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It is true that the larger kuffah of to-day tends to increase in diameter as compared to height, but that detail might well be ignored in picturing the monster vessel of Ut-napishtim.
A kuffah, the familiar pitched coracle of Baghdad, would provide an admirable model for the gigantic vessel in which Ut-napishtim rode out the Deluge. The kuffah is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to conditions of use which cannot be improved.
The use of pitch and bitumen for smearing the vessel inside and out, though unusual even in Mesopotamian shipbuilding, is precisely the method employed in the kuffah's construction. Arab. kuffah, pl. kufaf; in addition to its common use for the Baghdad coracle, the word is also employed for a large basket. Herodotus, I, 194. The kuffah is formed of wicker-work coated with bitumen.
But his further description shows that he is here referred to the kelek or skin-raft, with which he has combined a description of the kuffah. The late Sir Henry Rawlinson has never seen or heard of a skin-covered kuffah on either the Tigris or Euphrates, and there can be little doubt that bitumen was employed for their construction in antiquity, as it is to-day.
But the form of Ut-napishtim's vessel was no doubt traditional, and we may picture that of Ziusudu as also of the kuffah type, though smaller and without its successor's elaborate internal structure.
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