Symbolism of Bird and Ship Motifs in Negev Rock Art

Across the Bronze and Iron Ages, the imagery of birds and ships carved into rock surfaces reveals how ancient peoples sought to understand death, rebirth, and the soul’s transcendence. In the Negev Desert, as in contemporaneous Scandinavia (Kaul 1998) and Egypt (Hornung 1999), avian and maritime symbols became powerful metaphors for the soul’s journey—birds soaring toward the heavens and ships sailing across cosmic waters toward the afterlife.

Birds, being capable of flight, served as psychopomps (soul-guides) in many traditions (Taylor, 2001), and their presence in these scenes reinforces the idea of the soul’s ascent or spiritual elevation (Turner, 1969). The Ship, acted as symbolic bridges between the world of the living and the realm of the dead, reflecting a deep belief in the soul’s journey and the need for divine guidance in crossing the boundary between life and death.

Cross-Cultural Evidence

Egyptian afterlife beliefs provide the most extensively documented parallel to rock art symbolism. The Coffin Texts (c. 2055-1650 BCE) elaborate this theme with detailed descriptions of the night journey through the Duat. Spell 397 describes the deceased joining Ra's crew: "I am one of those gods who follow Ra... I sail in the night bark, I row in the day bark."

Archaeological evidence from Egyptian tombs supports textual descriptions. The boat pits at Giza, particularly those associated with Khufu's pyramid complex (c. 2580-2510 BCE), contained actual vessels intended for the pharaoh's afterlife journey. Scaled-down boat models from Middle Kingdom tombs show remarkable similarity to rock art ship depictions, suggesting shared symbolic traditions.

These Egyptian beliefs found striking parallels far beyond the Mediterranean. Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art (c. 1800-500 BCE) displays remarkable thematic connections to these southern traditions. The Tanum rock art complex in Sweden contains numerous ship images, many associated with cup marks, spirals, and human figures that suggest similar ritual contexts. The Kivik grave in Scania (c. 1400 BCE) represents the most elaborate example of Nordic afterlife art, with its stone cist containing carved panels showing processions of figures, ships, and birds arranged in apparent narrative sequence. Recent analysis suggests these scenes depict the deceased's journey to the afterlife, with ships providing transportation and birds serving as guides (Randsborg 1993).

Negev Rock Art evidence

The rock art engravings provide compelling evidence of the belief in the afterlife, which thrived in ancient Egypt and also permeated into the Negev desert. During that era, the belief offered a better existence than earthly life, supported by ample evidence such as Egyptian texts, architecture, religion, and burial monuments. Other civilizations in the Western world embraced this belief with emphasis on the underworld journey that the soul had to pass.

Ship Journey

Ancient myths of the afterlife depict the soul’s perilous voyage through a watery underworld encircling the world. To navigate this realm, the soul relied on sacred guides—boats, birds, and fish—symbols of passage and rebirth. In Egyptian belief, the ferryman Ma-ha-f (“He Who Sees Behind Him”) aided souls across the divine waters toward the “Beautiful West,” the eternal land of the dead (Abdel-Rady 2016). Greek tradition preserved a parallel image in Charon, the ferryman who carried souls over the Styx to Hades (Homer, Odyssey 11.155–210). Failure to cross these waters meant drifting into spiritual oblivion, a fate no one wished to endure.

As depicted in Fig.1, the afterlife ship from the Negev Desert and Scandinavia, sails through both the upper world and underworld along the sun's path. The upside-down ship represents the journey through the underworld. The ships carry the souls, symbolized by the vertical lines drawn on the ship, which are referred to in the literature as the 'shade of the deceased' (Golan A. 1991). Zavaroni A. (2006) also confirmed this symbolism : In the middle of a boat loaded with souls which are, as usual, symbolized by a series of little lines'. The boat head in scene 2 is shaped like a bird, symbolizing the ability to move through both water and air. A boat-shaped grave in scene 4 allows the soul to begin its journey to the afterlife immediately upon burial.

Boat Journey

Some Negev Desert rock art scenes depict boats seemingly floating across the barren, rocky terrain—an astonishing image given the complete absence of rivers, lakes, or seas in the region. These vessels are not representations of physical navigation but rather symbolic craft that traverse celestial or spiritual waters. This concept, found across ancient cultures, interprets the sky and the underworld as vast, metaphysical oceans through which the soul must travel after death.

Compared to the elaborately carved funerary boats of Egypt—complete with oars, cabins, and symbolic ornamentation—or the large bird-headed vessels engraved in Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art, the Negev ships are starkly abstract. Rendered with a few carefully incised lines, their simplicity is deceiving. Many feature subtle bird-like characteristics—a tri-fingered prow or tail—suggesting a symbolic fusion between air and water travel.

In several scenes, the boats are oriented horizontally and appear to follow the arc of the sun, possibly reflecting the daily solar cycle. Other boats are shown vertically flipped, a motif interpreted in Egyptian and Mesopotamian iconography as signifying descent into the underworld, the shadowy realm where the soul undergoes judgment, transformation, or purification before rebirth.

These boats do not carry goods or warriors; they carry souls, traveling through the skies by day and through the darkness by night, navigating the perilous transition between life and death. The boats sail in pairs, one being a night boat and the other a day boat, and they sail either in a convoy or parallel. The Egyptian text clarifies the pairing of the ships, in Book of the Dead Chapter 151 it states, 'Thy right eye is the Solar Night Barque, thy left eye is the Solar Day Barque' (Hartwig 2002).

Afterlife Journey: Bird and Ship Collaboration Negev Rock Art

The Negev Desert rock art in Figure 3 illustrates the voyage of the soul with both a ship and a bird. These symbols collaborate to traverse both the upper and lower realms. The bird with its outstretched wings, highlighted in blue, travels through the upper world, while the ship, highlighted in red, navigates the underworld. The souls attached to the ship are conveyed to the bird which will carry them toward the sun and facilitate their journey into the afterlife and rebirth.

Conclusion

The bird and ship motifs found in ancient rock art are far more than decorative imagery—they represent complex philosophical systems through which early cultures explored mortality, transformation, and the soul's journey beyond death. Appearing across continents and spanning thousands of years, these symbols reflect deep patterns in human spirituality that transcend cultural boundaries.

Through archaeological evidence, mythological parallels, and ethnographic comparisons, these motifs can be interpreted as early forms of cognitive mapping—frameworks created to make sense of life, death, and the possibility of continued existence in transformed states. Far from primitive, these symbolic systems reveal sophisticated thought. The people who created them were engaged with existential questions that remain central to the human experience: What happens after death? How does one transition between different states of being? What connects earthly life to cosmic order?

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Yehuda Rotblum