Ancient Galilee Boat
May 9, 2008 by Jeremy
Since my Galilee Boat post from last August is one of the more popular posts people come across through web search or other, I thought I would pass along this information I found when browsing a book I purchased in Bethlehem a couple years ago by Miriam Vamosh, Daily Life at the Time of Jesus. Here is an excerpt about the ancient boat discovered at the Sea of Galilee:
- In 1986, the outline of a wood boat was discovered mired in the mud on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. But its shell-first, mortise-and-tenon method of construction, pottery vessels discovered with it, and the carbon-14 test, the boat could be conclusively dated to the first century CE. … The 24 by 7 foot-long craft, made of seven different species of wood including cypress and cedar, seems to have been continuously repaired over many years by a master craftsman, but in the end was apparently abandoned on the shoreline. Its burial for two thousand years in a muddy, anaerobic environment allowed for the extraordinary state of its preservation (63).
