Ancient Egyptian ship reconstructed on last night episode of Nova

Last night on PBS's show Nova, the episode was "Building Pharoahs ship."
They recreated an Egyptian cargo ship from Hapshetsut's expedition to punt.

magnificent trading vessel embarks on a royal expedition to a mysterious, treqasure-laden land called Punt. Is this journey, intricately depicted on the wall of one of Egypt's most impressive temples, mere myth—or was it a reality? NOVA travels to the legendary temple, built some 3,500 years ago for the celebrated female pharaoh Hatshepsut,

They used family of tradition Egyptian shipwrights to construct a ship based on drawings and pieces of timber found at a Red Sea "port".
The ship was made from from planks that were held together by mortice and tenon joints.
It was a full scale functional boat.
Fascinating part was that after the hull was complete it was sunk and left to soak for two weeks ,so that the wood would swell and seal the joints. It didn't work so well so they chinked it with raw linen fiber and bee's wax to male it water tight and it worked.
The ship sailing on the red sea



www.pbs.org...

It was fascinating when not under sail the ship rolled like weeble, but as soon as the made sail it was a stable platform.
They had a professional sailing captain on the boat, and at first HS was skeptical by after they made sail HS claimed it was one of the best downwind boats he has ever sailed.

Pretty interesting to see how each piece of the jigsaw hull went together. Even though, initially, they didn't caulk the boat.

Originally posted by RedShirt73
Pretty interesting to see how each piece of the jigsaw hull went together. Even though, initially, they didn't caulk the boat.

I was amazed a just how much of a jigsaw puzzle it was. I bet that the craftsmanship on the original boats was better, they has the technique mastered, and they maybe didn't need so much caulking., The other aspect that stunned me was that the boats built to sail the red sea and Indian oceans were built on the Nile , taken apart hauled 90 miles across the desert to the red sea and reassembled there.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
I was amazed a just how much of a jigsaw puzzle it was. I bet that the craftsmanship on the original boats was better, they has the technique mastered, and they maybe didn't need so much caulking., The other aspect that stunned me was that the boats built to sail the red sea and Indian oceans were built on the Nile , taken apart hauled 90 miles across the desert to the red sea and reassembled there.

This is true. Egyptians learned seamanship on the Nile and never became good sailors, especially because of this. The presented boat always kept close to the coast. For longer expeditions the Egyptians relied on the Phoenicians, such as the legendary circumnavigation of Africa.

reply to post by cicerone


I agree with you whole heartedly that the Egyptians were excellent inland sailors, and hired out for the real adventures.
The real interesting part was how well the most sailed under full sail, while under oars it rocked to the point it almost started talking on water.
One thought I had was that the 2d side view they based their design on wasn't entirely spatially accurate. If what we take as a simple twin side rudder was more canter outward while under oar it might provide some stability, with the rudders canted outwards like outriggers.
One of the other ideas they put forward was the seasonal nature of trips down the red sea, one time of year you sail easily down the west coast of the red sea to your destination, then you have to wait there for , for a few months the seasonal change in winds, at which time you can sail north along the east coast of the red sea. In that fashion a relatively short trip to Punt can take a year or more.
And there are some less than accepted tales of Egyptians traveling to very far away lands that I might take a little more seriously.