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Updated: May 19, 2025
There is evidence that under the Assyrians rafts floated on inflated skins were employed for the transport of heavy goods, and these have survived in the keleks of the present day. They are specially adapted for the transportation of heavy materials, for they are carried down by the current, and are kept in the course by means of huge sweeps or oars.
In pre-war days the rafts, keleks as they are called, would often come straight through to Baghdad, but many were always broken up at Tekrit, for there is a desert route running across to Hit on the Euphrates, and the supplies from up-river were taken across this in camel caravans.
Going down stream, and especially in flood time, no means of propulsion were required; the course of the boats or rafts was directed by means of heavy oars like those still used by the boatmen who navigate the Tigris in keleks, or rafts, supported on inflated hides; in ascending the streams towing was called into play, as we know from one of the Kouyundjik bas-reliefs.
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