Note 8 — Chapter III · Ancient Mariners and Explorers

The earliest evidence of shipbuilding as an organized and important national industry is found in the Egyptian tomb pictures of the Old Kingdom period (c. 2400 B.C.). Gangs of men, under overseers, are seen constructing many kinds of boats, large and small. There are records of organized expeditions dating back 500 years earlier. Pharaoh Snefru built vessels “nearly one hundred and seventy feet long”. He sent “a fleet of forty vessels to the Phœnician coast to procure cedar logs from the slopes of Lebanon”.8 Expeditions were also sent across the Red Sea. Vessels with numerous oars, and even vessels with sails, are depicted on Egyptian prehistoric pottery dating back to anything like 6000 B.C. In no other country in the world was seafaring and shipbuilding practised at such a remote period.