Tigris (boat)

**Tigris**
	Model of the Tigris
Ship data
flag	U.N.
Ship type	Reed boat
Commissioning	1977
Rigging and rigging
Number of masts	1
Number of sails	1

Tigris was the name of a reed boat that the Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl built in Iraq in the 1970s based on the Sumerian model.

The history

Heyerdahl wanted to prove experimentally that the Sumerians were able to sail the sea with boats made of reed 6,000 years ago and to trade with India and Africa in this way .

The expedition

The journey began on November 24, 1977 in Al-Qurna ( Iraq ) at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, led through the Shatt al-Arab and the Persian Gulf to Bahrain (historically Dilmun ), then through the Strait from Hormuz to Oman (hist . Magan ) and further in an easterly direction to Karachi in Pakistan (to the west was the hist. Meluhha ) not far from the Indus Delta. The second part of the voyage of the eleven-man crew, sailing under the flag of the United Nations , headed west across the Arabian Sea to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa - the destination was the “ gold land of Punt ” in what is now Somalia .

The states on the Horn were in the Ogadenkrieg , so that a passage into the Red Sea was not possible. As a protest against the militarization of the region, Heyerdahl and the international crew of the Tigris burned the reed boat on April 3, 1978, after 6800 km or 143 days, on the sea off Djibouti.

A letter from the crew to the Secretary General of the United Nations stated:

"[...] to protest against the inhumanity in the world of 1978, [...] Surrounded by military aircraft and warships of the most civilized and highly developed nations, we [...] are refused to go ashore [...] because the Brothers and neighbors everywhere else to kill each other by means made available to them by those who lead humanity on our common path into the 3rd millennium. "