Archaeologists generally downplay the Indiana Jones side of their discipline, full of derring-do and unexpected discoveries. But every once in a while, an amazing find surprises even the most experienced researchers. And that's just what happened two years ago when Boston University
"It's incredible, basically a mothballed military base where the people packed up and left," says marine archaeologist Cheryl Ward of
Florida State University Tallahassee Red Sea - called Wadi Gawasis or "Wadi of the Spies" - was a lagoon during ancient Egypt land of
Punt Red Sea in a bid to return with ebony, ivory and rare spices, such as Frankincense, treasured by the priestly caste of the day.
Archaeologists suspected the site was used by the
Egyptians for centuries, from perhaps 2600 B.C. to 1500 B.C., but the extent of the expedition's organization, and left-behind materials, has continued to surprise the researchers. Cedar timbers used to build ships were cut and aged in Lebanon Egypt Nile , disassembled and trekked on donkeys across the desert for 10 days and reassembled at Wadi Gawasis. After the three-month journey to Punt and back, the cargo was trekked across the desert and the ships were disassembled, repaired and returned to the Nile , Bard says. Inside the six man-made caves, and there may be more, the researchers found left-behind piles of rope, some as thick as your waist, sealed for the rigging of ships on the next expedition. As many as 3,700 men may have taken part in a typical expedition, judging from description of one such effort left on the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut.
"This was all done for the pharaoh," Bard says. A typical expedition would involve about five boats, each 45 to 70 feet long. The trip allowed Egypt Ethiopia Yemen
Left behind at the site were timbers, some with numbers still on them that served as a "paint by number" guide to ship assembly, Ward says. The planks indicate that the ships were scaled-up versions of
Nile river boats, lacking a keel but held together by mortise and tenon joints (slats fitted into slots in planks) between 10-foot planks. "This is already a different picture of what many people thought Egyptian ships were like," Ward adds.
Finding an industrial site, one where everyday Egyptians worked, rather than a ceremonial one, is unusual
enough, Ward says. But finding a site with working materials still intact, untouched after perhaps 4000 years is "unique, absolutely unprecedented" she says. "It looks like a ship's chandlery [nautical shop] where you would go in today and buy rope." Wadi Gawasis holds the oldest seagoing ship parts ever found. And what is remarkable is the standardization across centuries that must have marked Egyptian ship-building that allowed sailors to re-use materials for expeditions decades apart, Ward says.
Bard and her Italian colleagues from the University of Naples Red Sea resorts. Once a simple dig site, Wadi Gawasis now requires all sort of specialists, everything from tree experts to rope-makers, to examine the artifacts found there. "I think we are going to be there a long
time," Bard says.
Fuente: Copyright © 2006 USA TODAY / Yahoo News, 6 de marzo de 2006
Enlace: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060306/tc_usatoday/inegyptiandesertasurprisingnauticalfind
(2) World's most ancient ship timbers found in Egypt
Cheryl Ward of Florida State University USA
Foto: Cheryl
Ward with ropes and with a plank from the Egyptian site. Courtesy: Florida State University
Ship timbers from a mothballed Middle Kingdom industrial shipyard at Wadi Gawasis in Egypt Africa .
Originally shaped and assembled at a Nile shipyard, probably at modern Quft, the vessels were disassembled, carried
across 150 km of desert, reassembled and launched on a voyage to seek the products of Pwnt (Punt) or God's Land. Upon the fleet's return several months later, shipbreaking began as soon as the crews offloaded precious cargoes of cargoes of frankincense and myrrh, gold, ivory, and exotic animals.
Shipwrights inspected the vessels and marked unsatisfactory timbers with red paint. Workers began prying seams apart and sawing or chiseling through the tenons, with others following behind them and pulling the planks off the ship from the outside just as shipbreakers worked to dismantle the vessel at Senwosret I's pyramid at Lisht. Once timbers were broken off the
ships outside the caves, men carried them over ramps made of ship planks into the c. 20 x 4 m rock-cut caves, probably to get out of a cold and sand-filled winter winds.
Inside the caves, work areas identified by extensive deposits of chipped and gribbled wood fragments, fastenings cut and broken with tools, and, in Cave 3, marine shell mixed with wood fragments, many of which are sponge-like with gribble, testify to the trimming and reworking of planks. Examination of wood debitage indicates large scale removal of damaged wood from planks with characteristics similar to individual examples recorded in 2005/6. Once cleaned and rid of shipworm, planks were
recycled in architectural features on site, used as fuel as shown by hearth samples of Cedrus libani, Pinus sp. and Quercus sp., or perhaps prepared for return to the Nile shipyards for re-use there.
Cedar (Cedrus libani) hull planks up to 3 m long, 45 cm wide, and 22 cm and 14-20 cm thick provide ample evidence of a characteristic Egyptian approach to construction, that is, overbuilding. In this case, because shipworm damage extends up to 5 cm
into the plank edge, overbuilding may be an inappropriate term as some planks look like sponges with a thin layer of finished surface. The planks are similar to, but sturdier than, Dashur and Lisht planks from Middle Kingdom watercraft excavated at pyramid sites on the Nile .
In December 2005, archaeologist Chiara Zazzaro cleared fallen rock obstructing her exploration of a cave and exposed the end of a second rock-cut room (Cave 5). Today, most
of the cave's 50-60 square meters are concealed by coils of line about a meter long and 60 cm wide. The bundles are complex, each representing at least 20 and probably 30 m of line. Sailors and crew heaved their bundles of rope onto the cave's floor nearly four thousand years ago and left it for the next expedition, one that never came. Protected by sealed entrances, not even sand covered these ancient lines that once ran through the rigging of ships sailing from Wadi Gawasis to Punt.
Analysis of the cordage and ship parts, in addition to other components such as a crutch, steering oar blades, and possible oar pins, and stone anchors also present at the
site will contribute to more precise understanding of sailing technology. These unique artifacts elucidate not only shipbuilding technology and achievement, but also the vast administrative and bureaucratic nature of Middle Kingdom contacts with the world beyond Egypt
The project is co-directed by Kathryn Bard, Boston University University of Naples
Fuente: Copyright © 2006 USA TODAY. 5 de marzo de 2006
Associate Professor of Archaeology
Cheryl A. Ward, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Florida State University
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