Naval

Phoenician War Galley

Maritime History/ Ancient Mesopotamian Ships/ Phoenician War Galley This 19th century print depicts a Phoenician bireme, a war galley with two banks of oars, battering ram, and single mast. Deck, passengers and pavisade were above the rowers. This design was also favored by early Greek and Tyrian galleys. The bireme introduced by the Phoenicians c...

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Egyptian Papyrus Boat

Egyptian ship made of papyrus is one of the ancient in the world. Firstly it represented itself only a papyrus raft and to about 3500 year B.C. it became already a real ship. The ship was used only for navigation on the river Nile. Her bow and her stern were raised specially to pull her across shallows. But foreseeing the possibility to raise the b...

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Barques, Barges and Byblos Boats

By Anita Stratos. The ancient Egyptians once again reached out of the past to awe the world with another of their buried secrets - the Abydos ships. In 1991 in the desert near the temple of Khentyamentiu, archaeologists uncovered the remains of 14 ships dating back to the early first dynasty (2950-2775 BC), possibly associated with King Aha, the fi...

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Ancient Egyptian Boats

Egyptians pioneered the development of river craft and there were many different types built for various uses. Agricultural produce, troops, cattle, stone and funeral processions were all carried on the Nile and its canals. These boats were made of bundles of bound papyrus reeds. Papyrus is different from paper because papyrus is a laminated materi...

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The Egyptian Mastery of Ships

Rediscover Ancient Egypt: The Egyptian Mastery of Ships Transferring people, minerals, and goods between Ancient Egypt and other faraway places was much more extensive and common than is generally imagined. The seas were not barriers, but high roads for active international commerce. Traveling by water has been (and continues to be) the most effec...

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Amarna Period State Ship

The state ship of an Egyptian magnate of the time of Tutankhamun. Essentially a large and gaily decorated version of the standard Nile passenger vessel, the state ship of Huy, Viceroy of Nubia in 1360 B.C., is provided with quarters (forward of the deckhouse) for his chariot horses. Traditional scenes of the god Montu smiting the king's foreign ene...

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A Noble's Yacht of the Middle Kingdom

A nobleman's personal ship of the Middle Kingdom. Known from well-made funerary models, as well as from tomb wall-pictures, such vessels were used in the Middle Kingdom (2040- 1786 B.C.) to transport potentates and their bodyguards. The oars of the period are characteristically scoop-shaped and sometimes mounted on outswerving wooden thole-pins of ...

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Egyptian Ships in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Ships in Art History: Egyptian Ships in Ancient Egypt and Egptian Art Hapshetsut's Expedition to Punt The record of ancient seafaring and trade as recorded in Egyptian art at Queen Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri Circa 1480 BCE. Hatshepsut is well known for her ambitious building projects in Egypt particularly the erection of several ...

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Shipbuilding in Ancient Egypt

Eternal Egypt "" Shipbuilding in Ancient Egypt Beginning in the Old Kingdom, numerous reliefs and paintings depict shipbuilding. The most distinguished of them is found in Saqqara in the mastaba of the official Ti from the Fifth Dynasty. Workers are shown lopping the trunk of a tree with axes and smoothing it with an adze, an axlike tool with a cur...

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A Warship of Ramesses III Fleet

A seagoing warship of Ramesses III's fleet. A temple wall at Thebes shows us such ships in a naval battle with a fleet of the "Peoples of the Sea", a wave of migrating nations that appeared in the eastern Mediterranean about 1200 B.C. The ship is provided with high hoardings on the bulwarks to protect rowers and marines from missiles. The steering ...

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