Figure 14.1. Site plan of the Uluburun wreck (courtesy Institute of Nautical Archaeology)
Sea Trade
Although the mechanics of Bronze Age sea trade are beyond the scope of this study, this chapter will focus primarily on Late Bronze Age cargoes as typified by the Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya shipwrecks. These supply us with an extraordinarily intimate view of the diversity of the commodities traded. This information is complemented by documentary and iconographic evidence of “invisible” materials that are unlikely to survive long periods under the sea.
Ships, as well as timber for shipbuilding, were in themselves significant items of trade. Indeed, the importation of ready-made timber from the Syro-Canaanite coast to Egypt may have had a profound influence on Egyptian shipbuilding.
Shipwrecks
Uluburun
Since final publication of the Uluburun wreck is being completed at the time of writing, any description of its cargo must remain preliminary, based on the detailed field reports published to date.1 Nevertheless, these allow an intimate and fascinating view of the cargo of what is presumably a relatively large class of Late Bronze Age merchantman (Fig. 14.1).2 Other finds hint at aspects of shipboard life for the crew—and perhaps the passengers.
The ship is believed to have carried at least fifteen tons of cargo.3 This calculation does not include the additional weight of the stone ballast, the long-perished organic cargo, and the approximately four tons of stone anchors.4
Raw materials. The Uluburun wreck carried a main cargo of raw materials. The heaviest portion of the cargo consisted of copper and tin ingots in a variety of oxhide, bun, and other forms, some of which at present are unique to Uluburun.5 This is the earliest appearance of tin ingots of oxhide shape. G. F. Bass had previously identified white, oxhide-shaped ingots portrayed in Theban tombs as tin.6
The ship carried a total of 317 copper oxhide ingots. This is more oxhide ingots than are presently known from the entire Near East!7 The weight of these ingots alone is calculated at a stunning ten tons.8
Lead isotope analysis has been carried out on four of the Uluburun oxhide ingots, five bun ingots, and one slab ingot.9 With the exception of one of the bun ingots, all were made of Cypriot copper. Interestingly, similar analysis of Late Minoan/Late Helladic III bronzes suggests Lavrion as a primary source of copper in mainland Greece and Crete.10 Although too few objects have been examined to date to reach any definite conclusions, this research does raise the question of where the Uluburun ship was to deliver its copper cargo.
The oxhide ingots were stacked in overlapping rows, in a manner reminiscent of roof shingles.11 Each stack contained from eight to eleven ingots, all of which were placed with the mold (smooth) side facing downward. This may have facilitated a better grip and left the marks on the ingots visible.
Interestingly, to date no lead ingots have been uncovered at Uluburun, nor were any found at Gelidonya. Apparently, during the Late Bronze Age the Aegean was not importing its lead from the East.12
Some, if not all, of the gold jewelry was being carried as scrap, intended for remelting. This included a lump of molten gold, an entire gold ring and a fragment of a second ring, and part of a gold bar or disk that had its edges removed with a chisel.13 The ship also carried about 175 round glass ingots, primarily of a cobalt-blue hue.14 Other raw materials dispersed in the wreck included ivory and precious woods: a section of unworked elephant tusk, the complete tusk of a small elephant, hippopotamus teeth, logs and a worked section of African black-wood (the ancient Egyptian hbny), and other as yet unidentified woods.15 At least one jar was filled with orpiment (yellow arsenic).16
ORGANIC MATERIALS. Thanks to meticulous excavation techniques, including the sieving of all closed pottery containers, archaeologists have retrieved a wide variety of organic materials at Uluburun.17 This information promises a new understanding of the wealth of organic commodities that constituted a significant element of Late Bronze Age trade—of which we know so little.
Canaanite jars contained about 1.5 tons of terebinth resin, making it the second most abundant substance in the ship’s cargo.18 Later Classical authors describe the collection of resin from the Pistachia terebinthus in the Levant’s coastal region.19 Incense was also used on board at least some Late Bronze Age ships; in the tomb of Kenamun, Syro-Canaanite seamen burn incense (Fig. 3.4–5).
A list of the organic materials recovered at Uluburun includes the following: acorns, almonds, bits of matting, blades of grass, capers, charred wheat and barley grains, rachis and fragments from barley chaff and other grains and grass, coriander, fig seeds and fruit fragments, residues of two types of grape seeds, a few kinds of small grass seeds, nigella (black cumin), oak and beech leaves, olives and olive stones, pine cone fragments, pine nuts, wild pistachio nutlets, pomegranate seeds, at least three types of pulses, safflower, sumac seeds, twigs, and some twenty species of weed seeds.20 Thorny burnet shrubs were used as dunnage to prevent the heavy cargo from harming the hull.21
Additional archaeobotanical remains included fragments of basketry, rope, matting, and wood chips, as well as leaves of conifers, oaks, and pistachio trees.22 Eight different varieties of shrubs and trees were represented in the numerous charcoal fragments. Many insects were also found among the organic remains.
One pithos contained remains of whole pomegranates.23 Fig seeds, which were found throughout the site as well as in pilgrim flasks and a pithos, may have originated as dried-fig stoppers on closed containers.24 A dark stain in the sand seems to be the result of a liquid, as yet unidentified, seeping from a pithos.25 Purple, crimson, and blue animal hairs and cloth fibers are all that remain of an unknown quantity of woven materials carried by the ship.26 Bolts of cloth are shown being brought to Egypt by foreigners depicted in the Theban tombs.27
The ship also carried ostrich eggshells—some of which actually managed to survive the shipwreck intact!—and fossilized shell.28 One of the most unusual cargoes discovered on the wreck contained thousands of murex opercula, or “doors.”29 C. M. Pulak notes that these may be a by-product of the purple-dye industry and speculates that opercula may have been employed for medicinal purposes and as an ingredient for incense.
MANUFACTURED MATERIALS. Some bronze (or copper) bowls were found in sets, nestled inside each other.30 Additional cauldron straps and the handle of a bronze jug or cup hint at a variety of bronze vessels carried aboard.31
Ten pithoi of three different sizes had tumbled down the slope.32 These are reminiscent of the large jars portrayed in the bows of Syro-Canaanite seagoing ships (Figs. 3.2–6). One pithos contained twenty-one lead fishnet sinkers, a lamp, and a Syrian pilgrim flask.33 Another contained eighteen pieces of Near Eastern pottery, most of them of Cypriot origin.34 Open pottery shapes of like type had been packed inside each other, as in a modern china barrel. Additional Cypriot pottery, pilgrim flasks, lamps, and wall brackets were found strewn throughout the wreck.35 Many of these are believed to have spilled from the pithoi as they rolled down the slope. The quantities of Cypriot pottery are enigmatic if the vessel’s final destination had been the Aegean: the Uluburun ship carried more Cypriot pottery than is presently known from the entire Aegean.36
The wreck contained many Canaanite jars in three basic shapes.37 Potsherds found inside these jars may have prevented the clay stoppers from touching the jars’ liquid contents.38 Containers of leather, or some other perishable materials, had also probably been on board.39
Musical instruments included an artifact that may be a tin whistle, a pair of bronze cymbals, and at least five tortoise carapaces, used in antiquity for the sound boxes of lyres and lutes.40 Beads were scattered throughout the wreck. These are made of a variety of materials: agate, amber, bone, faience, glass, ostrich-eggshell, quartz, rock crystal, shell, and an undefined stone; at least some of these beads may have come on board ship decorating textiles that disintegrated over time.41 One Canaanite jar was filled with glass beads that had concreted solidly together.42 Rings carved from seashells, probably Mediterranean top shells, were also found.43
Prestige items. Some items on board ship may have had a particular prestige value. A unique gold cup is reminiscent of the one given to Odysseus by Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians.44 The date and provenance of the Uluburun cup remain elusive.45
Metal vessels made of tin included a mug, a plate, and a pilgrim flask.46 Lead isotope ratio analysis of the pilgrim flask suggests that it was made of metal mined in Turkey’s Taurus Mountains.47
The ship carried gold and silver jewelry of Syro-Canaanite design.48 Interestingly, gold roundels like those found on the ship are worn by seven Syro-Canaanite seamen in the Kenamun tomb painting (Figs. 3.4–6, 29; 14.6).49 It is not clear if any of the Uluburun roundels were meant for shipboard use.
In addition to the raw ivory on board, the ship carried several luxury items made of ivory: parts of at least two duck-shaped ivory cosmetic containers, probably from the Syro-Canaanite coast or Egypt;50 ivory scepters and ivory (or bone) finials;51 and, of particular interest, a hippopotamus incisor carved in the shape of a ram’s horn or shofar.52 Other prestige items at Uluburun were made of faience. At least five faience rhyta in the form of rams’ heads and one shaped like a woman’s head closely parallel artifacts uncovered in Enkomi and Tell Abu Hawam.53
PERSONAL ITEMS AND SHIP’S EQUIPMENT. Some items may represent personal belongings of the crew and passengers. Other artifacts were for shipboard use.
Seals found on the wreck included the following: part of an Egyptian inscribed gold signet ring that had been intentionally cut for scrap; a gold scarab bearing the name of Queen Nefertiti; a faience scarab with the name of Thutmose I; several scarabs with decorative designs; a stone scarab with a baboon decoration; a small rectangular stone plaque with a hieroglyphic inscription to “Ptah, Lord of Truth and Perfect in Favors”; a quartz cylinder seal with gold caps (similar to Kassite seals from Babylonia dated ca. 1350 B.C.); an Old Babylonian cylinder seal of hematite cut ca. 1750 B.C. with additional elements added four centuries later by an Assyrian artisan; a faience—or sintered quartz—cylinder seal of a type common across Mitannian lands but that probably originated near Ugarit ca. 1450–1350 B.C.; and two other cylinder seals: one of Kassite origin made of rock-crystal, the other of faience.54
Of particular interest are Mycenaean objects of a personal nature on a ship that was heading to the Aegean. These include two lentoid seals, blue glass relief beads of probable Mycenaean origin, Minoan or Mycenaean green stone (steatite?) seal blanks, and a globed pin, as well as several types of Mycenaean pottery: a kylix, stirrup jars, a pitcher, a dipper, a one-handled cup, a beaked jug, and fragments of other vessels.55 Taken together, these artifacts suggest the presence of Mycenaean ethnics on board the ship when it sank.
A bronze female figurine with gold foil covering her head, hands, and feet may have been the ship’s tutelary deity.56 It was found together with a stone ceremonial ax head that apparently originated in the Black Sea region.57 Utensils for cooking, grinding, and pounding must have been used in the preparation of meals on board the ship.58 Lead fishnet sinkers, fish hooks, a harpoon, a trident, and fish remains suggest that the crew supplemented its diet from the sea.59 Lead isotope analysis of four of the fishnet sinkers suggests that they were made of lead from the Taurus Mountains and the Laurion mines.60
Trade was carried out by means of pan balance weights, of which the ship carried a variety, in geometric and zoomorphic shapes.61 Pierced lead disks may have been weights of Aegean origin.62 A diptych, made of boxwood with ivory hinges, was discovered in a pithos.63 This is the earliest known “book.”64 Two additional hinge parts may have belonged to additional diptychs that did not survive.65 The diptych raises the interesting possibility that at least one person on the ship may have been literate.
A variety of weapon types was carried on board: swords, daggers, knives, spearheads, arrowheads, mace heads, and a collared ax head.66 A single scale of bronze armor is of a type common throughout the Near East.67 The diverse kinds and origins of the weapons seem to support the interpretation that these were carried for defense, not as items of trade.68
The tools included ax blades, a bow drill, a saw, adze blades, chisels, drill bits (awls), razors, a hoe, sickle blades, knives, and a pair of tongs.69 It is not clear if all of these were for shipboard use or if some tools were being carried as cargo. Abrasive stones and an antler tine, which had probably been originally stored in a bag made of leather or some other perishable material, were used to hone utensils.70 Astragals could have been used for divination or for whiling away the time with games of chance.71
The quantities of raw materials and luxury items on board at Uluburun suggest that the main part—if not the entire cargo—may have been a royal gift, similar to those mentioned in the Amarna tablets.72 Culture and diplomacy sailed hand-in-hand with merchandise in the Late Bronze Age. The king of Alashia asks repeatedly that his messengers be returned quickly.73 In one text, the reason for this haste becomes clear: “These men are my merchants. My brother, let them go safely and prom[pt]ly. No one making a claim in your name is to approach my merchants or my ship.”74 Evidently maritime traders, in addition to their commercial activities, also served as international diplomats.
The Uluburun ship may be indicative of the mechanism of indirect trade during the fourteenth century. Several clues suggest an eastern origin for the ship.75 If so, and if, as suggested by Bass and Pulak, the ship was sailing a counterclockwise course throughout the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, this would then explain how Mycenaean pottery—and even an intimate knowledge of the Aegean—might have been carried to Egypt, and how Egyptian objects reached the Aegean, without the two contributing cultures actually coming into direct contact.76
Cape Gelidonya
The Gelidonya wreck was a small craft, apparently a tramp that collected metal junk for reuse. Its cargo consisted primarily of copper oxhide ingots, bun ingots, and bronze tools.77 Smaller artifacts were found scattered nearby. Most of the oxhide ingots had been stacked in three piles.78 Fragments of matting found between the ingots suggest that they were either wrapped together or separated from each other by layers of matting: twigs uncovered in the wreck were apparently dunnage used to cushion the hull from the heavy metal ingots.79
Personal effects belonging to the ship’s crew included scarabs, a lamp, mace heads, whetstones, an astragal, a cylinder seal, weights, and traces of food.80 There are similarities between the cargo at Gelidonya and the lading of an Alashian ship recorded at Ugarit.81
Terebinth Resin
In a monograph dealing with the meaning of snṯr, V. Loret concludes that this is the Egyptian term for terebinth resin, commonly used in Egypt as incense.82 Terebinth resin was also employed in antiquity as an astringent in aromatic ointments.83
Although a species of sntr tree grew indigenously in Egypt (and the resin was also imported into Egypt from Punt and Nubia), the primary source for snṯr resin was the Syro-Canaanite coast. In the tomb of Rechmire, six jars labeled snṯr are depicted, together with jars of olive oil and salve (sfṯ and a basket of lapis lazuli, in the bottom row of the display of Syro-Canaanite tribute/trade (Fig. 14.2: A).84
Large quantities of snṯr are recorded in Thutmose III’s annals.85 The total liquid volume of snṯr received by Thutmose is recorded for five of the years covered by his annals: year twenty-four, 12,345 liters; year thirty-three, 12,420 liters; year thirty-four, 10,395 liters; year thirty-five, (only) 1,260 liters; year thirty-eight, 9,840 liters. These imports average 9,250 liters per year. If this average held true for all twenty of the years that Thutmose was active in Asia, then Egypt would have imported some 185,000 liters of snṯr during that time.
J. L. Melena tentatively identifies ki-ta-no recorded in Linear B inventories as pistachio nuts (Pistachia terebinthus).86 The word is written, however, with a symbol suggesting that it was an aromatic or a condiment; Bass, in consideration of the resin found on the Uluburun shipwreck, equates ki-ta-no with terebinth resin.87 Over 18,400 liters of ki-ta-no are recorded at Knossos.88
These quantities of snṯr in the Egyptian, and ki-ta-no in the Linear B, documents place into historical perspective the 1.5 tons of resin carried by the Uluburun ship. Indeed, Thutmose III’s annals for year thirty-five may refer to a single shipment of resin, of approximately the amount on board the Uluburun ship.
If intended for off-loading in an Aegean port, however, the terebinth resin may have been destined, at least in part, for a purpose other than incense or perfume. In this regard, the “Admonitions of Ipu-wer” contains a fascinating comment: “No one really sails north to [Byb]los today. What shall we do for cedar for our mummies? Priests were buried with their produce, and [nobles] were embalmed with the oil therof as far away as Keftiu, (but) they come no (longer).”89 Ipu-wer seems to be saying that resins that had previously been imported from Byblos on the Syro-Canaanite coast to Egypt for use in the mummification process were used for embalming in Keftiu (i.e., Crete and/or the Aegean world).
Although there is no evidence for mummification in the Late Bronze Age Aegean, the following points suggest that some form of embalming (that is, the immersing of a cadaver in preservative liquids) may have been practiced:90
• Resin is one of the main ingredients required in mummification as practiced by the ancient Egyptians. Herodotus and Diodorus describe “cedar oil” used in the mummification process.91 This was either injected into the body or used to anoint it.92 However, this oil was almost certainly derived from the juniper tree and not from the true cedar.93 Terebinth resin was not normally used for mummification in New Kingdom Egypt.94
• There are a number of striking similarities between the Cult of the Dead in Egypt and in Crete.95 These suggest that the Minoan culture, and through it perhaps the Mycenaean also, was profoundly influenced in its religious beliefs and practices by its contact with Egypt. M. P. Nilsson, in discussing the Greek concept of the “Land of the Blessed,” notes, “Its varying features are derived from the Minoan Age and agree so closely with Egyptian conceptions that it seems probable that an intimate connexion may be supposed with Egyptian belief in this case.”96 Thus, embalming—a considerably simplified form of the complex Egyptian practice for preserving the bodies of the dead—may have been included among the burial beliefs and customs adopted or adapted from the Egyptians by the Minoans and transmitted through them to the Mycenaeans also.97
• Pithos burials became widespread throughout the Aegean world during the Middle Bronze Age: these would have been suitable for immersing a body in a preservative liquid.98 Clay coffins began to replace storage jars at Knossos toward the end of the Middle Minoan period. Some containers were lined with plaster, perhaps to render them less porous.
• Minoan signet rings depicting cult scenes sometimes show large pithoi like those used in the burials (Figs. 6.53, 69: D).99 A. W. Persson suggests that these represent some rite of mourning for the dead god before his joyful resurrection.100 This may be related to the Greek myth in which Glaukos, the son of Minos, dies by falling into a jar of honey—but is revived by means of an herb revealed by a snake.101 Persson proposes that this myth, along with many other later references, may be reminiscent of a time when the dead were embalmed in Crete, although he assumes that the embalming was done in honey.
Figure 14.2. (A) Syro-Canaanite display in a scene of foreign tribute from the tomb of Rechmire (T. 100) at Thebes. Note the timber at the right side of the second row (Late Thutmose III-early Amenhotep II). (B) Detail of timber {from Davies 1943 [II]: pl. 21; ©, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
• Finally, H. Schliemann describes the remarkably preserved remains of a man whom he found in Grave 4 in Grave Circle A at Mycenae:
But of the third body, which lay at the north end of the tomb, the round face, with all its flesh, had been wonderfully preserved under its ponderous golden mask; there was no vestige of hair, but both eyes were perfectly visible, also the mouth, which, owing to the enormous weight that had pressed upon it, was wide open, and showed thirty-two beautiful teeth. From these, all the physicians who came to see the body were led to believe that the man must have died at the early age of thirty-five. The nose was entirely gone. . . . The colour of the body resembled very much that of an Egyptian mummy.102
Unless Schliemann is exaggerating, which is always a possibility, it would seem that this body may have undergone some form of embalming.103
Hippopotamus Ivory in Egyptian Tomb Paintings
The appearance of hippopotamus ivory at Uluburun emphasizes another trade commodity that has been given only limited attention until recently.
Foreigners bringing hippopotamus tusks are depicted twice in Egyptian tomb art. In one, dating to the Old or Middle Kingdom, a porter carries two tusklike objects on his shoulder.104 These are similar in appearance to the ibex horns that were imported into Egypt during the New Kingdom as a raw material in the construction of composite bows.105 In this case, however, they are definitely not ibex horns; the composite bow was introduced into Egypt only later, during the Second Intermediate period.
In the tomb of Menkheperresonb (T. 86) at Thebes, a porter carries over his shoulder two tusk-like objects that can be identified as hippopotamus teeth.106 These might be mistaken for elephant tusks, like those carried singly or in pairs by Syro—Canaanite, Minoan, or Nubian porters in the scenes of foreign tribute from the tombs of Rechmire (T. 100) and Sebekhotep (T. 63).107 The ivory carried by Menkheperresonb’s porter is quite unlike the other depictions of elephant tusks, however: the former are narrower and more hook-shaped, appearing to point upward instead of curving down over the shoulder. They are, however, identical to teeth portrayed in the mouth of a hippopotamus in a contemporary tomb painting.108
Trade in Timber and Ships
Egypt has indigenous trees that are suitable, although not ideal, for shipbuilding: acacia, Doum palm, persea, sycamore, and tamarisk.109 However, timber for use in shipbuilding as well as for other purposes was a most important Syro-Canaanite export to Egypt throughout pharaonic times.110
Considerable evidence exists for the exportation of cedar (and other woods) from Lebanon to Egypt.111 The earliest-recorded appearance of wood identified as cedar in Egypt dates to the Predynastic (Badarian) period.112 Two ancient Egyptian depictions of Lebanese forests have come down to us. The earliest, from the tomb of Amenmose at Thebes (T. 42; Thutmose III—Amenhotep II), shows a fortified Syro-Canaanite city with crenelated walls in a forest setting (Fig. 14.3). Norman de Garis Davies identifies the trees as pine because they reach a considerable height before beginning to branch out. Another scene, from the Temple of Amun at Karnak, depicts Lebanese princes felling trees (identified as Lebanese cedar) for Seti I (Fig. 14.4).113 As two men with axes cut the base of one tree, two others grasp ropes attached to the upper portion of the tree and wound around neighboring trees. Perhaps Tjekkerbaal had this purpose in mind when he told Wenamun, “Give me the ropes [that] you have brought [to lash the pine log] s which I am to fell in order to supply them to you.”114
After they were felled, the cedar logs were left to season in the mountains before being brought down to the coast.115 The Old Kingdom ax head found in the Adonis River, near Byblos, suggested to A. Rowe that the timber may have been floated down the stream from inside the country to the river’s mouth (Fig. 2.1).116 If this was carried out in the spring, when the river was swollen with water, it may explain Tjekkerbaal’s boast to Wenamun: “I have but to let out a cry unto the Lebanon so that as soon as the heavens open up, the logs are (already) lying here on the seashore.”117 Once the logs reached the coast, they were transported as cargo in ships or towed behind them in makeshift rafts.118
Senufer, an official during Thutmose III’s reign, describes in his tomb (T. 99) at Thebes a mission to Lebanon to acquire cedarwood: “I entered the forest-[preserve]. . . . [I caused] that there be presented to her [the goddess of Byblos] offerings of millions of things on behalf of [the life, prosperity and health of thy majesty] . . . . in Byblos, that I might give them to her lord for her [heart’s] satisfaction . . . gave . . . of the choicest thereof. I brought away (timbers of) 60 cubits in [their] length. . . . They were sharper than the beard of grain, the middle thereof as thick. . . . I [brought] them [down] from the highland of God’s Land. They reached as far as the forest-preserve.”119
Figure 14.3. Lebanese forest depicted in a scene of foreign tribute in the tomb of Amenmose (T. 42) (Thutmose III–Amenhotep II) (from Davies and Davies 1933: pl. 36; courtesy of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Society)
The “gifts” that Senufer brought for the goddess of Byblos, whom the Egyptians equated with Hathor, were actually a polite statement for payment of the timber.120 Indeed, even during the Late Bronze Age when Asia was under Egyptian dominance, Egypt apparently paid dearly for its timber. This is evident from the following exchange between Tjekkerbaal and Wenamun:
He [Tjekkerbaal] responded saying to me: On what sort of business have you come? And I told him: It is in quest of lumber for the great and noble barge of Amon-Re, King of the Gods, that I have come. What your father did and / what your father’s father did, you will also do. So I said to him. And he said to me: They did in fact supply it. You have but to pay me for supplying it, and I will supply it. Actually, it was only after Pharaoh, l.p.h., had sent six freighters loaded with Egyptian products which were unloaded into their warehouses that my (people) carried out this commission. But you, what is it that you have brought me in my turn?
He had a journal roll belonging to his ancestors brought and had it read out in my presence. It was verified that a thousand deben of silver and miscellaneous items (had been entered) in his journal roll. / And he said to me: As for the Ruler of Egypt, he has been the lord of what is mine, and I have been his servant as well. It was not with the words, “Carry out the commission from Amon!” that he used to send silver and gold. Was it not a delivery of royal gifts that used to be made unto my father?121
Figure 14.4. Lebanese princes cut down trees for the pharaoh. Karnak: exterior of the north wall of the grand hall (Seti I) (after Wreszinski II: 35)
Many of the timbers used in BM 10056 are of imported cš wood.122 This term originally specified a species of fir (Abies cilicia) that grows in Lebanon.123 S. R. K. Glanville, however, concludes that this was not so much a particular wood as the general term for ready-for-use imported timber:
. . . cš is precisely connoted by the English word “deal,” in its sense of timber derived from pine or fir. It is tempting to see still another, fortuitous, resemblance between the two words. “Deal” originally means a plank or board, a piece of sawn wood. The extension of meaning to define the nature of the wood is due to the fact that the commonest kind of wood imported in plank form for general purposes, was the North European pine and fir. Now both common sense and the nature of the determinative demand that cš was imported into Egypt, if not actually in planks, at all events as logs which had already been trimmed, which in the case of conifers involves a fair amount of lopping. To the Egyptian joiner or shipwright, acquainted with the names and differentiation between the three or four local trees of any use to him, whose short, twisted branches he was used to cutting for himself, the outstanding feature of the timber he called cš would be its “ready-for-use” appearance. In very few cases would he have seen the trees, from which the wood came, in their natural state. It is possible that the word cš was a local Syrian name for a species of fir or pine, or for certain conifers in general, and that the Egyptian expeditions which were sent to get the wood learned the native name from the source of supply. It is also possible, however, and very tempting in view of the modern analogy of deal, that cš, like “deal” originally meant “cut wood,” and only later came to be applied to the type of tree which produced it. . . . To sum up, may not the determinative of šc “to cut” in the Pyramid Texts suggest that cš originally signified “cut wood” and that the wood derived its name from the verb?124
Glanville’s suggestion is supported by two additional considerations. First, there are textual references to prepared timbers arriving in Egypt. Kamose mentions “wooden planks” among the ships’ cargoes he captured from the Hyksos when he conquered Avaris.125 A half-millennium later, when Tjekkerbaal sent seven timbers as gifts to Egypt, Wenamun notes that he sent not logs but preshaped ship’s timbers: a stempost, a sternpost, an item identified as a keel (?), and four hewn timbers.126 Second, in the tombs of Useramun (T. 131; Thutmose III) and Rechmire (T. 100; Thutmose III—Amenhotep II), cut timbers appear in the display of Syro-Canaanites’ trade items (Figs. 14.2, 5). The timbers are straight with rounded ends and with semicircular mortises cut into one of their extremities. They are painted light brown, with red lines indicating the wood’s grain (cedar?). This importation of prepared ship parts may have influenced ship construction in Egypt, as did Syro-Canaanite shipbuilders who were employed there.
This in no way detracts from the massive importation of timber in the form of logs into Egypt, as we have seen in the documents of Sahure, Senufer, and Wenamun. Just the construction of the Dashur boats alone would have required an estimated ten or more tons of imported cedarwood.127 Timber in the form of long, straight logs (cedar?) is also portrayed in tomb depictions of ship construction (Figs. 10.14, 23–24).128
The wood fragments from Wadi Gawasis reveal that the Egyptians built seagoing ships of cedarwood.129 The ship of Cheops is also made of cedar, as are the Dashur boats, and a stele of Tutankhamen mentions the construction of a cultic ship made of cedarwood brought from Lebanon.130
Economic texts suggest that ships’ timber was expensive in Ramesside times in Egypt.131 A mast could cost twice as much as the most expensive bull. The high cost of the cš wood, which came from the Syro-Canaanite coast, may have resulted from political circumstances during the Twentieth Dynasty.
Apart from the importation of wood for shipbuilding, seagoing ships themselves were an item of trade. In the Amarna texts, Aziru promises to supply eight ships that the pharaoh has requested.132 Egypt appears to have imported ships from Cyprus also. The ruler of Alashia writes to the pharaoh: “[All th]at thou desirest, I [wi]ll bring up to thee. . . . [S]hips in quantity I will build.”133 E. Lipinski suggests that the ships mentioned in one Ugaritic text were built in Egypt to be exported to Alashia; this is most unlikely.134
Figure 14.5. The Syro-Canaanite display in a scene of foreign tribute from the tomb of Useramun (T. 131) includes imported timber (Thutmose III) (drawing courtesy of E. Dziobek)
“Invisible” Trade Items
Some forms of merchandise will not normally be conserved on wrecks. For evidence of their existence, we must turn to textual and iconographic sources. One Ugaritic text refers to milk, fish, wool, and clothing brought from Ashdod to Ugarit.135 Similarly papyrus, for the trade in which the city of Byblos received its Greek name, would probably not be preserved on a wreck.
Mammals, such as horses and bulls, were also traded by ship. Two bulls are being off-loaded from the Syro-Canaanite ships in the tomb of Kenamun (Fig. 14.6),136 but skeletal remains are rare on ancient shipwrecks. A single mammalian bone found at Uluburun may be physical evidence of a trade item but was more likely intended for the crew’s cooking pot.137
Slaves, apparently a particularly lucrative trade commodity, were often transported by sea. The two Syro-Canaanite ships captured by Thutmose III carried “male and female slaves,” and in the Kenamun scene a group of men, perhaps slaves, is being brought forward by a Syro-Canaanite trader (Fig. 14.6, center left).138 The later Phoenicians were particularly notorious as slavers.139
Port Scenes and Recreation Ashore
The hustle and bustle of active port trade is dynamically depicted in the tomb of Kenamun (Fig. 14.6). In a parallel and very vibrant scene from another Theban tomb, crew members of a Nile ship are, in the immortal words of N. de G. Davies, “spending their wages with female hucksters on the bank” (Fig. 14.7).140 The scented cones and lotus blossoms on the women’s heads are usually depicted only in scenes of banquets or on women at their toilet.141 This suggests that the women are prostitutes receiving their pay “in kind” from their clients.142
Figure 14.6. Harbor scene from the tomb of Kenamun (T. 162) at Thebes (Amenhotep III) (from Davies and Faulkner 1947: pl. 8)
Convoys of Trading Ships
Merchant ships on occasion traveled in convoys for protection. The two Syro-Canaanite ships captured by Thutmose III mentioned previously may have been together when taken. Similarly, Rib-Addi complains that Iapa Addi has robbed two of his ships; Abimilki, the king of Tyre, writes that the “man of Sidon” has abandoned that city in a convoy of two Egyptian (?) ships.143 Elsewhere we hear of three Byblian ships that have succeeded in running the blockade imposed on that city by Arwad.144 Tjekkerbaal tells Wenamun of a convoy consisting of six Egyptian (?) ships.145
Iconographic representations are less trustworthy in this regard. Do the five ships represented at Deir el Bahri shown on the outgoing and return voyages from Punt indicate the actual number of craft taking part in the voyage, or are they simply an artistic convenience showing various stages in a trip that was undertaken by a single craft?146 Similarly, all the ships in Kenamun’s painting are presumably based on a single master source from a copybook. The number of ships portrayed, therefore, lacks significance.147
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Apart from the major sea powers, there must have been a variety of smaller peoples involved in maritime affairs. One such group that has been virtually ignored but is visible in the texts is the Carians.148 The occasional appearance of Grey Minyan Ware in Crete, Cyprus, and Syria may reveal some (as yet undefined) maritime contact with this ethnic group.149
