Boats

Drawing on archaeological and literary evidence, this book examines the importance of the boat in Egyptian ritual and belief as well as everyday life. The sun god was thought to travel the sky in a solar boat and Egyptians believed that the deserving might join the god Osiris in his divine bark after death. Boats played an important part in funerary ritual; models were often placed in tombs to provide the deceased with safe passage through the Winding Waterway in the underworld. Also, boats were frequently depicted in tomb-painting. The Nile has always been a vital transport artery for Egypt, and boats the principal means of travel. Early papyrus skiffs gradually gave way to wooden craft of increasing size and sophistication, ranging from fishing boats and barges to sea-going warships, ships of state, and enormous obelisk barges used to transport stone to temples and monuments. This book traces the development of different types of boat and the techniques of their construction through the Old, Middle and New Kingdom periods. This book is illustrated with photographs of boat models and paintings and with line drawings.
Other work by the author includes "A Glossary of Ancient Egyptian Nautical Titles and Terms", and "Model Boats from the Tomb of Tutankhamun".