Although we have no contemporary representa- tions of Pheenician sea-going ships of Solomon’s time, we have drawings of Egyptian ones to refer to of a much more ancient date, and of a type after which we may suppose the ships of the early Pheenicians and those of Hiram and Solomon to have been constructed. These drawings, no doubt, give us a faithful picture of the ships, their crews, and their merchandise from a general point of view ; but they are more or less conventional, and the technical errors in our own marine historical pictures point to the necessity of not relying too much upon accuracy of nautical detail, as the drawings may have been made by artists who did not take part in the expeditions and were not sea- men. Unfortunately, also, many important de- tails are missing from the models of ancient ships in the museums. The Egyptian ships were for the most part unloaded at a port in the Red Sea, and their cargoes transferred overland to Koptos on the Nile.
The first Red Sea voyage of which we have any knowledge is mentioned in an inscription at Wady Gassiis, near Kosseir, in the Valley of Hamma- mat, on the road from Koptos to the Red Sea. This commemorates the expedition sent by Pharaoh Sankh-Ka-Ra of the 11th (a Theban) dynasty to the ‘ Land of Puanit’ (or Punt), the site of which is as much disputed as that of Ophir or Tarshish, and is considered by M. Edouard Nayille to be but a ‘vague geographical designation.’ See, further, art. PuT in vol. iv. p. 1764. The destination of the expedition was evidently, however, somewhere in Tropical Africa, and was in all probability in the vicinity of the present Somaliland on the east coast, where there existed an entrepét for the ivory, frankincense, myrrh, gold dust, and ostrich feathers, and for the ostrich eggs so much prized by_the Egyptians of those days. This first ex- pedition to Punt must have taken place, according to Brugsch, 250 years after the founding of Tyre, if Herodotus (ii. 44) was correctly informed by the Tyrians, i.e. about 1500 years before the time of Solomon, and 500 years before the birth of Abra- ham ; but, according to Mariette, even earlier than this. We have no account of this expedition, nor
* Findlay’s Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, 1870, p. 559.
SHIPS AND BOATS
SHIPS AND BOATS 361
any ou showing the kind of ships employed on it.
_ The next important Red Sea expedition men- tioned on the monuments was sent during the 18th dynasty, also. to the Land of Punt, in the reign of queen Hatsepsu I., sister of Thothmes II. (during the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt) ; the sculptures on the walls of Deir el-Bahri, near the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, fully illustrate this important event, including the ships used (see Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, ii. 82ff.). ‘The place of departure by the overland route from the Nile to the Red Sea, on the outward voyage, as well as the port of reshipment of the goods brought by the expedition on its return by the same route, was doubtless the ancient Koptos (now Qoft), as in the earlier expedition before mentioned ; the Red Sea port of embarkation and
J. DESHASHEH (MIDDLE EGYPT).
disembarkation being Tua or (inmun, known later as Philoteras (after it had been so renamed by the Ptolemies), and now as Old Kosseir, not far from the modern port of that name in lat. 26° 7' N., and distant from Koptos about 100 miles, As regards the African port depicted in the seulp- tures as the object of the expedition, and called the Land of Punt, there is some doubt. But for the African ebony (Dalbergia melanox ylon, G.P.R., so much in request for temple furniture in Egypt) and other trees which are represented as growing near the place of landing,” the land-locked port of Berbereh already spoken of, which has always been a great mart for the products of the interior, might be intended; and even these trees may have been artistically introduced to indicate a part of these products.
Although the Children of Israel must, at the time of queen Hatsepsu’s expedition, have been at
* These trees are not now found near the seashore,
W. WALL, N. HALF.
the height of their prosperity in the land of Goshen (Gn 47! 27, Ex 17), which they had inhabited for more than a century, it is probable that, as their occupation was that of shepherds and cattle- dealers located in the midst of the Delta, they would see and know but little of what was going on so far south of them as Koptos and Thebes, and absolutely nothing of the sea-going ships of which the expedition was composed. Consequently, no knowledge of the building or handling of ships or boats was carried away with them from Egypt at the time of the Exodus ; and the forty years of subsequent wandering in the wilderness would have sufficed to ensure the obliteration from their memories of any such knowledge had it been acquired.
It was not until the reign of Solomon that the Israelites commenced to build ships (1 K 97°), an
SAILING SHIP WITIL
TOMB OF ANTA, BC. 3600. ANTA STANDING BY THE CABIN.
art which, through the friendship of Hiram king of Tyre for David and his son (28 51||1 Ch 14+ and ‘1 K 53), they learned from the Pheenicians, who supplied the pilots and mariners for these ships (1 K 9%), Whether the Phenicians brought their knowledge of shipbuilding with them from Western Arabia at the time of their early migration (Herod. i. 1, vii. 89) or learnt it from the Egyptians, is a mystery. Boatbuilding was certainly a very ancient art in Egypt, as in the tomb of Ti at Sakara (5th dynasty, ¢. 3680-1500— 3660 B.C. [Petrie]) it is represented in the wall sculptures in all its details.