(Please read from the start)
So if light material like reed was used to make the kuphar and navigate down the Euphrates, isn’t this papyrus ovoid boat we see in the clay figurine similar to it? It’s also made of light material, the papyrus, similar to reed, and the shape is close and it was used to navigate down the Nile in Upper-Egypt (despite the cataracts), just like the Kuphar was used to navigate down the Euphrates. This boat is not identical to the Kuphar but it sure is damn too close to it. So now we have 2 of the oldest civilizations using similar boats at a time known as the dawn of history.
Let’s now talk about the boats we have on the terracotta.
The boats on the pottery are not trade boats or to transport any types of materials. They also are not funerary boats, very different when we compare them, mostly the funerary boats don’t have 2 “structures” on them. They only have a centered platform where the coffin of the dead rests upon for the funerary procession. Some say these “structures” are small altars made of reed like material for religious ritual purposes; but this doesn’t explain why we have 2 of them.
Also these are no war boats, because we don’t see any sort of weaponry or soldiers displayed on them. The structures, both of them, are not canopies or some type of pergolas, all we have to do is compare them with the Gebel Al-Arak Knife handle (page 137) so clearly these are not canopies…. Even on some of the amphora we can see the canopies with people painted in them, it is simple different.
The “structures” have what looks like twigs or sticks displayed horizontally on them. This had some think these structures are enclosed spaces made of reed like material for shade. Well, we do have miniature boats like that, and the shape is different than the structures and we only have one not 2. So again we don’t have a match.
No matter what I thought of, where I looked, I couldn’t get a match at all with known representations back then, exception the “Ship” palette (page 121).
The closest thing I’ve found to a “possible” match was totally unexpected. It’s not it a 100 % but it’s close enough = the medieval paintings/drawings of Noah’s Ark.
With Noah’s Ark we have one structure while on the vases we have 2 and on the palette 3. Noah’s Ark is depicted with a roof in medieval times while we don’t have that at all on the terracotta but with the Ship palette it seems they have some type of roof.
Either it’s a cabin or a building structure we see on those Terracotta boats, one thing is for sure about them: they didn’t make it into the dynastic times. This boat “design” was dropped and it VANISHED, to be replaced by the ones we are used to. Where the design came from and why was it dropped, not used again in the dynastic times is still unknown to us. These types of boats are very peculiar and need further studying and digging, until then the mystery remains.
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