| derivation
of ship 1 |
The first boats were made, when early people discovered
that bundled reeds and logs, inflated skins, and large watertight
baskets would keep them afloat. Many of these primitive crafts are
still to be found in use today. But the first clear evidence of humans
engaged in the craft of building boats and ships was found in the
cravings and paintings of Egypt, from about 3400 B.C. Similar evidence
shows that the Sumerians, who lived in southern Iraq, were also great
early shipbuilders.
The ancient Egyptians built their first boats for sailing the River
Nile. They were made of bundled papyrus reeds, very like the reed
boats still used on Lake Titicaca in the South American Andes. In
Egypt the only trees giving timber for boat-building were acacia and
sycamore, from which only short timber lengths could be cut and pegged
together to make the hull of a boat or ship. This kept such craft
small. |
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 Over 5000
years ago. This is a reed boat on a seal from ancient Iraq. About
3000B.C. |
  Similar
basket boats are also used in modern Vietnam. |
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| The GUFA,
still used on Iraq's rivers today, is a big water-proofed basket
driven by paddles. |
Ancient
Egyptians build a boat made up of bundled papyrus reeds. In 1970
a replica reed boat, RaII, was sailed across the Atlantic from Africa
by Thor Heyerdahl. |
| Apart from
Asia and Africa, boats of bundled reeds were also built in South
America and are still used by this fisherman on land-locked Lake
Titicaca, high in the Andes Mountains between Bolivia and Peru. |
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Rafts
of Logs tied side by side are among the oldest of all watercraft.
This is a modern aborigine's one-person raft in Western Anstralia.
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