Transportation

Transportation The major means of transportation was, not surprisingly, by foot. The Egyptians used sandals, but when walking long distances, they seem to have carried them in their hands and put them on when arriving at their destination.

The canals and shallower river arms could generally be crossed by wading or, if they were too wide and deep, by ferry boat. Fording them was never completely without risk as hippos and crocodiles lived in the lower Nile in those days. And Ra heard Bata's prayer, and caused a river to flow between them. The river was wide and full of crocodiles. The two brothers stood on opposite banks of the river.

Rafts, ships and boats were the main means of transportation. Apart from a few exceptions people lived in a narrow stretch of land alongside the Nile, a slow flowing river without major obstacles in the lower regions of the country. Where needed, canals were cut. The Fayum, a major agricultural region west of the Nile, could be irrigated thanks to such a canal, which, at least in times of high water, must have served for navigation as well. The virtual absence of animals suited to desert travel such as camels until Persian times, was a major inducement for the excavation of a shipping canal connecting the Nile and the Red Sea. But during the times when the canal was not navigable, caravans of people and donkeys crossed the Wadi Hammamat to Qoseir on the Red Sea and the Wadi Tumilat to the Bitter Lakes. The logicol problems of such traffic were enormous.

In the Old Kingdom the better-off travelled occasionally in litters been lowered and the ship made fast to the river bank, Hordedef continued his journey by land. He was made comfortable in an ebony carrying chair with Snedjem wood poles plated with gold.

For their daily use even the pharaohs preferred the chariot. Horses were introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos in the 17th century. They were generally not mounted until half a millennium later, but were harnessed to chariots. Expensive to keep, they never became a popular means of transportation serving only the elite.

Wheeled vehicles were never widely used and for heavy loads they were not strong enough anyway. Giant statues and the like were loaded onto wooden sledges and dragged by large numbers of men. Smaller loads were also often transported by sledge. In the tomb of Petosiris there is a depiction of a mummy being transported to its tomb on a wheeled hearse, which was, even in this late era, unusual. The little naos following the hearse on the other hand was loaded onto a sledge.

To facilitate the movement of sledges on packed, sunbaked soil, small amounts of water were poured on the ground before them, turning the top layer into a slick, smooth surface. More rarely the sledges were placed on rollers. By: Nate C.