Naval

Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats

The slow flowing Nile was ideal for transportation and from earliest times Egyptians built boats for transportation, fishing and enjoyment. Their importance in everyday life is reflected in the role they played in mythology and religion. Little is left of actual boats. Remains of Old Kingdom boats were found at Tarkhan and Abydos, and King Khufu's ...

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Ancient Egypt: Early Ship Construction

Khufu's Solar Boat. In modern ship construction a skeleton is built first which is then covered with a skin. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms ships were built from the outside in. This way of doing things was mostly due to a lack of timber suitable for keels, but continued for centuries after they began importing cedar wood from Byblos which was ...

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Ancient Egyptians Boat

By Dr. Sherin ElKhawaga. 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 papy...

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The Barge of Pharaoh Khufu

The state barge of King Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty. Based on the preserved Nile barge found beside the Great Pyramid and a relief representation from the Fifth Dynasty temple of Sahure, this reconstruction shows a royal state ship of the type known to the Egyptians as a dwa-towy (that which the Two Lands praise). The Great Pyramid example, which w...

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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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