IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it’s the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation.
The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six-tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep.
The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the number of plants found in America that were of foreign origin.
The first reed boat was built in 1993 and paved the way for Abora II’s current expedition, which sailed from Alexandria to Lebanon and arrived in Larnaca 21 days later, covering a distance of 460 nautical miles.
The boat was built in Bolivia and shipped over to Europe where it was rebuilt for the launch in Alexandria. With a crew of nine, including nationals from Germany, Egypt, Norway and Bolivia, Goerlitz and his team aim to prove that people from Asia Minor, before the age of Phoenicians, managed to conquer the seas and that these people reached Atlantic territories around 3000BC.
Ingo Isensee, one of the crewmembers said yesterday that things got a little hairy when winds reached up to 34 knots, but that they had managed to sail across the wind and even against the wind when it was not too heavy.
The ancient reed boat and its crew plan to leave Cyprus for Alexandria in the next few days and begin preparations for the boat to be exhibited.
The name ‘Abora’ denotes the power of goodness, and is depicted by a sign that can be found on step pyramids all over the Mediterranean. For modern day historians, the Abora II gives a breathtaking insight into prehistoric civilisations.
Following in the footsteps of Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl, Goerlitz hopes to prove the links between prehistoric communities in Asia Minor and the Americas. Heyerdahl used models of Pharaonic boats to build two papyrus crafts, the Ra II and the Tigris, which succeeded in crossing the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean respectively. His expeditions called into question the notion that Columbus was the first transatlantic navigator and demonstrated how the ancient Sumerians could have travelled widely.
Goerlitz wanted to take the studies a step further and open possibilities of Mediterranean civilisations having influence on the New World. This was not possible under Heyerdahl’s expedition because he had sailed with the currents, being unable to manoeuvre his boat against the wind.
Goerlitz recognised that trade lines could not be proved if the boats being used could not sail against the wind – especially in the Mediterranean sea, which is prone to strong currents and winds. Convinced that pre-dynastic Egyptians traded with all the ancient civilisations, Goerlitz studied Nubian cave paintings drawn at the end of the 4000 BC.
From the drawings of papyrus reed boats he concluded that the representations of oars were actually keels. This provided an explanation as to how the sailboats could stay balanced in the water under the pressure of strong winds.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
