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Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Cheryl Ward
Cheryl Ward*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, USA
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Extract

The boat-grave cemetery at Abydos has provided the world's oldest sewn planked hulls, and vivid evidence for the way early Egyptian wooden boats were built. As well as sailing on the Nile, they were designed to be dismantled for carriage over land to the Red Sea. By the mid-fourth millennium BC the ship was a major technical force in the Egyptian political economy as well as an iconic force in ceremonial burial.

Keywords

Dynastic Egyptboat-burialboat-buildingcarpentry
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 307 , 1 March 2006 , pp. 118 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

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