A very primitive technique that allows people to cross bodies of water is to use inflated animal skins (or bladders) as floats. Soldiers of antiquity normally carried goatskins for their water; and these could just as easily serve as flotation devices. The oldest example is a bas-relief (see right) from ancient Mesopotamia now in the British Museum. It shows ancient Assyrians using bladders as floats 3000 years ago.
For bigger loads, J. Hornell (p.21) mentions rafts made from the ox-hides - normally used as tents by armies of antiquity. Two such hides sewn together would act as a floating air mattress.
The process of manufacture is simple... A large tanned ox-skin, with holes perforated all round the edges, is laid on the ground, dry grass is piled on it and the whole then lashed into a sort of package by means of hide ropes passed through the holes round the edge. If goods are to be transported they are put inside; if human beings, they squat on the top or let their legs dangle in the water; in either case, swimmers pull and push the unwieldy craft across.
Around 300BC, Alexander used this method to transport 1500 cavalry and 4000 infantry across the Danube.
Below, click on images to enlarge! Use the arrows to move to new images.
Images from Antiquity
More commonly, many inflated skins would be combined to provide the buoyancy for rafts, just like
modern floating docks. These rafts were used either as ferries, bridges or for long distance transport of goods downriver.
Assyrian men using inflated pig skins raft.
From a fresco found in Dur-Sharrukin, Iraq
[ Source ]
Romans crossing the Danube on a floating bridge.
From Trajan's column, Rome (105 AD)
[ Source ]
Illustrations from the Common Era
Floats in India
Floating Ferry
Middle East rafts (1800s - 1900s )
Until very recently, rafts supported on inflated animal skins were in common use on the Tigris and Euphrates. These were called Keleks. Smaller ones were used to ferry people and goods across rivers. Larger cargo keleks were used to float goods downstream from Mosul to Baghdad.
In 1850, an ordinary kelek was roughly 16 feet square, supported by 50 skins. The average commercial keleks would require 300 skins and some exceptionally large ones carrying passengers might need up 1000 skins. The kelek-men propelled it by pole down the river with the current until it reached
the south. There, they unloaded their cargo, dismantled the raft and sold
the wood. The return
journey was by land; the sailor then became a camel driver leading
his caravan laden with the empty skins to the port of origin. The process of building another kelek and sailing down river started all over again.“ [From Classic Ships of Islam ]
Much of our information on Keleks comes from the writings of English travellers and archeologists who were fascinated by Ancient Mesopotamia.
Sir Austen Layard ( 1817 – 1894) travelled extensively in the area: as an archaeologist, artist, and diplomat. He is best known as the excavator of Nineveh, and many of his finds are now in the British Museum. Below we show how a huge Winged Bull (Lamassu) was transported downriver from Nimrud on a cargo kelek.
Layard describes the removal of the winged bulls from the site of the mound of Nimrud in Nineveh and Its Remains, 1849, from where they had lain for approximately the last 2,730 years. They were carefully loaded on to rafts, made in the traditional way of using hundreds of inflated goat and sheep-skins supporting a wooden superstructure. The top of the head of the sculpture can be seen on the right of the picture, emerging from its tarpaulin cover. Layard (who had learnt Arabic and Persian) recruited the crew locally, as he had done with his workforce. In April 1847, he sent them floating with the current, off on a six hundred mile journey down the river Tigris to Basra, where ships of the British Navy were waiting to take them the next 12,000 miles to England.
Another archeologist/explorer was Gertrude Bell who travelled extensively in the Middle East and worked as a diplomat during WWI. Newcastle University has a web archive of her documents. Below are her photographs of crossing rivers in Iraq on makeshift Keleks.
We crossed in a craft called a kelek, 19 inflated skins tied together and floored
over with reeds. It looked very frail in those swift waters but it served our purpose and in 4
journeys took us and our loads over.
Gertrude Bell crossing the Tigris
Ferry crossing the Diala
Modern Day Float Crafts
Photos from newspapers and blogs show that various kinds of floats are still used in
impoverished parts of the world.
2018: Gaza Strip fisherman using raft floating on 700 plastic bottles
Times of Israel (Aug 2018)