These vessels were each rigged with a huge square sail. The spars carrying the sail were as long as the boats themselves, and were each formed of two pieces spliced together in the middle. The stems and sterns were not waterborne. In order to prevent the vessel from hogging under the influence of the weights of the unsupported ends, a truss was employed, similar in principle and object to those used to this day in American river steamers. The truss was formed by erecting four or more pillars in the body of the vessel, terminating at a height of about six feet above the gunwale, in crutches. A strong rope running fore and aft was passed over these crutches and also round the mast, the two ends of the rope having been so arranged as to gird and support the stem and stern respectively.
The Temple of Dêr-el-Bahari contained also a most interesting illustrated account of the transport of two great obelisks down the Nile in the reign of the same queen. Unfortunately, parts of the description and of the carvings have been lost, but enough remains to give us a very clear idea of the vessels employed and of the method of transport. Fig. [5] shows the type of barge employed to carry the obelisks, of which there were two. The dotted lines show the portions of the carving which are at present missing. The restoration was effected by Monsieur Edouard Naville.[6] The restoration is by no means conjectural. The key to it was furnished by a hieroglyph in the form of the barge with the obelisks on deck. Some of these obelisks were of very large size. There are two, which were hewn out of granite for Queen Hatshepsu, still at the Temple of Karnak. They may, very possibly, be the two which are referred to in the description at Dêr-el-Bahari. One of them is 98 feet and the other 105 feet in height. The larger of the two has been calculated to weigh 374 tons, and the two together may have weighed over 700 tons. To transport such heavy stones very large barges would have been required. Unfortunately, the greater portion of the inscription describing the building of these boats has been lost, but what remains states that orders were given to collect "sycamores from the whole land (to do the) work of building a very great boat." There is, however, an inscription still intact in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian named Anna, who lived in the reigns of the three kings Thotmes (and therefore also during that of Queen Hatshepsu), which relates that, having to transport two obelisks for Thotmes I., he built a boat 120 cubits long and 40 cubits wide. If the royal cubit of 20·72 inches was referred to, the dimensions of the boat would have been 200 feet long by 69 feet wide. This is possibly the very boat illustrated on the walls of Dêr-el-Bahari; for, it having evidently been a matter of some difficulty to collect the timber necessary to build so large a vessel, it seems only natural to suppose that it would be carefully preserved for the future transport of similar obelisks. If, however, it was found necessary to construct a new boat in order to transport Queen Hatshepsu's obelisks, we may be fairly certain that it was larger than the one whose dimensions are given above, for the taller of her two obelisks at Karnak is the largest that has been found in Egypt in modern times. The obelisk of rose granite of Thotmes I., still at Karnak, is 35 feet shorter, being 70 feet, or exactly the same height as the one called Cleopatra's Needle, now on the Thames Embankment.
The barge shown in Fig. [5] was strengthened, apparently, with three tiers of beams; it was steered by two pairs of huge steering-oars, and was towed by three parallel groups, each consisting of ten large boats. There were 32 oarsmen to each boat in the two wing groups, and 36 in each of the central groups: there were, therefore, exactly one thousand oars used in all. The towing-cable started from the masthead of the foremost boat of each group, and thence passed to the bow of the second one, and so on, the stern of each boat being left perfectly free, for the purpose, no doubt, of facilitating the steering. The flotilla was accompanied by five smaller boats, some of which were used by the priests, while the others were despatch vessels, probably used to keep up communications with the groups of tugs.
There are no other inscriptions, or carvings, that have as yet been discovered in Egypt which give us so much information regarding Egyptian ships as those on the Temple at Dêr-el-Bahari. From time to time we read of naval and mercantile expeditions, but illustrations of the ships and details of the voyages are, as a rule, wanting. We know that Seti I., of the nineteenth dynasty, whose reign commenced about 1366 b.c., was a great encourager of commerce. He felled timber in Lebanon for building ships, and is said to have excavated a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. His successor, the famous Ramses II., carried on wars by sea, as is proved by the inscriptions in the Temple at Abû Simbel in Nubia, 762 miles above Cairo.
In the records of the reign of Ramses III., 1200 b.c., we again come upon illustrations of ships in the Temple of Victory at Medînet Habû, West Thebes. The inscriptions describe a great naval victory which this king won at Migdol, near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, over northern invaders, probably Colchians and Carians. Fig. [6] shows one of the battleships. It is probably more a symbolical than an exact representation, nevertheless it gives us some valuable information. For instance, we see that the rowers were protected against the missiles of their adversaries by strong bulwarks, and the captain occupied a crow's nest at the masthead.
Ramses III. did a great deal to develop Egyptian commerce. His naval activities were by no means confined to the Mediterranean, for we read that he built a fleet at Suez, and traded with the land of Punt and the shores of the Indian Ocean. Herodotus states that, in his day, the docks still existed at the head of the Arabian Gulf where this Red Sea fleet was built.
Pharaoh Nekau (Necho), who reigned from 612 to 596 b.c., and who defeated Josiah, King of Judah, was one of the kings of Egypt who did most to encourage commerce. He commenced a canal to join the Pelusiac branch of the Nile at Bubastis with the Red Sea, but never finished it. It was under his directions that the Phœnicians, according to Herodotus, made the voyage round Africa referred to on p. [27]. When Nekau abandoned the construction of the canal he built two fleets of triremes, one for use in the Mediterranean, and the other for the Red Sea. The latter fleet was built in the Arabian Gulf.
Fig. 6.—Battleship of Ramses III. About 1200 b.c.