DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0129
112 DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
confined to a primitive age, as in Greece; for some figures of
the Pharaohs continued to be made of it, above life size, to the
latest times. But the Egyptians never adopted ivory for the
same purpose as the Greeks in their chryselephantine colossi.
Coffins, or wooden sarcophagi, were mostly of sycamore,
deal, or cedar, covered with a coating of stucco, and richly
painted; and the models of boats and other wooden objects,
connected with the funerals of the dead, showed the same skill
of the Egyptian workmen.
Boat-builders were of two denominations : one belonging to
the carpenters, who constructed vessels of wood ; the other to
basket-makers, who made boats of the papyrus. The ordinary
boats of the Nile were of planks of the acacia, fastened upon
ribs of the same wood with wooden bolts; and they were par-
tially or entirely decked. They had one mast, a single square
sail, with one yard above and another below; which was trimmed
by halliards and sheets, and raised or lowered by lifts running
in dead-sheeve holes at the top of the mast, which answered in
lieu of blocks. Latine sails were never used by the ancient,
as they are by the modern, Egyptians; and no instance occurs
of a boat with more than one sail or one mast.
In early times the mast was double, but being found
cumbrous, it gave place to a single one ; and to the sail, which
had then only an upper yard, was added another below; both
yards being frequently of two pieces, scarfed together in the
middle, and supported by lifts. The upper yard might be
lowered when necessary, in order to shorten sail, which was
probably taken in by rolling up the lower yard in it, as is still
done in the square-rigged boats of Ethiopia; but when furled,
the sail was brailed up, and then bent upon the upper yard;
which was afterwards let down to the lower one. The cabin
was of light wood, probably deal from Syria, painted as usual