The Gurob Ship-Cart Model
The Gurob Ship-Cart Model In 1920 W.M. F. Petrie assigned G. Brunton and R. Engleback to excavate Gurob, a site that he had first examined three decades earlier. That season yielded a remarkable wooden (Ficus sycomorus) model of a ship, found in Tomb 611, dating back to the XIXth Dynasty, and now located in Petrie Museum, London (UC 16044). No photographs exist of the artifact in situ. The terse tomb registration card, apparently filled out by Petrie himself, notes only “Frags of painted wooden boat on wheels”. No other documentation of the tomb is known to exist. The excavation report describes the tomb simply as a “shallow shaft with chamber on west.”. The model was the only artifact found in Tomb 611. Along with a reconstruction drawing by Petrie showing the model in port sheer plan, as well as plan views, the excavation report included a laconic description of the model. Six years later, in the second of a two-part article dealing with Egyptian watercraft, Petrie supplied another, somewhat different, drawing—this time in an elevated starboard view. The model was broken in half in antiquity, apparently intentionally. The model is hollowed to signify a planked watercraft. However, the model was found together with four wheels and hence it was intended for travel on land either. The Gurob model is exceptional in that it is a nonroyal New Kingdom wooden ship model. Wooden models of watercraft are common from the Old to the Middle Kingdoms, but their popularity appears to have waned afterward. Despite its Egyptian provenience, the ultimate prototype of the Gurob ship model is clearly a Helladic-style galley of the Late Bronze/Early Iron Ages. It saw service with the Sea Peoples and this may explain the appearance in Egypt of a model of this ship type. Representations of Helladic ships appear also at Medinet Habu and Dakhla Oasis.length:40.5 cmsBibliographyS. Wachsmann The Gurob Ship-Cart Model and Its Mediterranean Context (2013)imore images http://ape-egypt.org/user/BYTNe/30753The Gurob Ship-Cart Model Digital Supplement http://www.vizin.org/Gurob/Gurob-as-exc.html
