Just as ancient Egyptian gods, or their cult images which represented them on earth, had houses (temples), tables, beds, clothes and jewellery, etc. so they had also full-sized barks – which were similar in shape to Nile boats, except that their prows and sterns were adorned with the aegis of the god in question, and the cabin was replaced by a naos containing the cult image of the deity – in which to travel by river or canal. One must distinguish clearly between two kinds of these sacred barks : real ships which carried images or shrines on Nile, canals or sacred lakes during the celebration of religious festivals, and portable barks or boat-shrines either dragged or borne in procession on the shoulders of the temple priests amid great jubilation when the festival of the local god was celebrated during special times of the year, or when the god or goddess left the precincts of his or her own temple to visit another deity at some other location.
A. ERMAN, Aegypten und Aegyptisches Leben im Altertum, Bd 2, Stuttgart, 1885, p. 373; H. BONNET, RÄRG, 1952, p. 78-80, s. v. "Barke"; K. A. KITCHEN, LÄ I, 1975, col. 619-20, s.v. . A. KITCHEN, LÄ I, 1975, col. 619-20, s. v. "Barke"; I. SHAW, P. NICHOLSON, op. cit., p.48-9; D. JONES, op. cit., p. 20 ff. Wb IV, p. 291; R. HANNIG, Sprache der Pharaonen Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch–Deutsch (2800-950 v. Chr.), Mainz, 1995, p. 765.
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