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. Until recently, such finds of actual vessels were exceptional, with only about 20 examples known. The resulting uncertainty concerning the true nature of Egyptian ships is particularly acute during the Late period (664-332 BC), when images of them become much rarer. Against this backdrop, it is easy to see why the discovery of more than 70 wrecks – many probably dating to this Late period – in the former waterways of Thonis-Heracleion promises a revolution in knowledge.
The excavation of the first of these craft, known as Ship 17, has recently been published (see further information, p.40). ‘We did three seasons of work on the ship, but in total that was only 50 days,’ says Alexander Belov, author of the report, and archaeologist with Franck Goddio’s Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine [IEASM], as well as a researcher with the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ‘We were a very small team: it was just me, a draftsman, and another archaeological diver. Because Ship 17 was only 6.5m to 7m underwater, we could spend lots of time on the wreck: up to eight hours on some days. Visual surveillance of Thonis-Heracleion by divers in 2001 revealed that wooden objects were buried on the site, and Ship 17 was the first to be properly excavated. It was chosen because of its size, about 28m in length, and because it was not buried deep in the sediment. Even then, some of it rested in the underlying clay, which means you have to dig very slowly. The clay is so dense that you have to cut it away with a spatula, taking great care not to damage the wood. So those were the reasons, but we now know that it is a type of ship called a baris – from which we ultimately get the English word ‘barge’ – and it is representative of many, many vessels of the same type at the site.’
Ships’ graveyard
Despite the dramatic fate that befell Thonis-Heracleion (see CWA 60), Ship 17 was already submerged when the city was inundated. ‘It had 14 poles around the hull to fix it in place,’ explains Alexander. ‘Damian Robinson, the head of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, has looked at the context of these ships, and his conclusion is that most of them are not shipwrecks, but that this was a ships’ graveyard. Some of them were abandoned, and some of them were reused in harbour infrastructure. It seems that Ship 17 was used to increase the length of a nearby pier.’
