Abydos solar boats
The Abydos solar boats are tombs in the shape of sun boats that date back to about 2740 BC. Were built at Abydos .
Location and assignment
The Abydos solar boats were found around 1.5 kilometers from the early dynastic royal necropolis of Umm el-Qaab and are part of the Abydos archaeological monument near Sohag on the western bank of the Nile, 160 kilometers north of Luxor and about 15 kilometers southwest of today's city of el -Balyana .
They are located next to the massive adobe structure Shunet El Zebib, which is attributed to Pharaoh Chasechemui of the 2nd Dynasty . Shunet ez-Zebib is one of several such “enclosing walls” at this location from the 1st Dynasty and is located almost a mile from the early dynastic royal cemetery of Umm el-Qaab.
In the early Umm el-Qaab cemetery, about 3 kilometers from the edge of the desert and 2 kilometers from Abydos, the graves of most of the rulers of the early dynastic period of Egypt were located in the so-called B cemetery. In the underground cemetery next to it, more graves were discovered that could be assigned to the kings of the pre-dynastic period . The ships are assigned to the 2nd dynasty.
discovery
The ground monument was discovered in 1991 and in 2000 14 boats were identified and considered the oldest ship finds from around 3000 BC. Interpreted. Fourteen approximately 20 to 30 m long hulls were buried in the sand and were salvaged and preserved by a team from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Yale University and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts .
On October 31, 2000, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Yale University's Expedition to Abydos, Egypt issued a press release describing the discovery of the Royal Sun Ships at Abydos. At a location a mile from the Royal Tombs, lines of adobe bricks that had been exposed by a sandstorm were first discovered in 1988 . These remains of bricks in Abydos were initially viewed as walls.
Dismountable construction
Boat no. 10 was exposed by the wind and its central part was examined by archaeologists for five days. The fossil structure from termite solution showed planking , ropes and bundles of reeds. It represents the oldest ship construction made of planks to date. The examination of the construction of the boat showed that it was built from the outside in, as there was no inner frame made of ribs . With an average length of 23 m (18/19 to 24/27 - 75 feet ) and a maximum width of 2.3 - 3 m (7 to 10 feet), these boats were only about 60 cm (two feet) deep and had a narrow bow and stern. Several boats were plastered white, as were the Abydos tombs, and number 10 was painted yellow.
Detachable fixed connections in shipbuilding such as mortise locks and tenons were reconstructed from termite solution. A solid tenon is made by shaping the end of one wood to fit into a hole that is cut in a second wood. A variation of this connection using a free tenon eventually became one of the most important features in Mediterranean and Egyptian shipbuilding. It creates a connection between two planks or other components by inserting a separate tenon into a cavity (mortise lock) of the appropriate size that is cut into each component.
The joints between the planks were sealed with reeds, and reeds also covered the floor of each Abydos boat. The boat hull made of planks was not attached to an inner frame made of ribs, which shows its decorative cultic character, and was found twisted.
The wood of the Abydos boats came from native tamarisk (salt cedar) - not Lebanon cedar , which was used for Cheops ' sun ship at the foot of the Cheops pyramid and was preferred in later dynasties for seaworthy shipbuilding in Egypt.
The wood of the Lebanon cedar was used for the girders and beams of the Umm-el-Qa'ab tombs and had been imported before; Pigment residues indicate bright colors. The planks were painted yellow on the outside and traces of white pigment were also found.
Part of the mud brick shell suggests that rods or pennants could have been erected on the sun boats, as in the boats depicted on ceramics or on the archaic shrines on some club heads and pallets and as they were found in the HK locomotive.
The technology of plank boat building in Egypt was standardized in this early phase to such an extent that it could be cited in these solar boats.
The use of detachable connections is not found in well-established, old Mediterranean shipbuilding traditions. This approach made it possible to easily disassemble Egyptian boats that were used in trade, haul the boards over long distances across the desert, and then reassemble them for use on key trade routes such as those in the Red Sea.
There are pictograms of illiterate Egypt and First Dynasty boats along the first half of the route in the desert that is known to head from Upper Egypt to the Red Sea. A sketch on an ostracon shows priests carrying the sun barge from Amun through the desert. This ground monument not only passes on the tradition of the collapsible, portable boats, but also has cultic significance.
Cultic meaning
The prow of the sun boats in Abydos faces the Nile . Experts consider them to be the royal boats destined for the pharaoh in the afterlife. Umm el-Qa'ab is a royal necropolis about 1.6 km from the Abydos boat tombs, where early pharaohs were buried.
The Abydos boats are the forerunners of the great solar barges of later dynasties, on which the pharaoh joined the sun god Re and went down the holy Nile together during the day. They would have many of the important attributes and metaphors associated with the solar boats of later dynasties, and perhaps should even be called solar boats of an earlier design. The Cheops solar boat - approx. 2500 BC Usually identified as the earliest solar bark. She was buried in a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid in Giza.
The Abydos boat tombs were next to a massive burial site for Pharaoh Chasechemui from the late Dynasty II (approx. 2675 BC) in Abydos, 8 miles from the Nile. Umm el-Qa'ab is a royal necropolis in Abydos, Egypt, where early pharaohs were buried. However, these boat graves were erected earlier than late in the second dynasty, possibly for journeys after the life of Hor-Aha , the first king (approx. 2920-2770) of the first dynasty of Egypt, or Pharaoh Djer, also from the first dynasty In More recently found bodies have been identified as those of King Aha, who may have been the son of the famous King Narmer , who is often credited with the first unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Sculpture or buoyant boat
Fossils from termite solution on the planks of native tamarisk (salt cedar) were found. Frames or malls , on which planks are applied today, were not found. It is unclear whether a mud brick formed along the support line can take on the function of frames or malls and whether the bark body formed in this way displaces enough water to float with the mud brick, if necessary.
In 1991 it was found that the mud bricks are remnants of walls. They were the boundaries for more than a dozen ship burials from an early dynasty. Each ship's grave had its own walls. The outline of each tomb was in the shape of a boat, and the surface of each tomb was covered with mud plaster and whitewash. Small boulders at the bow or stern of each grave served as anchors. Due to the fragility of the remains of the boat, almost no excavations were initially carried out, as the situation had to be carefully examined for future conservation.
First Dynasty barges
The Abydos solar barges are not the only First Dynasty barque found. 19 boat burials were found in Helwan in 1969 by Zaki Youssef Saad , but only four of them were briefly published scientifically. In Saqqara were from Walter Bryan Emery six boat graves found, of which, in turn, were published only four. Finally, two large clay model boats are known from Abu Roash Hill . In Helwan (a suburb of Cairo on the east side of the Nile) there is a huge cemetery field next to Saqqara, 20 km south of Cairo, in which at least 10,000 graves have been cataloged. The size of Helwan indicates a very large population for early dynastic Memphis . Almost all of the graves date from the Egyptian predynasty to the third dynasty. There are 19 elite tombs where 1st Dynasty funeral boats similar to those in Abydos were discovered, but little published information is available.
literature
- John Noble Wilford: Early Pharaohs' Ghostly Fleet; Archaeologists Excavate Boats That Carried Kings to the Afterlife . In: The New York Times . 2000 ( nytimes.com ).
Web links
- Richard Pierce: After 5,000 year voyage, world's oldest built boats deliver. abc.se
- Tim Stoddard: Archaeologists discover ancient ships in Egypt. March 18, 2005, bu.edu
Individual evidence
- ^ Brian M. Fagan, Kenneth Garrett: The Empire of the Pharaohs: A Time Travel to Ancient Egypt . National Geographic, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-934385-35-4 , pp. 59 ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ a b c d Richard Pierce: After 5,000 year voyage, world's oldest built boats deliver: Archeologists' first look confirms existence of earliest royal boats at Abydos. (Abydos ship discovery, abc.se version from May 2004 or In: Science Daily November 2, 2000 sciencedaily.com ).
- ^ Cheryl Ward: Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos . In: Antiquity . tape 80 , no. 307 , 2006, ISSN 0003-598X , p. 118-129, here pp. 121, 123 , doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00093303 .
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Early ship construction - Khufu's solar boat ) January 2001, accessed on October 29, 2008.
- ^ Cheryl Ward: Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos . In: Antiquity . tape 80 , no. 307 , 2006, ISSN 0003-598X , p. 118–129, here p. 125 , doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00093303 .
- ↑ a b c Early Dynastic Funerary boats at Abydos North. In: Francesco Raffaele Egyptology News. Retrieved October 29, 2008 .
- ^ Cheryl Ward: Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos . In: Antiquity . tape 80 , no. 307 , 2006, ISSN 0003-598X , p. 118–129, here p. 124 , doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00093303 (English): “No mortise-and-tenon joints or pegs were used to join the edges of planks that made up the angular bottom and sides of Boat 10. Instead, the planks relied completely on lashing threaded through angled and L-shaped channels in transverse lines to create the hull. The planks are of even thickness (6 cm), and the regular size of the channels and their positions relative to plank edges was remarkable. Lashing channels have an average length of one Egyptian palm (about 7.5 cm) and a thickness of one digit (about 1.9 cm), the same dimensions as lashing channels cut into timbers from the site at Lisht. Most of the lashing had decayed, but a broad, woven strap filled several channels. It was startling to realize that the strap shows the same weave and approximately the same dimensions as similar remains from Lisht planks created more than a thousand years later. "
- ^ Cheryl Ward: Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos . In: Antiquity . tape 80 , no. 307 , 2006, ISSN 0003-598X , p. 118–129, here p. 124 , doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00093303 (English): “Rather than locking joints, the Egyptian boat-builders fastened planks with symmetrically placed ligatures, single 'stitches' connecting adjacent planks, and used joggles, small notches cut along plank edges to fit precisely into a recess on an adjacent plank, to effectively stop slippage. Egyptian boats were intended to be taken apart…. "
- ^ Noreen Doyle: Iconography and the Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Watercraft. 1998, p. 83 ( nautarch.tamu.edu PDF).
- ↑ a b ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Solar Ships and Solar Boats. ) March 2004.
- ↑ a b Tim Stoddard: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Early Pharaohs' Ghostly Fleet. ) October 31, 2000.
- ^ Steve Vinson: Boats of Egypt Before the Old Kingdom. MA thesis, Texas A&M University, 1987, pp. 193-210.
- ^ Helwan , accessed February 9, 2009.
Coordinates: 26 ° 11 '22 " N , 31 ° 54' 28" E