Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:14:56.924Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The boat models from Eridu: sailing or spinning during the ‘Ubaid period?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Thomas F. Strasser*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities & Religious Studies, California State University, Sacramento CA 95819, USA

Extract

It has been received wisdom for nearly half a century that 6th-millennium BP models, discovered at Eridu in southern Mesopotamia, are the earliest direct evidence for sailing-boats. Yet certain features of the models, and their contexts, identify them instead as spinning bowls used by weavers.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. 1981. Heartland of cities: surveys of ancient settlement and land use on the central floodplain of the Euphrates. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. & Anderson, R.. 1947. The sailing ship: six thousand years of history. New York (NY): Robert M. McBride.Google Scholar
Barber, E. 1991. Prehistoric textiles. Princeton (Nf): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, L. 1956. Man shapes his environment, Life 40 (16) [16 April): 74102.Google Scholar
Barnett, R. 1958. Early shipping in the Near East, Antiquity 32: 220–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casson, L. 1971. Ships and seamanship in the ancient world. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Google Scholar
Casson, L. 1991. The ancient mariners. 2nd edition. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, G. 1962. World prehistory: an outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Graeve, M. C. 1981. The ships of the Ancient Near East (c. 2000-500 BC). Leuven: Department Orientalistiek.Google Scholar
Dothan, T. 1963. Spinning-bowls, Israel Exploration Journal 13(2):97112.Google Scholar
Henrickson, E. & Thuesen, I.. 1989. Upon this foundation — the ‘Ubaid reconsidered. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.Google Scholar
Jawad, A. 1974. The Eridu material and its implications, Sumer 30: 1146.Google Scholar
Lloyd, S. 1948. The oldest city of Sumeria: establishing the origins of Eridu, Illustrated London News (11 September) 5708(213): 3035.Google Scholar
Lloyd, S. 1978. The archaeology of Mesopotamia. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Lloyd, S. & Safar, F.. 1948. Eridu: a preliminary communication on the second season's excavations 1947-48, Sumer 4:115-25.Google Scholar
Mallowan, M. 1970. The development of cities from Al-'Ubaid to the end of Uruk 5, in Cambridge Ancient History 1(1):327-62. 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moorey, P. 1994. Ancient Mesopotamian materials and industries: the archaeological evidence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 1993. Trade and power in the fifth and fourth millennia BC: new evidence from northern Mesopotamia, World Archaeology 24(3):403–22.Google Scholar
Oates, J. 1983. Ubaid Mesopotamia reconsidered, in Young, T. C. Jr et al. (ed.), The hilly flanks and beyond: essays on the prehistory of southwestern Asia: 251-81. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 36.Google Scholar
Oates, J., Davidson, T.E., Kamilli, D. & Mckerrell, H.. 1977. Seafaring merchants of Ur?, Antiquity 51: 221–34.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, A. L. 1954. Sea-faring merchants of Ur, Journal of the American Oriental Society 74: 617.Google Scholar
Postgate, J. 1992. Early Mesopotamia: society and economy at the dawn of history. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Qualls, C. 1981. Boats of Mesopotamia before 2000 BC. UNPUBLISHED PH.D THESIS, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Roaf, M. 1990. Cultural atlas of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. New York (NY): Facts on File.Google Scholar
Roaf, M. & Galbraith, J.. 1994. Pottery and p-values: ‘Seafaring merchants of Ur?’ re-examined, Antiquity 68: 770–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roux, G. 1980. Ancient Iraq. 2nd edition. New York (NY): Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Safak, F., Mustafa, A. & Lloyd, S.. 1981. Eridu. Baghdad: Ministry of Culture & Information.Google Scholar
Smith, M. & Hirth, K.. 1988. The development of cotton-spinning technology in western Morelos, Mexico, Journal of Field Archaeology 15: 349–58.Google Scholar
Thuesen, I. et al. In press. Analysis of Ubaid material excavated at Tell Mashnaqa, Les Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes.Google Scholar
Van Buren, E.D. 1949. Discoveries at Eridu, Orientalia: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum 18: 1234.Google Scholar
Winlock, H. 1955. Models of daily life in ancient Egypt. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wreszinski, W. 1927. Bericht über die photographische Expedition von Kairo bis Wadi Haifa zwecks Abschluß der Materialsammlung für meinen Atlas zur altägyptischen Kulturgeschechte. Halle a S: Max Niemeyer Vorlag. Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse. 4 Jahr. Heft 2.Google Scholar