Gurob Egypt |
Investigating The Tombs
The site of Gurob lies on the western end of the desert south of Lahun, Egypt, on the eastern edge of the Fayyum. Its large cemetery spans all of ancient Egypt's history and was first partially excavated by Sir Flinders Petrie in the 1880s. In 1920, he sent two of his assistants, Guy Brunton and Reginald Engleback, back to the site for further investigations of the tombs. Tomb 611 (a shallow shaft with a chamber at the west, according to Petrie's report) is located near the southeastern edge of the cemetery in a cluster of other tombs south of the "Harem" structure. Among the meager remains found in the small tomb were pieces of hair and several fragments of a small painted wooden boat. Petrie interpreted the boat as a child's toy (mainly due to the wheels found among the fragments of hull, oars, and stanchions) and dated it to c.1000BCE. It can now be more precisely dated to the 19th or 20th Dynasties (c.1300-1100 BCE).
Slant satellite view of Gurob in its eastern Mediterranean context. Courtesy Google Earth |
Photograph of the port side of the assembled hull of the Gurob ship-cart model; |
The fragile fragments of the little model boat are currently stored in a drawer in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London. There is very little by way of documentation about the boat other than a brief description and reconstruction drawing in Petrie's excavation report and a few subsequent mentions in assorted publications.
Reference
Page Created: March 14, 2012
Page Updated: March 14, 2012
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Page Author: The Institute for the Visualization of History