Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1901 — NOAH'S ARK A MODERN SHIP. [ARTICLE]

NOAH'S ARK A MODERN SHIP.

Proof that the Shipbulldina Industry Flourished Before His Time. Another popular notion has been upset. For centuries it has been supposed that Father Noah was the first shipbuilder of the world and that the ark in which he saved his family from drowning was the first vessel that “plowed the raging main.” This supposition has been found to be erroneous, for there exist paintings of Egyptian vessels immensely older than-the date 2840 B. C., usually assigned to the ark, being, probably between seventy and eighty centuries old. Moreover, there • are now In existence in Egypt boats which were built about the period the ark was constructed. These are, however, small craft, about thirty-three feet long, seven feet or eight feet wide, and two and a half feet to three feet deep. They were discovered six years ago by the eminent French Egyptologist, M. J. De Morgan,3n brick vaults near Cairo and were probably funeral boats. They are constructed of three-lnch acacia and sycamore planks, dovetailed together and fastened with trenails. They have floors but no ribs, and though nearly 5,000 years old they held together after their supports had been removed. These boats may be considered side by side with the better known, but much more modern, viking ship, which is now to be seen in a shed at Christiana. This craft was discovered in 1880 in a funeral mound, so that we owe both these existing examples of extremely ancient ships to the funeral customs of countries so dissimilar as Egypt and Norway.