Boats
BOATS. It is not surprising that those who live by the sea or on a river often visualize a person's last journey as being undertaken in a boat. One enounters the use of boats in the burial rites of such peoples as well as in their mythology. Although boats figure in strikingly similar ways in the rituals and mythologies of peoples from all over the globe, their exact significance in a given culture or religion and the precise relationship between their cultic use and their appearance in myth are often far from clear. In some cases a specifically religious significance may be lacking, or the actual use of boats in the cult may bear no discernible relation to their role in mythology. These thoughts should be kept in mind as one considers individual cases of the use of boats or boat symbolism in the history of religions.
The Mythic Ferry Across the Waters of Death
The use of a boat to cross the waters of death is fairly common in the ancient Near East and in classical antiquity. The Assyrian version of the well-known Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1200 bce) provides a particularly striking example. The tenth episode of the epic describes the hero's long and arduous attempt to reach Utanapishtim, the Akkadian Noah, and obtain the secret of immortality.
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