Page 126 - The Tigris Expedition

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earliest Sumerian hieroglyphs, which scientists had found to be the
same as the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for ‘marine*.
Moreover, the Sumerian word for a ship’s ‘bow’ was the same as
their word for ‘horn’.
I began to see a meaning in all this when Mr Abdo showed me the
same ‘horns’ on the Failaka seals and added that it had been a local
custom to place the head of a gazelle in the bow of a ship, either a
real gazelle’s head or a carved one. And here we came to the
fingerprint. Three of the five Failaka seals had the sickle-shaped ship
depicted in a most peculiar manner. The deep curve of the deck was
incised to coincide with the dorsal outline of a saddle-backed gazelle
in such a way that ship and animal became an inseparable unit. The
raised neck with the head and horns of the gazelle coincided with
the high bow of the ship, while the curved-up rump and tail be­
came the stern. The mast rose from the sagging back of the animal,
and the ship’s crew was thus at the same time both sailing and
riding. In one case two persons flanked the mast while tending a
reefed sail hoisted above their heads.
Common to these three seals was the idea of the men on deck
navigating and yet at the same time riding a bouncing gazelle. This
was perhaps a vivid symbolism of wave motion. But the combina­
tion of a sailing vessel’s hull with the body of a beast of the field was
as special and unlikely to be repeated as was a fingerprint. Repeated
yes, but not without some communication between the boat de­
signers. The design had impressed me and puzzled me when I first
came across it, in a special publication on Egyptian petroglyphs.
Ships were reported to be among the most common motifs incised
in pre-dynastic time on the naked desert rocks between the Nile and
the Red Sea. This had made me invite Gherman to join me in these
dried-out canyons, looking for further information on prehistoric
navigation. Where deep sand and fallen rocks stopped further
progress by jeep, Gherman and I had continued on foot in the
direction of the Red Sea. It would seem absurd to look for anything
to do with boats in such surroundings: sand dunes, not a drop of
water, not a green leaf. Not a place for living creatures other than
vultures, flies and desert snakes. Through the barren Red Sea
plateau desert wadis ran like empty tributaries into the Nile Valley.
Their steep canyon walls and the waterworn boulders at their feet

15. Farewell to Captain Igor Usakowsky and Slavsk.
16. A big hole had been ripped in the bow of Tigris during the
towing to Bahrain.

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