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Model of a River Boat

A painted wooden boat with 15 wooden figures, all painted with dark skin and hair, shirtless, and white cloth around their lower halves. Fourteen figures are seated as if rowing; one figures stands facing sideways at the back of the boat.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A painted wooden boat with 15 wooden figures, all painted with dark skin and hair, shirtless, and white cloth around their lower halves. Fourteen figures are seated as if rowing; one figures stands facing sideways at the back of the boat.

Date:

Middle Kingdom, mid-Dynasty 12, about 1875 BCE

Artist:

Egyptian; Meir, Egypt

About this artwork

For millennia the Nile River has connected people living in the towns and cities along its banks. Ancient Egyptians used boats, barges, and other watercraft as their main forms of transportation to conduct commerce, state business, and religious pilgrimages. Skilled sailors, like the 15 men represented here, rowed north with the river’s current or sailed south with the prevailing winds. This model boat was placed in a tomb chamber to ensure that the deceased would be able to travel for eternity.

Status

On View, Gallery 50

Department

Arts of Africa

Culture

Ancient Egyptian

Title

Model of a River Boat

Place

Egypt (Object made in:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

2046 BCE–1794 BCE

Medium

Wood and pigment

Dimensions

63.5 × 114.3 × 17.1 cm (25 × 45 × 6 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, Robert H. Fleming, and Norman W. Harris

Reference Number

1894.241

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/127874/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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