Model Ships

Ship models (or "model ships") are scale representations of modern or historic sea-going vessels. more...

Ship models have traditionally been built of wood. Though today, many amateur kits are mostly or totally plastic. A small number of model ships are constructed out of sheet metal.

The level of detail and craftsmanship can range from crude "primitives" to more detailed models that achieve museum quality. Notable collections include the Norwegian Seafaring Museum (Norsk Sjøfartsmuseum) in Oslo and the Museu Marítim in Barcelona, which has a full-scale (1 meter = 1 meter) model of a galley.

History

The Ancient Egyptians were first to carve detailed ship models

It was a common aspect of the Egyptian funeral practice to include highly accurate and detailed, painted, sycamore wood models of a ship, and crew, intended to transport the soul of the deceased to the next world or afterlife. These models, which may be almost 5000 years old, are truly remarkable in their state of preservation. Since the models usually show the crew, in their respective places. These models have been useful in understanding the actual duties of the crew members, what they wore, and how the ship would be steered. Much of what we know today about ancient seafaring has come to use from these models. The British Museum, The Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many museums, world-wide, display extensive public collections of these ritual boats.

Read more at Wikipedia.org