Reed Boats

One of the inventions and achievements of Mesopotamia that we want to introduce to you is reed boats. Reed boats and rafts are among the oldest known types of boats, along with dugout canoes and other rafts. They are still used in a few places throughout the world as traditional fishing boats, however, they have mostly been supplanted by planked boats. Reed boats can be distinguished from reed rafts because reed boats are typically waterproofed with tar. Small floating islands made of reeds have been built beside boats and rafts.

According to researcher Kris Hirst, Mesopotamian reed boats are the earliest known evidence of purposefully constructed sailing ships, dating to the early Neolithic Ubaid culture of Mesopotamia around 5500 B.C.E. The small, masted Mesopotamian boats are thought to have permitted minor but substantial long-distance trade between the Fertile Crescent's burgeoning villages and the Arabian Neolithic communities of the Persian Gulf. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers were followed by boatmen down into the Persian Gulf and along the shores of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. The earliest evidence of Ubaidian boat trade into the Persian Gulf was discovered in the mid-20th century when Ubaidian pottery was discovered at a number of coastal Persian Gulf locations.