Small boulders at the prow or stern of each grave represented anchors. A great white, ‘ghostly’ fleet of 14 boats had been found in the desert. Because of the fragility of the boat remains, almost no excavation was done initially as the situation had to be carefully studied for future conservation.
joint. A fixed tenon is made by shaping the end of one timber to fit into a mortise (hole) that is cut into a second timber. A variation of this joint using a free tenon eventually became one of the most important features in Mediterranean and Egyptian shipbuilding. It creates a union between two planks or other components by inserting a separate tenon into a cavity (mortise) of the corresponding size cut into each component."
Seams between planks were filled with reed bundles, reeds also covered the floor of each Abydos boat. Without internal framing, some of these boats became twisted, as was unavoidable without an internal skeleton for support when out of the water. The wood of the Abydos boats was local Tamarix
- tamarisk, salt cedar - not cedar from Lebanon which was used for Khufu’s Solar Barque and favored for shipbuilding in Egypt in later dynasties.
Lebanon cedar was used for the poles and beams of the Umm el-Qa'ab
tombs and had already been imported earlier. Pigment residues hinted at bright colors. The wood planks were painted yellow on their outside and traces of white pigment have also been found. “A part of the mud brick casing suggests that there could have been a support for poles/pennants on top of the boats, as in the boats depicted on pottery or atop the archaic shrines onto some mace heads/palettes and in the HK loc. 29A cultural center.” .
This technology for ship construction persisted in Egypt for more than one thousand years and the standardization of this earliest phase of plank boat construction in Egypt is striking.
The use of unpegged joints seems odd, if not eccentric, and is not found in well established, ancient Mediterranean shipbuilding traditions. This approach allowed Egyptian boats used in trade to be easily disassembled, the planks transported at least 115 km through the desert and then re-assembled to be used on important trading routes such as those in the Red Sea
. There are pictographs of boats dating from Predynastic Egypt
and the First Dynasty along the first half of the route in the desert known to be used to reach the Red Sea from Upper Egypt. A sketch on an Ostracon
found at depicts priests carrying the Solar Bark of Amun
across the desert. This rock art is not only evidence for take apart, portable boats, but has magical significance as well.
, is a royal necropolis that is about one mile from the Abydos boat graves where early pharaohs were entombed. October 27, 2008, retrieved October 28, 2008.
The Abydos boats are the predecessors of the great solar boats of later dynasties upon which the Pharaoh joined the Sun God Ra and together they journeyed down the sacred Nile during the day. They would have had many of the important attributes and metaphors that accrued to the Solar Barks of later dynasties, indeed perhaps should be called Solar Boats of an earlier design. The magnificent Khufu ship
, that was built for the Pharaoh Khufu - Cheops - about c.2500 BC., is usually identified as the earliest Solar Ship. It was buried in a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
The Abydos boat graves were adjacent to a massive funerary enclosure for the late Dynasty II (ca. 2675 B.C.) Pharaoh Khasekhemwy
at Abydos which is 8 miles from the Nile. Umm el-Qa'ab, is a royal necropolis at Abydos, Egypt
where early pharaohs were entombed. However, these boat graves were established earlier than late in Dynyasty II, perhaps for the afterlife journeys of Hor-Aha
, the first king (ca. 2920-2770) of the First Dynasty of Egypt
, or Pharaoh Djer
also of Dynasty I. Two more recently located mortuary discoveries have been identified as those of King Aha, who may been the son of the famous King Narmer
to whom the first unification of Upper and Lower Egypt is often attributed.
by Walter Bryan Emery of which again only four were published. Finally two full-sized model boats made out of clay are known from Abu Roash Hill. Helwan is a huge cemetery field 20 km south of Cairo adjoining Saqqara in which at least 10,000 tombs have been cataloged. The size of Helwan indicates a very large population for Early Dynastic Memphis. Almost all the tombs date from Dynasty 0 through the Third Dynasty. There are 19 elite tombs where 1st Dynasty funeral boat burials have been discovered that resemble those at Abydos, but little published information is available.
Discovery
On Halloween, 2000, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Yale University Expedition to Abydos, EgyptAbydos, Egypt
Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...
issued a press release in which they described the discovery of the royal solar boats at Abydos. At a site a mile distant from the royal tombs, lines of mud brick uncovered by blowing sand were first noticed in 1988. Although, the Abydos boats are not the oldest boat remains to be discovered in Egypt, nor are they the world's first boats as is sometimes proclaimed, they are extremely important to the history of boat design and nautical architecture. Understandably, these brick remains at Abydos were first thought to be walls. In 1991, an important clarification was made. A research consensus decided that these bricks were remnants of ancient walls after all, but not in the usual sense. They were the boundaries for more than a dozen ship burials from an early dynasty. Each ship grave had its own brick boundary walls. The outline of each grave was in the shape of a boat, and the surface of each was covered with mud plaster and white wash. Small boulders at the prow or stern of each grave represented anchors. A great white, ‘ghostly’ fleet of 14 boats had been found in the desert. Because of the fragility of the boat remains, almost no excavation was done initially as the situation had to be carefully studied for future conservation.
Design and construction
The one exception to look but don't touch' was boat no.10 which the desert wind was slowly uncovering. For five days, archeologists carefully examined the midsection. They uncovered wooden planks, disintegrated rope and reed bundles. Wood eating ants had reduced much of the hull to frass (ant excrement) but the frass had retained the shape of the original hull. The midsection of this boat revealed the construction methods used and confirmed the oldest ‘planked’ constructed boat yet discovered. No.10’s construction revealed that the boat was built from the outside in, there was no internal frame. Averaging 75’ long and 7’-10’ wide at their greatest width, these boats were only about two feet deep with narrow prow and stern. Several boats were white plastered as were the Abydos tombs, and no.10 was painted yellow. “One of the most important indigenous woodworking techniques was the fixed Mortise and tenonMortise and tenon
The mortise and tenon joint has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at an angle of 90°. In its basic form it is both simple and strong. Although there are many joint variations, the basic mortise and tenon...
joint. A fixed tenon is made by shaping the end of one timber to fit into a mortise (hole) that is cut into a second timber. A variation of this joint using a free tenon eventually became one of the most important features in Mediterranean and Egyptian shipbuilding. It creates a union between two planks or other components by inserting a separate tenon into a cavity (mortise) of the corresponding size cut into each component."
Seams between planks were filled with reed bundles, reeds also covered the floor of each Abydos boat. Without internal framing, some of these boats became twisted, as was unavoidable without an internal skeleton for support when out of the water. The wood of the Abydos boats was local Tamarix
Tamarix
The genus Tamarix is composed of about 50-60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa...
- tamarisk, salt cedar - not cedar from Lebanon which was used for Khufu’s Solar Barque and favored for shipbuilding in Egypt in later dynasties.
Lebanon cedar was used for the poles and beams of the Umm el-Qa'ab
Umm el-Qa'ab
Umm el-Qa`āb is the necropolis of the Early Dynastic kings at Abydos, in Egypt. Its modern name means Mother of Pots, as the whole area is littered with the broken pot shards of offerings made in earlier times...
tombs and had already been imported earlier. Pigment residues hinted at bright colors. The wood planks were painted yellow on their outside and traces of white pigment have also been found. “A part of the mud brick casing suggests that there could have been a support for poles/pennants on top of the boats, as in the boats depicted on pottery or atop the archaic shrines onto some mace heads/palettes and in the HK loc. 29A cultural center.” .
This technology for ship construction persisted in Egypt for more than one thousand years and the standardization of this earliest phase of plank boat construction in Egypt is striking.
The use of unpegged joints seems odd, if not eccentric, and is not found in well established, ancient Mediterranean shipbuilding traditions. This approach allowed Egyptian boats used in trade to be easily disassembled, the planks transported at least 115 km through the desert and then re-assembled to be used on important trading routes such as those in the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
. There are pictographs of boats dating from Predynastic Egypt
Predynastic Egypt
The Prehistory of Egypt spans the period of earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt in ca. 3100 BC, starting with King Menes/Narmer....
and the First Dynasty along the first half of the route in the desert known to be used to reach the Red Sea from Upper Egypt. A sketch on an Ostracon
Ostracon
An ostracon is a piece of pottery , usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use...
found at depicts priests carrying the Solar Bark of Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
across the desert. This rock art is not only evidence for take apart, portable boats, but has magical significance as well.
Ritual significance
The Abydos boats were found in boat graves with their prows pointed towards the Nile. They are the royal boats intended for the Pharaoh in the afterlife, they are his ships for travel in this realm. Umm el-Qa'abUmm el-Qa'ab
Umm el-Qa`āb is the necropolis of the Early Dynastic kings at Abydos, in Egypt. Its modern name means Mother of Pots, as the whole area is littered with the broken pot shards of offerings made in earlier times...
, is a royal necropolis that is about one mile from the Abydos boat graves where early pharaohs were entombed. October 27, 2008, retrieved October 28, 2008.
The Abydos boats are the predecessors of the great solar boats of later dynasties upon which the Pharaoh joined the Sun God Ra and together they journeyed down the sacred Nile during the day. They would have had many of the important attributes and metaphors that accrued to the Solar Barks of later dynasties, indeed perhaps should be called Solar Boats of an earlier design. The magnificent Khufu ship
Khufu ship
The Khufu ship is an intact full-size vessel from Ancient Egypt that was sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC. The ship was almost certainly built for Khufu , the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt...
, that was built for the Pharaoh Khufu - Cheops - about c.2500 BC., is usually identified as the earliest Solar Ship. It was buried in a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
The Abydos boat graves were adjacent to a massive funerary enclosure for the late Dynasty II (ca. 2675 B.C.) Pharaoh Khasekhemwy
Khasekhemwy
Khasekhemwy was the fifth and final king of the Second dynasty of Egypt. Little is known of Khasekhemwy, other than that he led several significant military campaigns and built several monuments, still extant, mentioning war against the Northerners...
at Abydos which is 8 miles from the Nile. Umm el-Qa'ab, is a royal necropolis at Abydos, Egypt
Abydos, Egypt
Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...
where early pharaohs were entombed. However, these boat graves were established earlier than late in Dynyasty II, perhaps for the afterlife journeys of Hor-Aha
Hor-Aha
Hor-Aha is considered the second pharaoh of the first dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the thirty-first century BC.- Name :...
, the first king (ca. 2920-2770) of the First Dynasty of Egypt
First dynasty of Egypt
The first dynasty of Ancient Egypt is often combined with the Dynasty II under the group title, Early Dynastic Period of Egypt...
, or Pharaoh Djer
Djer
Djer was the second or third pharaoh of the first dynasty of Egypt, which dates from approximately 3100 BC. Some scholars, however, debate whether the first pharaoh, Menes or Narmer, and Hor-Aha might have been different rulers. If they were separate rulers, this would make Djer the third pharaoh...
also of Dynasty I. Two more recently located mortuary discoveries have been identified as those of King Aha, who may been the son of the famous King Narmer
Narmer
Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period . He is thought to be the successor to the Protodynastic pharaohs Scorpion and/or Ka, and he is considered by some to be the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and therefore the first pharaoh of unified Egypt.The...
to whom the first unification of Upper and Lower Egypt is often attributed.
First Dynasty ships
The Abydos boats are not the only find of First Dynasty ships. 19 boat burials were found at Helwan by Z. Saad, but only four out of these were poorly published. Six boat graves were found at SaqqaraSaqqara
Saqqara is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. Saqqara features numerous pyramids, including the world famous Step pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb due to its rectangular base, as well as a number of...
by Walter Bryan Emery of which again only four were published. Finally two full-sized model boats made out of clay are known from Abu Roash Hill. Helwan is a huge cemetery field 20 km south of Cairo adjoining Saqqara in which at least 10,000 tombs have been cataloged. The size of Helwan indicates a very large population for Early Dynastic Memphis. Almost all the tombs date from Dynasty 0 through the Third Dynasty. There are 19 elite tombs where 1st Dynasty funeral boat burials have been discovered that resemble those at Abydos, but little published information is available.
External links
- Archaeologists Excavate Boats That Carried Kings to the Afterlife, by John Noble Wilford, October 31, 2000.
- After 5,000 year voyage, world's oldest built boats deliver. by Richard Pierce, Nov '00, rev maj '04.
- Archaeologists discover ancient ships in Egypt, by Tim Stoddard, March 18, 2005.
- Early Pharaohs' Ghostly Fleet. by Tim Stoddard, October 31, 2000.
- Solar Ships and Solar Boats. March, 2004.