The development and construction of watercraft

The River Nile has always been important to Egypt. It provides water to irrigate the land for crops, for drinking, washing, catching fish, and building. But most of all it provides a means of transportation, and has done so for thousands of years. Until the advent of rail and motor vehicles, there was only one way to travel: by boat. For much of the year, the wind blows from north to south, such that a craft under sail could travel from the Mediterranean via the Delta to the First Cataract at Aswan, returning with the current and sails taken down. This fact is even embedded into the written hieroglyphs and included in the phrase ‘travel north’ as hieroglyph P1, boat with sails down, o