DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0306
Ancient Egyptian Fishing
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enough force to lead the people of lasus to adopt as a type for some of their coinage the
device of a youth swimming beside a dolphin, which he clasps with one arm.80
As there is no means of telling whether or not there lies behind the respect paid to
porpoises at Gemil an ancient religious sentiment, the subject must no longer detain us.
But in taking leave of it, I venture to suggest that in the belief that the porpoise or dolphin
was the willing helper of the fisherman may lie concealed the obscure origin of such fish
divinities as the Phoenician Derceto or Atargatis. I would further suggest that the
study of all classical legends and beliefs such as those just mentioned ought, if carried
out in a critical spirit and with a proper regard to their geographic distribution, to yield
important results; for it is highly probable that in their origin they belong to the old
Mediterranean Race.
§ 4. The papyrus canoe. The first item in the equipment of the Egyptian fisher-
man which demands our attention is the craft in which he followed his calling. The topic
is one of some interest, since the vessels employed by the fishermen and fowlers, and
indeed by the peasantry as a whole, were of a peculiarly primitive type. Long after
boats constructed of planks had come into general use — and they seem to have done so
before the beginning of dynastic times —- the conservative fishermen sought their liveli-
hood in small rafts or canoes made of papyrus canes bound together with cords. Even
in classical times craft of this rude description were in general use in Egypt: Theophrastus
alludes to them and mentions the manufacture of the papyrus cordage with which, as the
monumental evidence shows, they were bound.81 Pliny speaks of Nile boats “made of
papyrus, rushes or reeds ”,82 and it is to such shallops that the poet Lucan refers in the line
Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro,83
though he is wrong, as the Egyptian representations prove beyond reasonable doubt, in
mentioning the typical papyrus craft of the Nile as if they were similar in construction to
the coracles of the Britons, Iberians, and Veneti.
The use of papyrus boats was not, as might at first be supposed, restricted to Lower
Egypt. Celsius informs us that they were employed in shooting the rapids of the First
Cataract.84 This should be borne in mind in connection with the two passages of Strabo,
in the first of which the geographer describes the skill of the boatmen round Syene in shoot-
80 B. V. Head, Historia numorum, Oxford, 1887, p. 528. The type, as Head observes, is mentioned by Pollux,
Onomasticon, ed. W. Dindorff, Leipzig, 1824, IX, 84.
81 Theophrastus, ed. F. Wimmer, Leipzig, 1854-1862, Historia plantarum, IV, 8, 2.
82 Pliny, op. cit., VII, 56 (57).... in Nilo ex papyro ac scirpo et harundine; cf. Ibid., VI, 22 (24); XIII, 11
(22)... ex ipso quidem papyro navigia texunt.... etiam stragula ac funes.
83 Lucan, ed. F. Oudendorp, Leyden, 1728, IV, 136.
84 O. Celsius, Hierobotanicon, sive de plantis Sacrae Scripturae, Amsterdam, 1748, pt. 2, p. 148.
219
enough force to lead the people of lasus to adopt as a type for some of their coinage the
device of a youth swimming beside a dolphin, which he clasps with one arm.80
As there is no means of telling whether or not there lies behind the respect paid to
porpoises at Gemil an ancient religious sentiment, the subject must no longer detain us.
But in taking leave of it, I venture to suggest that in the belief that the porpoise or dolphin
was the willing helper of the fisherman may lie concealed the obscure origin of such fish
divinities as the Phoenician Derceto or Atargatis. I would further suggest that the
study of all classical legends and beliefs such as those just mentioned ought, if carried
out in a critical spirit and with a proper regard to their geographic distribution, to yield
important results; for it is highly probable that in their origin they belong to the old
Mediterranean Race.
§ 4. The papyrus canoe. The first item in the equipment of the Egyptian fisher-
man which demands our attention is the craft in which he followed his calling. The topic
is one of some interest, since the vessels employed by the fishermen and fowlers, and
indeed by the peasantry as a whole, were of a peculiarly primitive type. Long after
boats constructed of planks had come into general use — and they seem to have done so
before the beginning of dynastic times —- the conservative fishermen sought their liveli-
hood in small rafts or canoes made of papyrus canes bound together with cords. Even
in classical times craft of this rude description were in general use in Egypt: Theophrastus
alludes to them and mentions the manufacture of the papyrus cordage with which, as the
monumental evidence shows, they were bound.81 Pliny speaks of Nile boats “made of
papyrus, rushes or reeds ”,82 and it is to such shallops that the poet Lucan refers in the line
Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro,83
though he is wrong, as the Egyptian representations prove beyond reasonable doubt, in
mentioning the typical papyrus craft of the Nile as if they were similar in construction to
the coracles of the Britons, Iberians, and Veneti.
The use of papyrus boats was not, as might at first be supposed, restricted to Lower
Egypt. Celsius informs us that they were employed in shooting the rapids of the First
Cataract.84 This should be borne in mind in connection with the two passages of Strabo,
in the first of which the geographer describes the skill of the boatmen round Syene in shoot-
80 B. V. Head, Historia numorum, Oxford, 1887, p. 528. The type, as Head observes, is mentioned by Pollux,
Onomasticon, ed. W. Dindorff, Leipzig, 1824, IX, 84.
81 Theophrastus, ed. F. Wimmer, Leipzig, 1854-1862, Historia plantarum, IV, 8, 2.
82 Pliny, op. cit., VII, 56 (57).... in Nilo ex papyro ac scirpo et harundine; cf. Ibid., VI, 22 (24); XIII, 11
(22)... ex ipso quidem papyro navigia texunt.... etiam stragula ac funes.
83 Lucan, ed. F. Oudendorp, Leyden, 1728, IV, 136.
84 O. Celsius, Hierobotanicon, sive de plantis Sacrae Scripturae, Amsterdam, 1748, pt. 2, p. 148.