sacred and secular ancient egyptian ships and boats

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i 1 1 . 4 ( O t o b e r 2 0 0 7 )

A m e r i c a n J o u r n a l o f A r c h a e o l o g y O n l i

n e B o o k R e v i e w

c o p y r g h t © 2 0 0 7 b y t h e a r h e o l o g l i n s t t u t e o f a m e r

Sacred and Secular: ancient egyptian

ShipS and BoatS

by cheRyl a. waRd. PP. xiv + 162, b&w figs. 79, tables 16. the univeRsity

MuseuM, univeRsity Of Pennsylvania, PhiladePhia 2000. $77.75. isbn 0-7872-

7182-9 (clOth).

The Nile was the primary transport route

o ancient Egypt, and watercrat played a keyrole at all levels o Egyptian society. Testiying

to its importance are thousands o surviving

boat images and models inorming us about

the appearance o Egyptian ships and boats,and texts telling us about shipbuilding materi-

als, ship construction, names o hull parts, ship

types, the uses o ships, tonnages, and voyages.

Much o this material has been studied andpublished (B. Landström, Ships of the Pharaohs [New York 1970]; A. Göttlicher and W. Wer-

ner, Schiffsmodelle in alten Ägypten [Wiesbaden

1971]; S. Vinson, Egyptian Boats and Ships,

[Princes Risborough 1999]). The excavationand publication o a large wooden ship ound

near Khuu’s pyramid brought scholars and

the public or the frst time into direct contactwith the sophistication o Egyptian wooden

shipbuilding (N. Jenkins, The Boat Beneath thePyramid [New York 1980]; P. Lipke, The RoyalShip of Cheops [Greenwich 1984]).

It is less commonly known that we now

possess the remains o more than 20 boats and

ships rom ancient Egypt, nearly all ranging in

date rom the Predynastic period to the MiddleKingdom, with the exception o one wreck o

the Persian period. Ward’s monograph is thefrst to provide a comprehensive study o thesewooden hull remains and place them in their

cultural context (closing date o manuscript

is 1996). Her work signifcantly enhances our

understanding o Egyptian shipbuilding tech-nology and water transport, as well as their

role in society. For these reasons, it deserves

a place in every research library concerned

with ancient Egypt or technology. Written inaccessible language with ample illustrations

and a glossary o nautical terms, it should fnd

its way also onto the bookshelves o many layreaders.

The study o ancient Mediterranean ship-

wrecks was revolutionized in the 1970s by

J. Richard Stey o the Institute o NauticalArchaeology at Texas A&M University. Stey

developed rigorous standards o documenta-

tion and was the frst to point out the potential

o shipwreck studies to go beyond technicalanalyses in order to recover environmental,

economic, social, and cultural inormation

(Wooden Shipbuilding and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks [College Station 1994]). Ward, who

was trained by Stey, ollows in his ootsteps.Whereas our knowledge o ancient shipbuild-

ing in this area o the world was until now

largely ocused on Mediterranean seagoingvessels rom later periods, the Egyptian re-

mains inorm us about river crat as early as

the Bronze Age.

Ward’s introductory chapter gives anoverview o the rise and organization o the

Pharaonic state, the role o watercrat in society

and art, as well as the process and organization

o shipbuilding. Chapter 2 reviews the mate-rials used. In contrast to prevailing opinion,

Egyptian texts list a surprising abundanceo native woods suitable or boatbuilding,which oten have been ignored by Egyptolo-

gists because o the requent use o imported

woods. Chapter 3 discusses orm and unction

o Egyptian tools and analyzes Predynastic toOld Kingdom woodworking practices. Ward

concludes that late Predynastic urniture and

cofn makers had already established a num-

ber o key characteristics o later Egyptianwooden watercrat: the economical use o local



A m e r i c a n J o u r n a l o f A r c h a e o l o g y O n l i n e B o o k R e v i e w

essays put together rather than a strongly

integrated text. So the chapter on the KhuuI ship goes into great detail about construc-

tion and unction, but, unlike the chapters

on the Abydos, Dashur, and Lisht vessels, it

does not elaborate on its signifcance in termso centralized control over resources at the

height o Pharaonic power. Ward estimates

the amount o imported wood needed or the

royal boats o Abydos and Dashur but notor the Khuu I ship, nor does she mention

Lipke’s estimate o 40 tons (1984:103), three

to our times the amount needed or all o the

Abydos or Dashur boats together. Elsewhere,Ward gives the rame spacing o the Khuu I

ship and the rock-cut boats o Khara but not

o the Lisht reighters where rame spacing was

crucial or hull strength.The chapter on the Mataria boat (ch. 11) and

the concluding chapter (ch. 12) seem hastilywritten. For instance, Ward frst states that

locked tenons on the Mataria boat were usedonly to join rames to planking (138) but then

contradicts hersel (they joined planking edge

to edge [143]). Several passages lack necessary

reerences (e.g., “by the later Old Kingdom, anautobiographical inscription brags o building

a 30-meter-long reighter in only seventeen

days” [138]). It would have been helpul i

the concluding chapter had contained a tablecomparing the major characteristics o all

the discussed hulls. Minor problems are the

absence o a scale in many illustrations and

the omission o the high, middle, and lowchronologies in the timeline (appx. 2).

In spite o these ew shortcomings, this study

provides ascinating insights into the world o

Egyptian boatbuilding and woodworking, andis a must-read or anyone interested in these

key acets o ancient Egyptian lie.

aleydiS Van de Moortel

departMent of claSSicS uniVerSity of tenneSSee

knoxVille, tenneSSee 37996-0413

[email protected]

sacred and secular ancient egyptian ships and boats

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