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Ancient Ships: The Ships of Antiquity
Introduction
Welcome to The Ships of Antiquity, get ready to take a journey
through time that has taken 6000 years to create. The seagoing
ship is the vehicle chosen for this journey.
The inspiration for these pages is mankind's intrepid spirit to
explore and conquer his environment. Equal inspiration has been
derived from the tools and technologies mankind has
used to travel the globe by sea.
"The Ships of Antiquity" is dedicated to the
ancient artisans who recorded the ships from their cultures on artifacts
that have survived in the archeological record.
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Egyptian Petroglyph
Winkler
Eastern Desert site ED 1
Date estimated 3500BCE
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Without the artisans who recorded the seafaring activities
of their times we would have a much smaller window to look into
the lives of the Ancients Mariners and the influence seafaring has
had on trade and culture.
I would like to give credit to modern influences for inspiration
on how to organize this information. This credit goes to the
Archeologists and Historians whose interest in keeping their discoveries
in chronological order. Chronologies have been at the forefront
of modern scientific investigation and many new insights.
| Ceremonial Vessel
made of Gold and electrum from Egypt. The ship became central
to the cosmology of the Egyptians |
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These pages are organized in chronological order with the earliest
record of ships being first. The commentary is designed to be a
historic overview with the purpose of introducing some yet
unanswered questions and to present some theories to stimulate your
thinking.
The Ships of Antiquity pages are the outgrowth of
the work I did on the Ark
of the Covenant. Personally I have studied art and art history
as part of my classical training since I took my first art lessons.
My research and studies on the Ark pointed my attention
to two key areas of study, the first was to determine the world
view and politics of the Hebrew court at the time of Solomon. The
second was to determine what Solomon's navy must have looked like.
Solomon's alliance with Hyram of Tyre and the Queen
of Sheba indicated the success of many of his trading associations
were based primarily on trade agreements with two major seafaring
nations. Tyre and the coastal Levant cities to the northeast of
Israel were trading throughout the Mediterranean with Chittim
and Tharshish. Sheba which occupied the southern tip of the
Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa controlled the sea lanes
south and east to Ophir. The curiosity of what Solomon's navy might
have looked like lead me to study and look at the iconography of
the ship in ancient times.
The rest is history, or so the saying goes, the pages
Ships of Antiquity are dedicated to the artisans from each culture
who recorded ships on the artifacts they created and have given
us a window into the nature of ancient seafaring even where written
accounts are lacking.
After all is said and done a picture is still worth a thousand
words.
As you look through the pages of this document enjoy your magic
carpet ride through time.
—Chester Comstock
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