Boats representation in the byzantine art

Abstract EN

For thousands of years ago, people have been using boats and ships to navigate the sea, which had attracted them to discover it's secretes.

People sailed for the sake of discovery as a type of adventure, settlement, trade, and conquest.

In Egypt, the Nile River was the most significant catalyst that helped in flourishing the different watercraft's industry.

Since the Pre-dynastic period, they started to make their first primitive watercraft, representing it on rocks, pottery and walls, and their interest with the boats reached its burial.

The boats importance had increased, and its industry became more skillful, passing through the different dynastic periods of the ancient Egyptian civilization, Ptolemaic, Greek, and Roman periods, till reaching the Byzantine period in which the boat's representation had gained more symbolism aligned with the new Christian religion.

This research aims to focus light on the boats and its uses from the Pre-dynastic till the Byzantine Periods, to analyze different scenes representing boats through this period, to trace the development of the scenes representing boats from ancient egyptt till the Byzantine period, and to determine the boat's symbolism in Coptic art.