A dahabeah, also spelled dahabeeyah, dahabiah, dahabiya, dahabiyah and dhahabiyya, as well as dahabiyeh and dahabieh (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

ذهبية /ðahabīya/), is a passenger boat used on the river

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. The term is normally used to describe a shallow-bottomed,

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

-like vessel with two or more sails. The vessels have been around in one form or another for thousands of years, with similar craft being depicted on the walls of the

tomb A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...

s of

Egyptian Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty () until the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Republic in 30 BCE. However, ...

s. Indeed, the name derives from the Arabic word for "

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

", owing to similar, gilded state barges used by the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

rulers of Egypt in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

History

Until the 1870s the dahabiya was the standard for tourists to travel up and down the river Nile. According to Donald Reid, in 1858 "a forty-day round trip from

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

cost about £110; a fifty-day trip to

Aswan Aswan (, also ; ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city ha ...

and back, about £150". However, Thomas Cook Ltd introduced the

steam boat A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels working on lakes, rivers, and in short-sea shipping. The ...

on the river and brought with them the organisational know how to turn a three-month voyage into a 28-day sight-seeing tour. By 1900, as trains had started to compete with the steam boat, dahabiyas were reserved only for the most wealthy, leisured travelers. This is also the time that saw great change in how dahabiyas were used and viewed. Sir

John Gardner Wilkinson Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (5 October 1797 – 29 October 1875) was an English traveller, writer and pioneer egyptologist of the 19th century. He is often referred to as "the Father of British egyptology". Childhood and education Wilkinso ...

's 1847 book "Hand-book for travelers in Egypt" goes into great detail on how to hire a dahabiya. A traveler wishing to travel the Nile would not only have to hire the boat for the duration but provision it, de-bug and de-rat it, oversee the boatmen and even have it re-painted. However, by 1897 tour companies had made the journey much more civil.

Thomas Cook Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was the founder of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was born into a poor family in Derbyshire and left school at the age of ten to start work as a gardener's boy. He served an appren ...

promised, "

Dragoman A dragoman was an Interpreter (communication), interpreter, translator, and official guide between Turkish language, Turkish-, Arabic language, Arabic-, and Persian language, Persian-speaking countries and polity, polities of the Middle East and ...

s and other necessary servants and food supplies are carefully selected and provided".{{cite book , title = Cook's Tourists' Handbook for Egypt, the Nile, and the Desert , page = 14 , year = 1897 , location = London, England , publisher = Thomas Cook & Son; Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd , hdl = 1911/9284 , via = Rice University , url = https://hdl.handle.net/1911/9284

Modern era

Modern dahabiyas still lack a motor-driven propeller. They are towed by diesel-powered tugboats, and have an onboard diesel-powered generator to provide electricity. ''Dahabeya'' is also the name of a specific vessel.

Etymology

ذهبية /ðahabīya/ is the feminine of ذهبي /ðahabī/ "golden", from ذهب /ðahab/ "gold". In Arabic the feminine suffix ''-a'' can indicate the

singulative In linguistics, singulative number and collective number (abbreviated and ) are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. This is the ...

of inanimates, changing the meaning from "golden" to "a single golden thing". Thus the meaning of ذهبية is something like "a golden one".

Gallery

Dahabeah on the Nile.jpg, Dahabeah (1862) File:S10.08 Luxor, image 9924.jpg, Dhahabiyeh of American tourists, Luxor, n.d., Brooklyn Museum Archives File:"One of the dahabeahs of Thomas Cook & Son, (Egypt) Ltd.".jpg, "One of the dahabeahs of Thos. Cook & Son, (Egypt) Ltd." (1893) File:Dahabeah R04.jpg, Modern dahabeah on the Nile, being pushed by a tugboat (2018)

References

Boat types Ships of Egypt