Speakers
Mr Ayman Al-Gohary
Archaeological Inspector at the General Department of Archaeological Documentation in Lower Egypt, Ministry of Antiquities, Islamic Antiquities Section
Biography:
Ayman Gamal Al-Gohary is an Archaeological Inspector at the General Department of Archaeological Documentation in Lower Egypt, Ministry of Antiquities, Islamic Antiquities Section. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Tanta University (2000), and obtained his MA in Islamic Antiquities from South Valley University (2011). He attended five courses, including a course in Crisis Management at the Management & Regulation Directorate, in the framework of a training program for government employees, a course in speaking French in archaeology for archaeological inspectors at the French Institute in Alexandria, in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Centre for Alexandrian Studies, and a course preparing development administrators at the Management & Regulation Directorate, in the framework of a training program for government employees. He delivered two lectures: “The Role of Shipbuilding in Ottoman Egypt” at the training program organized by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and “Ships in the Islamic Era” at the Alexandria Centre for Maritime Archaeology & Underwater Cultural Heritage, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University.
Abstract:
Ships in the Islamic Era: Artistic Features in Light of Historical Texts and Manuscripts
Ships are considered one of the decorative elements the Islamic artistic products were generally rich in. They appeared sometimes as main decorative elements, and other times as subsidiary ones. The importance of those ship drawings reside in illustrating their shapes during the Islamic Era.
According to their usage, ships in the Islamic Era were divided into military ships, ships for transport and trade, and ships for processions and trips. Each type of ship had several functions, sometimes they were for transport and trade, sometimes in war, and other times in processions and trips. For example, galleons appeared as military and commercial ships, while hippies appeared as transport and commercial ships as well as processions and trips.
When studying the artistic features of ships that include shape of the ship, industry, and raw material used in ship construction during the Islamic Era, it is noticeable that those features and the technical terminology describing parts of ships vary in the area of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea from the Mediterranean area.