EARLY EGYPTIAN SHIPS FROM ABOUT 6000 B.C.
The earliest information that we can find about the sailing ship
comes, of course, from Egypt: for although the first signs of the
dawn of culture were seen in Babylonia, yet that is an inland country
and not a maritime region. Notwithstanding the fact that to the
east of the Syro-Arabian desert there flow the navigable rivers of
the Tigris and Euphrates, and granting that it is only reasonable
to suppose that the earliest inhabitants on the banks of these
important streams did actually engage in the building of some sort
of boat or ship, yet we are not in a position to make any statement
from definite evidence. The age of the Babylonian civilisation is
exceedingly remote, and long prior to that of the Egyptians, but
that is the most that we can say. What their rowing or sailing craft
were like—who knows? The discoveries made in this, the most historic
corner of the world, by Layard and his successors have told us
something about the craft that breasted the waters of the Tigris, but
this information belongs to no period earlier than 700 or 900 B.C.
Whether subsequent discoveries may lift up the curtain that hides
from our view the remains, or at least the crude designs, of the
first objects that were ever propelled by wood or sail is entirely a
matter of uncertainty.
Of one thing we may rest assured—that Babylonia was in a
comparatively high state of civilisation about six thousand years
before the Christian era. For at about this date from the East came
Babylonian settlers, who found their way towards the setting sun
and, finally halting to the North-West of the Red Sea, colonised the
region on either side of the Nile. Here, then, they arrived from
Babylonia, not a barbarian wild tribe, but, as we know from the most
learned Egyptologists, a highly civilised people, possessing great
ability in certain arts and of definite intellectual development. It
would be only natural that a band of emigrants that had been living
by the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates should eventually settle
by a river. An Englishman who has lived all his life on the lower
reaches of the Thames, is far more likely to fix his habitation on
the shores of a colonial river than to trek inland and ultimately
“bring up” in the middle of a grazing country. The new inhabitants
of the land that we know by the name of Egypt would feel themselves
at home by its river. Whatever knowledge they had possessed of
boat-building in Babylonia they carried with them across the Arabian
desert and put into practice along the banks of the Nile. The
accompanying illustration (Fig. 3) will show to what ability these
colonisers or their immediate successors had attained. Here will be
noticed the earliest form of sailing ship in existence. The mast,
the square sail, the high bow and the curve of the hull are to us of
the highest possible interest as showing the first beginnings of the
modern full-rigged ship or yacht. This illustration has been taken
from an amphora found in Upper Egypt and now in the British Museum.
The date ascribed to it by the ablest Egyptologists is that of the
Pre-Dynastic period, which for the sake of clearness we may regard as
about 6000 B.C.
[Illustration: FIG. 3. EGYPTIAN SHIP OF ABOUT 6000 B.C.]
On other vases of this period, some of which may also be seen in the
British Museum, are to be found curious crescent-shaped designs
that have been sometimes taken for primitive ships by previous
writers. Even to the most imaginative it must have been difficult to
have given these curious drawings the right to be called boats. The
extraordinary erections on what would be the deck, have not any right
to be called masts or sails. To any one with the slightest practical
knowledge of boats and their ways, it is amusing to find that even
these primitive ideas should have been thought to depict any kind of
river craft. But I have been enabled to discuss this matter with such
eminent Egyptologists as Dr. Wallis Budge, the Keeper of the Egyptian
and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, and Mr. H. R. Hall,
both of whom are of the opinion that these designs do not represent
ships at all. Dr. Budge suggests that they represent “zarebas,” a
word that became very familiar to English people during Kitchener’s
campaign in Egypt. In that case, the structures that have been
mistaken for masts would represent erections to frighten away enemies
or wild beasts. Another theory is that the series of straight lines
below what was taken for the ship’s hull, and which were wrongly
supposed to represent waves, are perhaps the piles on which the
dwelling is built. I have, therefore, omitted such designs as not
bearing on the subject of sailing ships.
Starting with a definite illustration before us of a sailing boat
of about 8000 years ago, our mind naturally wanders back to the
period when the first boat was ever made. Picture, if you will, the
prehistoric man standing by the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates
gazing in utter helplessness and awe at the liquid mass gurgling on
its way to the Persian Gulf. He sees the fishes able to swim beneath
its surface and the waterfowl to float above. Then when his mind has
reached a sufficiently developed state to permit of his being able to
reason, he begins to wonder if he—the superior to fish and fowl—could
also be supported in the water until he has reached the other side
of the river on which he has as yet never set foot. So, on a day,
greatly daring, he entrusts his body to the flowing stream, and at
length discovers that by certain exercises he is able to float and
swim across to the other side. A new accomplishment has been made,
a new world has been opened out to him. When he gets back home he
begins to reason still further. How can he carry himself, his family,
his goods to the other side? One day, perhaps, while hewing down a
tree for his hut, a branch falls into the water. Behold! it possesses
the ability of the water-fowl—it floats. So he hews down the trunk
itself, sits across it, and for sport, launches off from the bank.
Lo! the trunk supports both its own weight and his.
Thus encouraged, his primitive mind sets slowly to work. “If I get a
bigger trunk and hollow it out, it will carry me, my family and my
property across to the other shore.” So having turned the trunk into
a boat, he makes of the branch a punting-pole. At a later stage he
puts on a cross-piece to one end of the pole and thus propels himself
by paddling, until this in turn becomes an oar.
Since human nature differs but little from age to age, and its chief
tendency is ever to proceed along the route of least resistance, he
begins to seek some means of motion without work. His descendants
improve upon the tree-trunk until it has become more shapely and
less clumsy. Then while returning home one evening, tired out with
paddling and hunting, he rests on his paddle for a moment! Yet still
his boat moves. He holds up the blade of his paddle and the canoe
moves a little faster. He stands up, and, the larger the space that
is exposed to the wind blowing in the direction in which he is
travelling, the more quickly still does the little ship run on. Next
day he brings with him a stick which he erects in the boat. That will
save him standing. To the stick he makes fast a hide and spreading it
to the wind sails faster than anything he has ever seen float on the
water.
This is all very well in following winds: he can get along, too,
when the wind is abeam, although he has to keep helping her with
his paddle—such a lot of lee-way does she make; but every time the
breeze gets ahead as he winds round the reaches of the Tigris he has
to lower the sail and mast. This is too much for him. His mind is
not able to conceive of such a manœuvre of tacking: how could a boat
possibly go against the wind? It is unthinkable. He would be a fool
to try and reason otherwise against a law of nature. Not, indeed,
until thousands of years after him is tacking invented. The Egyptians
at any rate did not understand it. Their ships were built for sailing
up and rowing down the Nile, and there is abundant evidence to show
the mast lowered down on to the top of the after cabin and the
oarsmen propelling the boat with the stream.
The prehistoric man has thus made almost the same kind of boat that
the savage or half-civilised race makes to-day. The American Indian,
the Negro and the undeveloped Asiatic races cannot create any boat
superior to the dug-out, because their lack of intelligence is a
fatal barrier. But just as the first inventors of flying machines
have begun by studying the action of birds on the wing, so in
navigation as in aviation. The early boatbuilders who followed the
rough dug-out gave a shape to their ships that was derived from the
creatures of the water. If the reader will look at the “bows” and
underbody of a fish he will see how the general lines of the ship
began. If, too, he will look at the stern and “counter” of the duck
and swan he will easily notice the resemblance to the overhang of
the early Egyptian boats. This is not so fanciful as may appear at
first sight. The ancients certainly were affected by the waterfowl
in their designing of ships, and the graceful neck of the swan was a
regular decoration for the stern of the later Roman ships. It is but
common-sense that when man is about to study the method of navigating
water or air, he should begin by copying from the creatures that
spend their whole time in this activity.
For the development of the art of shipbuilding, few countries could
be found as suitable as Egypt. Surrounded on the East by the Red
Sea, and by the Mediterranean on the North, it had the additional
blessing of a long navigable river running through its midst. Of
inestimable value to any country as this is, the equable and dry
climate of Egypt, the peacefulness of the waters of the Nile, the
absence of storms and the rarity of calms combined with the fact
that, at any rate, during the whiter and early spring months, the
gentle north wind blew up the river with the regularity of a trade
wind, so enabling the ships to sail against the stream without the
aid of oars—these were just the conditions that many another nation
might have longed for. Very different, indeed, were the circumstances
which had to be wrestled with in the case of the first shipbuilders
and sailormen of Northern Europe. It is but natural, therefore, that
the Egyptians became great sailors and builders: we should have been
surprised had the reverse been the case.
In earlier times our sources of Egyptian history were limited
almost entirely to what could be derived from ancient Greek and
Roman writers. Nor was this of anything but a vague and unreliable
character. Happily within our own time this has been supplemented,
to an enormous degree, by Egyptian exploration. The first beginnings
of this are found in the scientific study of Egyptian monuments,
which began about the middle of the nineteenth century. The
foundation for the interpretation of hieroglyphic inscriptions was
laid in the Rosetta Stone, now fortunately in the British Museum.
Discovered at the close of the eighteenth century, its bilingual
writing in Egyptian and Greek paved the way for future scholars.
Englishmen, German, French and American students have since engaged
in the fascinating pursuit of systematically and with scrupulous
care, excavating the temples and palaces of the older civilisation
that lived on the banks of the Nile thousands of years before the
Incarnation. Encouraged alike by the settled state of political
affairs in Egypt, and by the support granted in the interests of
research by the Egyptian and European Governments, the excavation and
preservation of these unique monuments have gone steadily on from
year to year. It is from the annual reports of these exploration
societies, as well as from the explorers themselves, that we are able
to present the details of the Egyptian sailing ships.
It would have been strange if a nation with such a vast waterway, and
living in such close proximity to the Mediterranean and Red Seas,
should not have left behind some memorials of her shipping. Happily
we have no need for disappointment, for the information surviving to
us is of two kinds. Firstly, we have the wall-pictures of the ancient
buildings, which show almost everything that a picture could tell
of a ship and her rigging. These wonderful illustrations have been
faithfully copied on the spot. But besides these, within recent years
have been unearthed most interesting little wooden model boats. These
are of two kinds, those made in the form of a funeral bark, and those
which are models of the actual ships that sailed up the Nile at the
time they were made. In the former the dead man is seen lying under
a canopy or open deck-house with or without rowers. These funeral
barks, not being sailing boats, are only of interest in pursuing our
present subject as showing us the general lines and shape of the
hull, together with the steering and rowing arrangements.
It is the models of sailing ships that demand our attention. These
were placed in the tombs with the intention of providing the deceased
with the means of sailing about on the streams of the underworld.
Very touching is the care of the ancients that man’s most beautiful
creation—his ship—should not be separated from him even in death. (We
shall see, later on, a similar devotion expressed in the burial of
the Vikings.) Models of houses and of granaries, with curious little
men working away, so that the departed should not be lacking for
food while he sailed about the underworld, are also found. Some of
these models of ships, granaries and soul-houses are to be seen in
the British Museum and the South Kensington Collection. The reader
who is interested in the subject will find additional information in
the fascinating book by Professor Flinders Petrie.[1] Each boat was
provided with masts and sails and elaborately decorated steering
oars. Dr. Budge, in his guide to the Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms
of the British Museum, points out that another religious idea was
connected with these boats, namely, the conception of the boat of
the Sun-god, called the “Boat of the Million of Years,” in which the
souls of the beatified were believed to travel nightly in the train
of the Sun-god as he passed through the underworld from West to East.
The Egyptians thought that by a use of words of magical power, the
models placed in the tombs, whether of boats or houses or granaries,
could be transformed into ghostly representations of their originals
on earth. “The boat,” adds Dr. Budge, “was considered to be such a
necessary adjunct to the comfort of the deceased in the next world,
that special chapters of the Book of the Dead were compiled for the
purpose of supplying him with the words of power necessary to enable
him to obtain it. Thus, ‘Tell us our name,’ say the oar-rests: and
the deceased answers, ‘Pillars of the Underworld is your name.’ ‘Tell
me my name,’ saith the Hold: ‘Aker’ is thy name. ‘Tell me my name,’
saith the Sail: ‘Nut,’ (_i.e._, heaven) is thy name,” &c.[2]
But let us make a survey of the development of the Egyptian ship from
the time prior to the Dynasties until the third or fourth century
before the Christian era. Ancient Egyptian history has been divided
by scholars into three periods—the Old Kingdom, the Intermediate, and
the New Kingdom. These again have been subdivided into Dynasties,
of which the First to the Tenth are covered by the Old Kingdom, the
Eleventh to the Seventeenth, by the Intermediate, and the Eighteenth
to the Twentieth, by the New Kingdom. Afterwards the various
Foreign Dynasties of Mercenaries formed the Twenty-second to the
Twenty-fifth. The Twenty-sixth was the time of the Restoration,
the Twenty-seventh to the Thirty-first represented the time of the
Persians. This will assist us in following the changes that came
about in the ships with the progress of time.
We have already drawn attention to the illustration of a ship, or
rather sailing boat, in Fig. 3, belonging to that remote period
anterior to the Dynasties. There can be no possible doubt as to her
being intended by the artist, who painted this design on the amphora,
for a sailing vessel of some kind, though the mast and square-sail
are set much further forward than is found later in Egyptian ships.
There is a figurehead on the extreme point of the stempost. Below is
a small platform, possibly for the look-out man whom we see later in
Egyptian ships armed with a pole for taking soundings. Right aft is
a small cabin for the owner or distinguished traveller. Probably she
was a decked ship and steered by one or more oars from the quarter.
The reader will notice a great similarity between the stern of this
vessel and that of the Bœotian sailing boat shown in Fig. 11.
From the earliest times up to about the year 3000 B.C., the Egyptian
craft are less ships than boats. The sailing boats of the third
dynasty are decked and fitted with a lowering mast, which when not
in use is lifted bodily out of its sockets and rests on the roof
of the after cabin. The boat was then propelled by paddles, with a
look-out man forward, the steersmen aft, and the commander amidships
armed with a thong-stick to urge the rowers on. The sailing boats
of the fourth and fifth dynasties become gradually bigger and more
seaworthy, but the mast and rigging show only slight advance. The
former, from the third dynasty to the eleventh, is in the shape of
the letter A. It fits into grooves either in the deck or the side of
the ship, and at first has no backstays or shrouds. Being a double
mast these are not necessary. The sail at this period is deep and
narrow, reaching from the top of the mast down to the deck, being
fitted with both yard and boom. Braces are attached to the ends
of the yards but no sheets are shown. During the fourth and fifth
dynasties, while the A-shaped mast remains, backstays are added,
sometimes numbering as many as nine or ten (see Fig. 4). These would
become essential as the ship grew larger and her gear heavier. These
backstays lead from roughly three-quarters of the way up the mast
down to the spot about a quarter of the ship’s length forward of the
stern. An additional stay from the top of the mast to the extremity
of the stern is also frequently shown. Two or three men are seen
steering with paddles, standing on the overhanging counter. On big
ships the steersmen number as many as five, and the paddlers with
their faces turned in the direction in which the ship was proceeding
are shown to be twenty-two or twenty-three on each side. The fact
that only one man is shown sitting aft holding a brace in each hand,
must be an additional proof of the gentleness of the northerly wind
on the Nile and the absence of squalls. No cleats are shown, and in
anything much above a zephyr his weight and strength must have been
sorely tried. The forestay, the enormous overhang both at bow and
stern, the look-out man forward with his pole for taking soundings
of the Nile, and possibly for tilting the ship’s head off whenever
she got aground—an experience that is far from rare on the Nile even
to-day—the presence of the commander with his thong-stick, are still
shown in the ships of the fourth and fifth dynasties.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE FIFTH DYNASTY.]
As showing the wonderful influence which Egyptian ships of this
period exercised on the rig of the Far East, and even of the Far
North-East, let me be permitted to call attention to the Burmese Junk
in Fig. 1. I will ask the reader to note very carefully her A-shaped
mast, her squaresail, her steering paddle at the side, and most
important of all the general sweep of the lines of her hull, coming
right up from the overhanging bow to the raised overhanging poop.
This is the Burmese junk of to-day, which, like the Egyptian ships
of old, finds the prevailing wind favourable for sailing up against
the river Irawadi, and when returning down the stream, lowers her
sail and rows down with the current. Between the Chinese and Burmese
junks of to-day and the Egyptian ships of about six thousand years
ago there are so many points of similarity that we are not surprised
when we remember that the Chinese, like the Egyptians, derived their
earliest culture from Babylonia, and that India—using the name in
its widest geographical sense to include Burma—is mainly, as to its
culture at least, an offshoot from the Chinese. Until quite recently,
China remained in the same state of development for four thousand
years. If that was so with her arts and life generally, it has been
especially so in the case of her sailing craft. I am not contending
that the Chinese junk is identical with the ancient Egyptian ship,
but I submit that between the two there is such close similarity as
to show a common influence and a remarkable persistence in type.
But whilst engaged in this present work, I became interested in a
half-civilised tribe called the Koryak, dwelling around the sea of
Okhotsk, in the North-West Pacific. Here, in this remote corner of
undeveloped Siberia, they have remained practically forgotten by
the rest of the world, except for a few occasional visits from the
land side by the Cossacks, and from the shore side by the American
whalers. Recently, thanks to the Russians, a few have begun to
embrace Christianity, but for the most part, they remain in their
primitive state with habits too repulsive to mention. Naturally,
since (as we have already pointed out) a nation exhibits its state
of progress in its art, its literature and its ships, we are not
surprised to find that the Koryak craft have, at any rate in respect
of rigging, several highly important similarities to the Egyptian
ship of the fourth and fifth dynasties. Thus, besides copying the
ancients in steering with an oar, the fore-end of the prow of their
sailing boats terminates in a fork through which the harpoon-line is
passed, this fork being sometimes carved with a human face which they
believe will serve as a protector of the boat. Instead of rowlocks
they have, like the early Egyptians, thong-loops, through which the
oar or paddle is inserted. Their sail, too, is a rectangular shape of
dressed, reindeer skins sewed together. But it is their mast that is
especially like the Egyptians and Burmese. The following description,
written by a member of the Jesup Expedition which recently visited
the Koryaks, is notable:
“Instead of a mast, they employ a more primitive contrivance. Three
long poles are tied together at one end with a thong which passes
through drill-holes, and are set up in the manner of a tripod. On one
side, the whole length of the sail is sewed to a yard, the middle of
which is slung from the top of the tripod by means of a stout thong.
The tripod is set up in the middle of the boat by tying both ends of
one of the poles to the ribs on one side of the boat, while the third
pole is fastened on the other side of the boat. The sail can revolve
around the top of the tripod, and is set in the direction required
by the wind, by means of braces and sheets made of thong, which are
fastened to the rails.”[3]
Lacking the civilisation of the ancient Egyptians, wanting, too, no
doubt the wood wherewith to build their boats, the Koryaks’ sailing
craft are made of seal skins. But there can be little doubt that
their rigging is of European rather than of Asiatic origin. Possibly
it came from Egypt to India and China and so further north to the
Sea of Okhotsk. At any rate, although the Egyptian ships we have
been considering had a double and not a treble mast, yet it must not
be supposed that the latter did not exist, for Mr. Villiers Stuart,
some years ago, found on the walls of a tomb belonging to the Sixth
Dynasty at Gebel Abu Faida, the painting of a boat with a treble mast
made of three spars arranged like the edges of a triangular pyramid.
After about the period of the fifth Dynasty the sail, instead of
being deep and narrow, becomes wide and shallow. Instead of the
several steersmen with their paddles at the stern, we have one large
oar in the centre of the stern, resting on a large wooden fork and
worked by one steersman by means of a lanyard. If the reader will
refer to Figs. 5 and 6, he will see this quite clearly. These are
the interesting little models already alluded to as having been
discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie, and which are now in the
Manchester Museum. This most instructive “find” was made by the
British School of Archæology in the season of 1906-7 at Rifeh,
whilst excavating the tomb of the sons of an Egyptian Prince
belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty. In the coffins were these two
excellent little ships, the one, as will be seen, with her mast
and yards, braces, topping lifts and halyards for sailing up the
Nile; while the other ship shews very clearly the mast lowered in a
tabernacle on to the cabin, the foot of the mast being balanced by
the weight of a stone—exactly the practice of the Norfolk wherries
of to-day, saving that instead of stone lead is used. The steersmen
will be noticed and the highly decorated blade of the steering oar.
Unfortunately, before being photographed, the oar in Fig. 5 has
been placed too high. It should, of course, have been dropped lower
beneath the water-line. Notice, too, that the rowers sit now with
their backs to the bow. Paddles have been dispensed with, and finding
that so much more power could be obtained by putting the whole weight
on to the oar, rowing has been taken to instead of paddling. The
little figure with a cloak round his shoulders in the bows (Fig. 6),
is the look-out man.
[Illustration: FIG. 5. MODEL OF AN EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE TWELFTH
DYNASTY.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6. MODEL OF AN EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE TWELFTH
DYNASTY.]
In Fig. 5, the look-out man with his pole is also seen forward; the
crew are gathered round the mast to haul at the halyards, and get in
the sheets and braces; for now that the sail does not reach right
down to the deck, sheets have become indispensable. It will also
be remarked that the boom has been introduced to make the sail set
better. The amount of sheer given to the boat is enormous, although
the curve-in of the top of the stern is exceedingly attractive.
Assuming that the dimensions of the model are proportionate she
must have had precious little grip of the water, and if, when on an
expedition to the land of Punt, the Egyptians ever encountered a beam
wind, their ships must have made a terrible lot of lee-way. For even
a light breeze, coming at right angles to those overhanging bows with
no great draught amidships, would drive her head right off the wind.
The steersman would naturally stand to leeward, to get a pull on his
steering-thong or lanyard in order to luff her up, and prevent
her sagging too much to leeward. At a later date, when, as we shall
see, an oar was used each side for steering in place of only one at
the extreme stern, the helmsman stood on the lee side and worked the
lee steering oar. By reason of its size, this would have some of the
effects of the leeboards on a Thames Barge or Dutchman.
Although these two models are the finest tomb group that have
yet reached England, yet others have been found at Sakkara, and
elsewhere, sometimes with a hull painted yellow and a cabin with
an awning painted to imitate leather, in which the proprietor,
more carefully made and of better wood than his sailors, sat with
his box by his side. Another boat model was of light papyrus with
flower-shaped prow and stern. It was painted green, and carried a
light shelter under which the owner usually stood.[4]
These ships of the Twelfth Dynasty have an additional interest for
us, since they belong to the time when Egypt was enjoying the fullest
prosperity, and had reached its highest degree of civilisation in its
capital of Thebes. But it is in the illustrations of ships afforded
by excavations in connection with the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari that
we find the most detailed information. The south wall of the middle
terrace of this building is most informative, depicting as it does
the naval expedition to the land of Punt. In Egyptian history various
expeditions are mentioned to Punt. One occurred as early as the fifth
Dynasty, for it is recorded in a tomb of a dynasty later. During the
eleventh Dynasty, a similar expedition was made under Sankh-kara, and
Ramases III. also sent an expedition. These last two voyages are said
to have started from a harbour on the Red Sea which was reached from
Koptos, probably the modern Kosseir, and to have returned there.
Although it is now thought by some Egyptologists that Queen
Hatshopsitu did not send an expedition to Punt, but that she was only
copying the expedition of the eleventh Dynasty, and that these Punt
reliefs are merely replicas of other reliefs still to be discovered
in the older temple, depicting an expedition under Nebkheruna, yet it
is a doubtful point and by no means settled by critics.
But supposing these are the ships of the Egyptian Queen of the
eighteenth Dynasty, they are seen with fifteen oarsmen a side,
whilst two look-out men are standing forward in a kind of open-work
forecastle. The general shape of the ship by now has become
considerably modified. Whilst there is still considerable overhang
both at bow and stern, yet she is long on the waterline. The bow
resembles nothing so much as that of a modern gondola. There is a
beautiful line sweeping up aft to a raised poop with an ornamentation
curving gracefully inboard to another open-work castle or cabin.
These illustrations of the eighteenth Dynasty show how thoroughly
the Egyptians had mastered the art of shipbuilding. When a ship is
sailing on the sea, she is thrown up by the motion of the waters till
she rests pivoted on the crest of a wave. The middle of the ship is
thus supported, but the bow and stern, not being waterborne, have a
tendency to droop while the centre of the ship tends to bulge up.
This is technically known among naval architects as “hogging.” In the
case of ships with an enormous overhang, unsupported by water, such
as was the case of the Egyptian ships and is now the fashion with our
modern yachts, this hogging would need to be guarded against. Only
recently the writer saw on the south coast a modern yacht with no
beam but considerable length and overhang. She had been badly built
and the “hogging” was very noticeable a little forward of amidships.
Her skipper gave her a very bad name altogether.
In the Hatshopsitu ships we see the “hogging” strain guarded against
by a powerful truss of thick rope. This truss leads from forward,
sometimes being bound round—undergirding—the prow: sometimes it is
made fast inside, perhaps to the deck or to the floors. It then leads
aft, being stretched on forked posts until it reaches the mast,
where it is wound round in a sort of clove-hitch, and then continues
aft again being stretched on other forked posts until it is finally
girded round the counter. This truss was as large as a man’s waist,
and has been calculated by Commander T. M. Barber of the United
States’ Navy to have been able to withstand a strain of over 300
tons.[5]
The manner of steering from the centre of the stern with one oar has
given way to that of using an oar on each quarter. Each oar rests
on a forked post rising above the head of the steersman who works
the oar with a thong loop. As already pointed out, it is noticeable
that he uses the lee steering oar always. It is probable that going
to the land of Punt, the prevailing North wind favoured them. But
returning, if the wind was foul, they would have to row. Even had
they understood the art of tacking at this time they would have had
some difficulty. As far as one can gather from the look of a ship of
this kind, as soon as ever the lee oar was pushed over so that she
came up into the wind, she would get into stays and not pay off on to
the other tack except with the aid of the oarsmen.
In these Punt pictures, too, will be noticed the fact that the rowers
have their oars in thongs instead of the later invention—pins or
rowlocks. These ships were certainly decked, but that was probably
only down the centre, for though we see the ship crowded with all
sorts of merchandise, yet the rowers’ bodies are only visible from
the knees upwards. They were probably placed on a lower platform.
Just as in the course of time the double and treble mast gave way
to the single spar, and the deep, narrow sail to the broad, shallow
square-sail, so later, about the year 1250 B.C., we find that the
boom was discarded, and therefore at any rate, by now, sheets must
have been introduced. But before we pass from Hatshopsitu’s ships
(about 1600 B.C.) let us examine the sail of that time. So much
confusion exists in the mind of many who see occasional pictures of
these early vessels that it may be well to make an effort to clear
this matter up. The yard was of two pieces lashed together in the
middle; the same statement applies to the boom. Pulleys not being
yet invented, the two halyards that raised the yard, led through two
empty squares formed by a framework of wood acting as fair-leads.
These halyards led aft, and being belayed well abaft the mast were
used as powerful stays to the latter. Let it be understood at once
that the boom remained fixed, being lashed to the mast by thongs.
From the top of the mast below the yard depended a series of topping
lifts about seventeen in number. These coming out from the mast at
varying angles spread over the whole length of the boom, and took the
weight of the latter, supporting also the sail and yard when lowered.
Contrary to the subsequent practice of the Greeks and Romans, the
yard was the spar that was raised or lowered by the halyards. Thus,
when sail was struck the two halyards would be slacked off, the yard
would descend on to the boom, the sail would be rolled up while the
topping-lifts would hold the entire weight. The two braces, leading
down not quite from the extremities of the yard, a single sheet made
fast a little forward of the middle of the boom, a forestay and also
a single backstay were also used, but side rigging never.
From about the year 1250 B.C. onwards, the sail was no longer furled
by slacking away the halyards, but, having dispensed with the boom,
brails of about four in number usually hung from the yard which was
now not lowered but a fixture. Consequently on coming to an anchorage
the brails would be used for furling the sail to the yard—still
standing owing to the weight and consequent exertion needed to hoist
it again. This, then, remained the accepted rig of the Phœnicians,
Greeks and Romans for over a thousand years as we shall see from the
evidence of coins and vases.
The importance of the various expeditions of the Egyptians to Punt
cannot be over-estimated. They are the earliest attempt at organising
a fleet of powerful ships to voyage far away from home waters.
Exactly where Punt was situated it is not possible to say, because
the name was given to various regions at different times. Sometimes
it is the modern Somaliland, or the shore opposite: at other times
it is somewhere in a more southerly direction. But wherever Punt may
have been, it was either to the East or South of Egypt. The real
motive of these expeditions was to increase the commerce of Egypt,
to open up trade with the neighbouring countries, and especially to
obtain incense for the burials of the Egyptians. Such commodities as
ivory, leopard skins, ostrich feathers and gold were also brought
back.
I am indebted for much information with reference to these
expeditions to a most interesting publication of the Egypt
Exploration Fund,[6] and to the work of a German scholar.[7] In the
illustrations of the Punt expedition as depicted in Hatshopsitu’s
Temple, we see five ships arriving. Two have struck sail and are
moored. The first ship has sent out a small boat which is fastened
by ropes to a tree on the shore, while bags and amphora, probably
containing food and drink, are being unloaded to present to the
chief of Punt. The other three ships are coming up with sail set,
showing us the most interesting details as to their rigging. On one
of them the pilot is seen giving the command “To the port side.”
There is an inscription annexed to this illustration, which, as
stated above, can now be deciphered. It reads thus:—“These are the
ships, which the wind brought along with it.” And again, “The voyage
on the sea, the attainment of the longed-for aim in the holy land,
the happy arrival of the Egyptian soldiers in the land of Punt,
according to the arrangement of the divine Prince Amon, Lord of the
terrestrial thrones in Thebes, in order to bring to him the treasures
of the whole land in such quantities as will satisfy him.”
We see, too, the ships being loaded with the produce of Punt. The
Egyptians are bringing the cargo across a gangway from the shore
to the ship. There are bags of incense and gold, ebony, tusks
of elephants, skins of panthers, frankincense trees piled up in
confusion on the ships’ decks. Monkeys, too, have been obtained,
which have been truthfully depicted as amusing themselves by walking
along the truss. Any one who has ever taken a monkey on board a
sailing ship knows that the first thing he does is to run up the
rigging. It is a small point this, but it shows that the artist was
anxious to be truthful and exact in his details.
The hieroglyphic inscription accompanying this illustration is
virtually the bill of lading. It gives a detailed and accurate
account of all the articles destined for transport. The translation
of this according to Dr. Duemichen is: “The loading of the ships
of transport with a great quantity of the magnificent products of
Arabia, with all kinds of precious woods of the holy land, with heaps
of incense-resin, with verdant incense trees, with ebony, with pure
ivory, with gold and silver from the land of Amu, with the (odorous)
Tepes wood and the Kassiarind, with Aham-incense and Mestemrouge,
with Anau-monkeys, Kop-monkeys, and Tesem-animals, with skins of
leopards of the South, with women and children. Never has a transport
(been made) like this one by any king since the creation of the
world.”
[Illustration: FIG. 7. EGYPTIAN SHIP (IN THE TEMPLE OF DEIR-EL-BAHARI).]
Finally (see Fig. 7) we are shown three vessels of the fleet
returning to Thebes richly laden. The accompanying inscription in
this case reads: “The excursion was completed satisfactorily; happy
arrival at Thebes to the joy of the Egyptian soldiers. The (Arabian
and Ethiopian) princes, after they had arrived in this country, bring
with them costly things of the land of Arabia, such as had never yet
been brought that could be compared with what they brought, by any of
the Egyptian kings, for the supreme majesty of this god Amon-Ra, Lord
of the terrestrial thrones.”
“If the expedition really landed at Thebes,” says Dr. Edouard
Naville, “we must suppose that at that time, long before Ramases II.,
who is said to have made a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, there
was an arm of the Nile forming a communication with the sea, which
extended much farther north than it does now.”[8]
When we remember the splendour and gaiety of the court at Thebes, the
many gorgeous festivals that were held on the water, the Egyptians’
love of pleasure and their intense joy in living, we are neither
surprised to learn of the great fêtes that celebrated the safe return
of these voyagers, nor of the fact that a company of royal dancers
accompanied the ships to enliven the navigation with song and dance.
That the Egyptians dearly loved their ships and set them in high
honour cannot be disputed. Besides burying them in the tombs of
their rulers, there were times when sacred boats were carried out of
the temples on the occasion of high festivals and dragged along by
sledges.
Professor Maspero[9] believes that the navigation of the Red Sea by
the Egyptians was far more frequent than is usually imagined, and the
same kinds of vessels in which they coasted along the Mediterranean
from the mouth of the Nile to the southern coast of Syria, conveyed
them also, by following the coast of Africa, as far as the straits
of Bab-el-Mandeb. These ships were, of course, somewhat bigger and
more able than the Nile boats, though they were built on the same
model. They were clinker-built with narrow sharp stem and stern,
with enormous sheer rising from forward to the high stern. They were
not open boats but decked, and we find hieroglyphics denoting the
pilot’s orders “Pull the oar,” “To the port side.” Heavier, bigger,
with more freeboard and no hold, the Egyptian merchant ships, crowded
with their cargo and a complement of fifty sailors, pilots, and
passengers, barely afforded room for working the ship properly. The
length of ships of the size that went to Punt has been thought to be
about sixty-five feet, or much smaller than such modern yachts as
“Shamrock” and “Nyria.”
We have already mentioned the wonderful influence the rig of the
Egyptians exercised to the eastward, but though the old squaresail
rig has gone from Egypt, yet to-day we can still see very similar
boats and almost the same rig on the Orange Laut of the Malay West
Coast. The overhanging bow and stern, the great sheer from forward to
the high poop, the large single squaresail, now converted practically
into a lug-sail, are still there to keep alive the memory of the
ships of the Dynasties.
I have already referred in the previous chapter to the lateen sail
having been adapted from the Egyptian rig a few centuries before the
Christian era. But it is probable that between the squaresail rig
and the lateen there was just one intermediate stage. By tilting the
yard at a different angle to the mast, instead of it being at right
angles, so that the foot came down lower, and the peak of the sail
was pointed higher, it would be found that the ship would hold a
better wind. This is amply borne out by the Egyptian “Nugger” (see
Fig. 8), which is still in use on the Nile above the second cataract,
and is being replaced only very slowly by the lateen. There is a
relief on a sarcophagus found in the precincts of the Vatican, and
now in the Lateran Museum, which certainly resembles the “Nugger”
in its transition from the squaresail to the lateen. (The date of
this is about 200 A.D.). The only important difference is that
the Vatican relief shows a topsail added. Finally, discarding the
boom altogether, the lateen sail comes with the foot of the sail
lower still, and consequently the peak much higher, being but an
exaggerated form of our modern lug-sail so prevalent in sailing
dinghies. This remains, as we have pointed out above, as the
characteristic sail of the Mediterranean, the Nile and Red Sea.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. AN EGYPTIAN NUGGER.]
Before we close this chapter one must refer to the vexed question as
to when the ancients discovered that wonderful art of sailing against
the wind—tacking. In the absence of any definite knowledge, I hold
the opinion that this first came into practice on the Nile about
the time the nugger, or dhow was introduced as the rig for sailing
boats. My reasons for this supposition are: firstly, the squaresail
being more suitable for the open sea and making passages of some
length, it would be a country having a navigable river that would be
likely to discover such a rig as would enable them to sail with the
stream _against_ the prevailing northerly wind; secondly, arguing on
the theory (which has many adherents) that the dhow came in about
the time of the death of Alexander the Great who revolutionised
at least one corner of Egypt, leaving behind his name to the port
of Alexandria as an eternal memorial, I hold that the invention
of this dhow rig made the ship to come very close to the wind—far
closer than the old-fashioned squaresail of the earlier Egyptians.
Realising, when coming down with the stream, that they could go so
near to the wind when approaching the right bank, why—surely it must
have occurred to such highly developed minds—could they not do the
same when zigzagging across to the left shore? At first, no doubt,
they pulled her head round with their oars, until, perhaps, on one
occasion, she carried so much way from the last shore that she came
round of her own accord—shook herself for a moment, as she hung for a
short time in stays—and then paid off on the other tack. After that,
the whole art of going to windward was revealed. My third reason is
based on the fact that the Saxons, who settled around the mouth of
the Elbe and subjugated the Thuringians after the death of Alexander
the Great, did possess this knowledge of tacking.
Unless it were with the intention of tacking, it is difficult to
see why the dhow, or nugger rig should have prevailed. But we do
know that this form of sail was extant about the time of Alexander;
therefore, tacking must be at least as old as the death of Alexander
in the fourth century B.C. A squaresail-ship whether ancient or
modern will go no nearer the wind than seven points, whereas the
fore-and-after will sail as close as five. This, as soon as the fact
was fully realised on the Nile, would hasten that day when tacking
was first found out.
Egypt, after flourishing so mightily for so many hundreds of years,
had its decline not less than its rise. Just as the earlier Egyptian
sculptures are superior to the later ones in sincerity and fidelity,
becoming subsequently more stiff and formal, so her shipping
eventually deteriorated, and the mastery of the seas passed into the
hands of the Phœnicians.