A large round boat made of reeds or woven plant material, historically used on rivers and waterways in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq.
From Arabic 'gufah'; the word entered European languages through trade and travel accounts from the Tigris-Euphrates region in ancient Mesopotamia.
Ancient Mesopotamians invented these boats around 4000 BCE—they're so buoyant and simple that modern archaeologists have successfully reconstructed them to prove early river trade really worked this way.
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