Travels and transport in ancient Egypt

Tralves and transport

The supply of the raw materials was difficult for the long distances between the quarries and the mines from the valley of the Nile, for this communicating reads were made and continuous supplies of water.
Egypt possessed a big natural “road”; the Nile, which with the canals had the best part of inner traffic of the country. Even in the dry season, when the waters of the Nile were law, the navigation was possible thanks to the north wind. The boats of the most ancient period were rafts made of fibers of intertwined papyrus. They were light, but not very suitable to transport big quantities of goods, that’s why they were substituted by wooden boats,of cedar from Lebanon.

The hull was rectangular or triangular and often decorated. Particularly on the pedalo with oars were represented eyes that allowed the boat to “see”.

The Egyptian land, clayey or sandy, wans’t adapt for movements and of the wheel we have very few statements in the most ancient age.
To transport the goods on land the donkey and later the yoked ox (the camel isn’t documented before the VI century BC), but mostly the loads were carried on shoulder, sometimes using a balance on which vases, sacks or animal hutches were tried. But the building works reaquired the transport of materials of great weight from the quarries to the boats on the river and from these to the building sites. They so then used big sleds or tregge, made by two parallel runners joined by transversal boards and pulled by ox or by the workers of the quarries. In front of the sled they poured water to make the earth slippery.

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