Thus, dhows with square sterns have the classifications: gaghalah, ganja, sanbuuq, jihaazi. In the Middle East however, boats are classified according the shape of their hull. Thus, it is typical for Europeans to label all Arab boats as dhows. In Europe, boats names are based on the type of sail rigging the boat has. (Some modern dhow makers now nail their hulls together, and many are now making a square stern rather than a double-ended vessel.) By taking all of these into consideration, we can get an excellent idea of how the ancient dhow was constructed and what its sailing abilities were.ĭespite their historical attachment to Arab traders, dhows are essentially an Indian boat, with much of the wood for their construction coming from the forests of India. It seems that dhow making is considered an art, and this art has been passed down from one generation to another, preserving, at least in part, the dhow’s basic design and use.
Along with this we can examine early shipwrecks, and lastly we can learn from modern day construction of dhows. Added to this, we can compare some similar hull constructions used in the later Roman period, after they had opportunity to learn from the Arab sailors. Most of our knowledge of the dhow’s early construction comes to us from the records of Greek and early Roman historians. Unfortunately, there is almost no pictorial evidence of early dhows.
The dhow was also markedly different than the ships that sailed on the China Sea. These ships had a characteristic square sail. This made them markedly different than the ships that evolved on the Mediterranean. While there were many different types of dhows, almost all of them used a triangular or lateen sail arrangement. Picture by Marion Kaplan Used with permissionįor many centuries, boats that sailed on the Indian Ocean were called dhows.
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