Medieval ship construction basics
The pharaohs, when they were living, enjoyed hunting waterbirds and hippopotamus from boats and no doubt hoped to continue the hobby in the afterlife. Pharaohs were buried with two boats to assist them in their journey to the afterlife. The sun god, ancient Egyptian believed, used two boats to travel through the heavens: one for day and one for night. The logs are sawed into planks and holes were cut into the planks with chisels and mallets. In the early stages tree trunks were trimmed and smoothed with an adz. Images from the tomb of To, a 5th dynasty official buried in Saqqara offers insight into how Egyptian wooden boats were built. Scientists believe some kind of boat was used by ancient people to reach Australia at least 50,000 years ago. The oldest known boat is a dugout found in Denmark dated to 6000 B.C. They were not strong enough to handle traveling in the open sea.
Most early Egyptian boats were built for going up and down the Nile. A vase painting of a reed boat with a pole mast and a square sail indicated that the Egyptians had been using sailing vessels as early as 3500 B.C. In ancient times, boats were expressions of technology in its most advanced form. The most elaborate vessels were buried with pharaohs for their journey to the afterlife and were perhaps never used as real boats. Large yachts were used to move people up and down the river. The oldest crafts were built from papyrus.
Egypt was crisscrossed by canals and boats of various sizes were use on the Nile, the canals and the sea. Their boats lacked rudders and instead were steered with a pair of stern mounted oars.
The ancient Egyptians used vessels powered by sails, oars and both.