baris

• a small Egyptian row-boat, βάρις, Prop. 3 (4), 11, 44 Kuin.

• , βᾶρις, a small row-boat, Pr.

BARIS(βᾶρις), a boat used on the Nile to transport merchandise, and also at funerals to convey the corpse across the river. It was, like the modern Nile boats, made of the ἀκάνθη (Mimosa Nilotica, modern Arab. sont); was flat-bottomed, and of such light draught that it could only sail up stream with a strong breeze, and had usually only one rudder. The baris was often of many thousand talents' burden. Herodotus describes (2.96) the manner of its construction and navigation, in which, as we learn from Egyptian paintings, both sails and oars were employed. (See Rawlinson's Herodotus, l. c. and 2.41, 197; Diod. 1.96.) The poets use the word to signify an Egyptian (Aesch. Suppl. 815, 858 ; Propert. 4.11, 44) or generally an Oriental boat or ship. (Aesch. Pers. 555; Eur. Iph. A. 297.)

In the Septuagint the word is used in the sense of a tower or palace. (Ps. 44.9; Dan. 8.1.)

(βᾶρις). (1) A boat used on the Nile to transport merchandise, etc., across the river. It is described in Herod.ii. 96.

(2) In the Septuagint, the word denotes a tower or palace ( Ps.xliv. 9).