Kuphar

A kuphar in Baghdad in 1914

A kuphar (kufa, kuffah, quffa, quffah, &c.^[1]) is a type of coracle or round boat traditionally used on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. They were described by Herodotus who visited Babylon around 450 BCE and observed them,^[2]

But that which surprises me most in the land, after the city itself, I will now proceed to mention. The boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular, and made of skins. The frames, which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria, and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skins is stretched outside, and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on board, after which they are suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the palm-tree. They are managed by two men who stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents' burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon, the cargo is landed and offered for sale; after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and the frames, and loading their asses with the skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skins rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.

— Herodotus

There were two major forms of construction used — hides stretched over a framework, as described by Herodotus, and woven bundles of reeds or basketry, waterproofed with bitumen. Boats of this sort were still used in modern times, being described by James Hornell in The Coracles of the Tigris and Euphrates (1938).^[3]

Professor Irving Finkel organised the construction of a large vessel of this kind, following his translation of a cuneiform tablet which contained an ancient flood narrative, which may have inspired the story of Noah's Ark.^[4]

Tennyson referenced the boats in his 1827 poem Persia,

On fair Diarbeck's land of spice,
Adiabene's plains of rice,
Where down th' Euphrates, swift and strong,
The shield-like kuphars bound along;

— Alfred, Lord Tennyson

References