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Above Egyptian boatbuilding. Here, the keel is being trimmed with an adze, as shown in a 3rd-millennium BC depiction in the Tomb of Ti at Saqqara. Traditionally, the study of Egyptian boats has been heavily dependent on such images.
Ship 17: a wreck in the Nile
The emporium of Thonis-Heracleion lay at the westernmost entrance to the Nile. When this city sank into the Mediterranean, it created an extraordinary underwater repository of ancient activity, complete with ports and canals crammed with traces of ancient craft. Alexander Belov told Matthew Symonds what the first ship from the city to be excavated reveals about rivercraft that once caught Herodotus’ eye.
It is hard to overstate the significance of ships and boats to ancient Egyptians. Their language boasted over 100 words for such vessels, which enjoyed an importance that stretched well beyond the mundane but essential tasks of fishing, trade, and transport. The sun god supposedly voyaged through the sky by boat, while cult images of other deities would reside in shrines resembling rivercraft. Despite this prominence, study of the ships and boats themselves has traditionally relied on images, ancient texts, and models that were intended to convey the deceased to the afterlife. Pharaoh Khufu famously preferred to think big and had two full-size boats buried beside his Great Pyramid tomb. Unti
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