Egyptian Reed Ships

Egyptian reed ships were buoyant craft built from bundled papyrus stalks, used on the Nile and for coastal Red Sea work from the Predynastic period through the Old Kingdom. Tomb reliefs and the Palermo Stone record reed and wooden vessels; the funerary boat pits at Giza beside Khufu’s pyramid held a disassembled 43.6-meter cedar barque (c.2566 BC), showing the shift to plank-built hulls. Pharaonic expeditions to Punt under Hatshepsut (c.1470 BC), depicted at Deir el-Bahari, used seagoing planked ships, while papyrus craft persisted for river and marsh transport.