The River of Ocean — Primitive 



79 



sengers or cargo or both. There seems to be provision for a steers- 

 man and a permanent steering oar. 



We cannot be certain that all ships of this type were built in Egypt. 

 Trees, such as could provide planks for shipbuilding, were always 

 scarce and sometimes nonexistent in Egypt. Later we know the 

 Egyptian ships were often built up of short pieces of timber and this 

 is why they used the heavy truss of twisted ropes which is so prom- 

 inently shown in the temple drawings. We already know that Hannu 

 had a fleet of ships built in Punt for his voyage home. These earliest 

 pictured ships therefore may well have been built in Tyre or Sidon 

 (as these cities were later called by the Phoenicians) or timber from 

 Lebanon may have been shipped to Egypt and the vessels built there. 

 No doubt the ships shown were used chiefly on the Nile but there is 

 no inherent reason why they would not also serve for voyages be- 

 tween Egypt and other sections of the eastern Mediterranean coast. 

 From the size and character of the ship of 6000 b.c. we must con- 

 clude that shipbuilding and operation already had a long history. It 

 seems reasonable to draw the inference that simple ships were being 

 sailed and rowed about the shores of the Mediterranean and making 

 passages to some of its islands centuries before this. 



Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who in recent years has given much atten- 

 tion to the question of early voyages, would put the date of the 

 first navigators much earlier than this. In any event, this is a history 



EGYPTIAN SHIP 



