A history of Babylon from the foundation of the monarchy to the Persian conquest . for transport. Theletters contain directions for the bringing of corn, dates,sesame-seed, and wood to Babylon, and we also knowthat wool and oil were carried in bulk by water. Fortransport of heavy goods on the Tigris and Euphratesit is possible that rafts, floated on inflated skins, wereused from an early period, though the earUest evidencewe have of their employment is furnished by the bas-reUefs from Nineveh. Such rafts have survived to the AGE OF HAMMURABI 179 present day/ and they are specially adapted for
A history of Babylon from the foundation of the monarchy to the Persian conquest . for transport. Theletters contain directions for the bringing of corn, dates,sesame-seed, and wood to Babylon, and we also knowthat wool and oil were carried in bulk by water. Fortransport of heavy goods on the Tigris and Euphratesit is possible that rafts, floated on inflated skins, wereused from an early period, though the earUest evidencewe have of their employment is furnished by the bas-reUefs from Nineveh. Such rafts have survived to the AGE OF HAMMURABI 179 present day/ and they are specially adapted for thetransport of heavy materials, for they are carried downby the current, and are kept in the main stream bymeans of huge sweeps or oars. Being formed only oflogs of wood and skins, they are not costly, for woodwas plentiful in the upper course of the rivers. At theend of the journey, after the goods were landed, theywere broken up, the logs being sold at a profit, and theskins, after being deflated, were packed on donkeys toreturn up stream by caravan.^ The use of such keleks. Fig. 42. the assyriah prototype of the gufa. [From a bas-relief in the British Museum.] can only have been general when through-river com-munication was general, but, since we know thatHammurabi included Assyria wdthin his dominions, itis not impossible that they may date from at least asearly a period as the First Dynasty. For purely localtraffic in small bulk the gufa, or light coracle, mayhave been used in Babylonia at this time, for its repre-sentation on the Assyrian monuments correspondsexactly Avith its structure at the present time as usedon the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The gufa is formedof wicker-work coated with bitumen, but some of thoserepresented on the sculptures from Nineveh appear to ^ Even the modem Arabic name for such a raft, kelek, is derived fromthe Assyrian word for the same form of vessel, Jcalaku,, as was first pointed outby Johnson. - This is the custom at the present day^ and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1915
