LIfe Facts About Sailing Boats

Did you know that Egyptians were the first to build Sailing Boats? You will find out in a bit. The Nile was the main highway in ancient Egypt, and boats were used on the Nile, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

When men live by water, whether marsh, river or sea, they will eventually discover ways to build vehicles to move across that water.

Egypt’s life had always turned around River, so they didn’t need to build roads to travel around their empire-because most of the major cities were located along the river banks, the River Nile. This however prompted expertise by Egyptians at building boats to navigate the great Nile which in turn turned to be an early means of transportation and shipping for them.

Let’s look at a few of the early boats by Egyptians in their succession.

1. Pot Boats

This kind of boat was meant for places free of rocks and was ideal for getting around the marshy areas of the Nile. Egypt was fairly treeless and it would be difficult to find means of building boats using woods, so the pot boats became ideal at this time.

2. After this was the era of wooden boats. These however came in different forms, read below.

A. Papyrus Plant Boats

Eventually Egyptians began to make boats from wood. Boats made out of planks became an improvement on a dugout which was hollowed out of a single log. They learned to make small sailing boats out of the papyrus plant. They were easy to construct and worked well for fishing and short trips. These wooden boats were built without nails. They were often made from a number of short planks that were hooked together and tied tight with ropes.

B. Acacia and Cedar Boats

After this time, the Egyptians began to make boats from wood. They used acacia wood from Egypt and imported cedar wood from Lebanon. There is evidence that the Old Kingdom of Egypt had the first planked boats ever made. These were used even in burial rituals. Fourteen (14) of them have recently been found buried in the region of Abydos. The Pharaoh Snefru, who ruled Egypt about 2600 BCE, was reported to have imported forty ships filled with cedar logs to build more ships. The Cedar woods came from Phoenicia which now called Lebanon.

C. Cargo Ships

Subsequently, the Egyptians learned how to build large and sturdy cargo ships. These ships depended more on wind than on manpower to sail.The ships sailed up and down the Nile and into the Mediterranean Sea to trade with other countries. These ships could hold lots of cargo. Some ships were used to carry huge stones weighing as much as 500 tons from the rock quarry to where the pyramids were being constructed.

3. Funeral Boats

After this were the Funeral Boats. The Egyptians believed that a boat was needed in the afterlife in order to journey to the heavens. Sometimes a small model of a boat made of golds was buried with a person. Often times a full size boat was included in the tombs of Pharaohs and other wealthy Egyptians. There were 35 boats of some type in the pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb.

The Nile River was the catalyst for these ancient sailing boats and more recently the warships, till date.

Fun Facts about Egyptian Boats

• The first papyrus sailing boats are estimated to have been made around 4000 BC.
• The Egyptians developed many types of sailing boats. Some were specialized for fishing and traveling, while others were designed for carrying cargo or going to war.
• Temples and palaces were often connected to the Nile River using manmade canals. The Pharaoh used a magnificent boat covered with gold and fancy carvings.
• The Egyptian sun god was said to travel across the sky on a boat during the day and across the Underworld on a boat at night.

Credits

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