Archaeologica.org

From today’s news page.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/2 ... ptian.html


Maybe them were not as afraid of sailing as we have been lead to believe
At least not in the somewhat protected waters of the Red Sea.

Lots of rope but not much wood.
Reed boats?

Ropes were stored in the cave...boats were left in the water?

If there were no skeletons in the caves - - they probably all left in a hurry on the boats - just before the boats sank because they weren't tied to the shore!

Hi

I think the ropes look like rope made from Lime-bast. I dont know if the limetree grow in egyps, but in africa people does to this day make rope of bast. Here is a pisture of a basket made of a bucket made of lime bast and bark



you can read about the basket here and if you click on the picture, you will get bigger resulution:
http://www.lejrecenter.dk/OP-AF-BROENDE ... 600.0.html

There have been found lime-bast ropes from the viking age and vikingships proberly had all the ropes that dont move made from this stuff. The ropes you pull in can not have been made from it, its to brittle for that. But its very robust when used for the standing rig on a ship.

The bast is a layer beneath that bark, to get ir out you put the bark in water and let it rot, then you can pull the bast bast of the bark. I have tried to make bast-rope.

Kim

Pippin, I'm full of admiration for you. You've actually got your hands dirty and done something practical which has led, at least on this forum, to a sensible and reasonable and highly informed hypothesis about an artifact.

That's more than most of us have done. We just sit here speculating.

Please keep it up. I' m sure you're going to be a great archaeologist.

That agrees with the idea in the article.
That is what they think the thick ropes were for.
If you look at the PICS of these old boats, reed or wood, they all had a rope the went from bow to stern over the top of the mast. It kept the boat from folding in half.
The lack of this structural rigging was one of the things that made the Viking longboat so different.
It was designed to flex with the wave motion.