Model Solar Boat

Model Solar Boat

Middle Kingdom, mid-Dynasty 11 - Dynasty 12, ca. 2000-1760 BC

Egypt

Wood, stucco, paint
Height: 50.8 cm High x 89.3 cm x 15.2 cm

2018.010.415

Models of sailing boats were more common in burials of the 11th and 12th Dynasties to aid the deceased’s transportation in the afterlife. This model represents a solar boat with an erroneously placed crew and mast. The original solar boat had a raised prow and cover. The stern is missing and replaced by a rectangular box that originally had two round sticks at each corner. The falcon originally sat atop a cylindrical object that is now missing.

The mast and crew were originally part of another boat, a sailing vessel. Ten figures stand around a central mast, wearing knee-length kilts and short wigs. Their arms are outstretched to adjust the rigging of sails. Kneeling figures sit one at the bow and the other at the stern, facing inward.

A few model solar boats survive from Middle Kingdom tombs at Bersheh and Meir, but they are rare. Their purpose was to help the deceased join Ra in his bark as noted in the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead which contain the spells “for bringing the great bark of Ra” (Book of the Dead, Spells 102 and 136A).

Ex-collection Henriette Zanon, Monte-Carlo, Monaco, since early 1900s. Purchased by Georges Ricard for the Senusret Collection on 3 May 1975.

[See additional images below]

Gift of the Georges Ricard Foundation

Parallels and References:
Cairo, Egyptian Museum, nos. 4949, 4953.
In: Reisner, George Andrew. Models of ships and boats (CG ; 4798-4976. 5034-5200) (Cairo: Impr. de l'IFAO, 1913), pp. 101-102, CG 4949, Pl. XXII, bottom, and 106-107, CG 4953, Pl. XXIV, top (from Bersheh).

Merriman, Ann. Egyptian Watercraft Models from the Predynastic to Third Intermediate Periods. British Archaeological Reports, International Series no. 2263 (Oxford, England, 2011), pp. 401-402, and cat. 206, 207.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 14.3.21.
In: Hayes, William C. 1953. Scepter of Egypt I: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art), pp. 271-2, fig. 178; 270, fig. 177.

Berkeley, CA, Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology houses fragments of a 12th Dynasty model cedar boat from Tebtunis that includes a falcon, PAHMA no 6-20848.