This boat, crewed by fourteen oarsmen and a single lookout on the bow, was placed in a tomb to provide transportation for the deceased. It is a typical Nile ship, with a mast and a tall steering oar at the stern. The oarsmen are seated on the deck, their arms extended as if pulling on the long oars. Because the sail is not preserved and the oars may not be in their original positions, it is difficult to determine if the sailors were intended to be rowing or sitting at rest.^[1] A pilot stands at the bow, looking ahead to call the course and to watch for the constantly shifting sandbars that occur in the Nile (fig. 1). One of his hands points the direction, while the other held the rope attached to a fender (now lost), a feature that is seen on most boat models of this period.^[2] The pilot, like the crew, is dressed in a white kilt. They all have short, closely cropped hairstyles, large, almond-shaped eyes defined with black pigment, and dark reddish-brown skin (an artistic convention that indicates they are engaged in outdoor pursuits). Aside from some light modeling of the shoulders and muscles of the arms, the men have abstracted, sticklike bodies with few individualizing details. The men’s uniform appearance suggests they are all of the same rank.^[3] As in most boat models, the crew is shown in a larger scale than the boat.^[4] Judging from other models, each member of the crew would have been attached to the deck by a small peg.1

All the details of the little craft replicate the construction of a real vessel. The boat has a high stern and a pointed bow. The bow is painted black, probably to represent the waterproof leather that protected the wood.^[5] The hull is hollow. The deck is painted with red lines that imitate wooden beams. The outer edges of the deck (gunnels) have stripes of black pigment, representing the rope lashing that joined the deck to the hull and the oarlocks. A tall, vertical tiller post (also referred to as a stanchion) that supported the steering oar is mounted on the stern. A small pole attached to the steering oar served as the tiller handle that would have been manned by the helmsman (now missing).^[6] The steering oar is decorated with bands of white pigment. The long, spade-shaped oars are tied closely to the hull, as if in oarlocks.^[7] A forked crutch, painted white and red with black bands, that supported the mast when it was lowered, lies at the feet of the lookout on the bow. The mast has a band of white pigment (with an additional zone of black) similar to that on the steering oar.
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Boats in Art and Mythology

Boats appear frequently in Egyptian art, mythology, and religion. In religious texts, the sun god traversed the sky in a boat and the gods and the deceased traversed the dark hours of the underworld by boat. From the Early Dynastic Period through most of the Middle Kingdom (about 3000–1831 BCE), boats (or models)—some as long as 142 feet—were buried next to some of the kings’ tombs or funerary enclosures to allow them to join the sun god in his eternal circuit of the heavens.^[8] 3

Boats were important to the lives of all Egyptians. Mortuary texts known as the Coffin Texts refer to the deceased making voyages to cult centers at Sais, Buto, Heliopolis, and Busiris in northern Egypt.^[9] But the model ships are most often associated with the deceased’s voyage to Abydos in the south, which was one of the most sacred sites in Egypt because it was thought to be the burial place of the god Osiris, the main deity of the afterlife. The Middle Kingdom, when model boats were most common, saw intense interest in building memorial chapels and dedicating stelae at Abydos, and the thousands of small monuments dedicated there to Osiris provide rich documentation of the lives of people at this time.4

Because of the prevailing winds and currents, boat models were often made in pairs, one with its sails raised and the other with them furled allowing the deceased to travel both south and north. Other, more elaborate sets show a funerary bier on the deck of the boat taking the deceased to Abydos for burial. Boat models recovered from the tomb of the official Meketre at Thebes show a wide range of ships, including papyrus skiffs, work boats, cargo boats, processional boats, and kitchen barges.^[10] 5

Tomb Models

Tomb models are part of the expression of a long tradition of providing service for the deceased. Tomb models may portray porters, or lines of porters, who carry offerings and provisions to the tomb; workers who milk cows, chop wood, and plow fields; and entire workshops that were left in the burial chamber to fulfill any need of the deceased. These models with their scenes of industry, although made for mortuary use, are invaluable records of daily life.6

Although their themes derive from scenes on the walls of royal and elite tombs from the Old Kingdom and later, tomb models were available to a comparatively larger portion of the population because they were less expensive to make. Over time, tomb models exhibit more stylistic variation than the comparatively more conservative genre of elite and royal wall decoration. From late Dynasty 4 to early Dynasty 5, limestone models of men and women engaged in tasks—baking, brewing, and butchering—were placed in tombs, especially at Giza and Saqqara. Some of these examples, judging from their style, were probably made in the royal workshops. In the First Intermediate Period, with the rise of provincial centers, models were made of locally sourced wood. They exhibit a comparatively greater range of artistic styles and techniques. Some, such as those from the tomb of Meketre at Thebes, are carved and painted in the manner of royal art, while others, like the boat discussed here, follow local artistic traditions. By the Middle Kingdom, the stylistic differences between tomb models and wall paintings are even more pronounced.7

Wood models generally fell out of favor by about the time of King Senwosret III (about 1870 BCE).^[11] For a short time afterward, their role in tombs was fulfilled by small objects of daily life and little animal statues in ivory, faience, or stone, which in turn were replaced by mummiform figures initially called shabtis (see cats. 37–42). However, the importance of boats in Egyptian funerary beliefs continued, as indicated by the thirty-five boat models found in the tomb of Tutankhamun (about 1336–1327 BCE), as well as a smaller number of examples recovered from other royal tombs of the New Kingdom.^[12]8

Original Context

Thomas George Allen, without further comment, states it is from Meir, and notes the scrambled condition of the model when it was received by the Art Institute, with the oarsmen facing the wrong direction, the addition of a crewmember who may not be original to this model, substitute oars, and a modern sail.^[13] More recently, Ann Merriman has confirmed that the boat came from Meir and that it was probably excavated by Jacques de Morgan in 1892–93.^[14] Sixty-seven boat models have been excavated from the tombs at Meir, or attributed to the site on the basis of their style.^[15]9

Additional Views of Cat. 35

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894.10

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 49 (ill.), 50.11

Celia Hilliard, “A Committee of Two,” in “‘The Prime Mover’: Charles L. Hutchinson and the Making of the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 36, no. 1 (2010): 64, fig. 21.12

Ann Marie Merriman, Egyptian Watercraft Models from the Predynastic to Third Intermediate Periods (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2011), 363, no. 494.13

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 24, fig. 8.14

Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, and Sara E. Cole, eds., Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018), 60.
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