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ANCIENT EGYPT
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It could be argued that the Ancient Egyptians were pioneers in maritime transport. With the Nile flowing from South to North but the prevailing wind blowing from North to South, transport was efficient, cost effective and relatively easy. Officials went up and down the Nile with stone for building projects or grain for the pharaohs' stores, and merchants carried wares for sale. Maritime transport is clearly depicted in ancient temple and tomb carvings and the direction of the journey is easy to identify, particularly if the boat is a sailing vessel. If the sail of the boat is up, then the boat is travelling upstream towards Aswan, with the wind behind it; if the sail is down, then the boat was travelling downstream, towards the Delta and beyond, with the current. Oarsmen and an experienced tillerman helped to keep the boat stable and on course. Every corner of civilized Egypt could therefore be easily reached and Egyptian traders used the Nile and the coast to sail to ports in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Over time, Ancient Egyptians created and utilized three types of boats, each with its own purpose. Simple reed rafts were used mostly for hunting in marshes. In time, wooden boats generally replaced papyrus rafts for Nile travel, and, since they were faster and more stable than rafts, they were also used for transport.
Eventually stronger wooden boats were used for lengthy ocean excursions as well as to tow river barges for transporting stone blocks and obelisks, weighing hundreds of tons, from quarries to pyramids and temple building sites. According to Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny), a Roman Historian, the transport of heavy blocks was achieved by the following: "A canal was dug from the river Nilus to the spot where the obelisk lay; and two broad vessels, laden with blocks of similar stone a foot square, the cargo of each amounting to double the size, and consequently double the weight, of the obelisk, were brought beneath it; the extremities of the obelisk remaining supported by the opposite sides of the canal. The blocks of stone were then removed, and the vessels, being thus gradually lightened, received their burden. It was erected upon a basis of six square blocks, quarried from the same mountain, and the artist was rewarded with the sum of fifty talents."
The third type of boat was the papyriform boat, similar to wooden boats but with the shape of an elaborate papyrus raft in order to maintain the connection to royalty and gods. These ships appear to have been used as pleasure boats and transportation for royalty. They were also used as funerary and burial boats, as well as in religious events such as pilgrimages and for transporting religious statues. There is evidence that heavy ships and smaller trading ships were constructed in the Nile Valley, then dismantled and carried in pieces to Qoseir, where they were reassembled and launched in the sea. In general, sea-going boats were referred to by the ancient Egyptians as "Byblos boats" because the earliest seaworthy boats were used for trading with the Lebanese port town of Byblos. The Royal Fleet Transportation and trade were not the only reasons for seaworthy boats to be built in ancient Egypt. The pharaohs also recognized the need for a powerful navy. Many pharaohs achieved incredible feats with their fleets, such as Queen Hatchepsut, who commission a large trading voyage to Punt. Pharaoh Ramses III, following one trading voyage, wrote a 'report' to Amun, the most prominent deity in the New Kingdom era. "I built you ships, freight ships, arched ships with rigging, plying the Big Green (the sea). I manned them with archers, captains and innumerable sailors, to bring the goods of the Land of Tyre and the foreign countries at the end of the world to your storage rooms at Thebes the Victorious. " The royal fleet was supervised by the Chief of the Royal Ships, an important administrative rather than military position, which under the 26th dynasty seems to have included the responsibility for the taxation of merchandise transported on the Nile. From the 20th Dynasty on, the Ancient Egyptians improved their ships even more by copying some of the more advanced models used by other cultures and under the patronage of Necho, a pharaoh of the 26th Dynasty, Phoenician sailors completed the circumnavigation of Africa. Source references: www.nefertiti.iwebland.com Herodotus, 'Histories 2, 96', Gaius Plinius Secundus 'Historia Naturalis, Liber XXXVI' 
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