and some could have been used for moving large amounts of
stones or other items. Elephants also could have been used to
help pull raft s across rivers.
An early method of transportation in the Sahara region
was the chariot. Many pictures of chariots appear on wall
paintings and on pots. Th ey tend to indicate the prevalence of
chariots along several established trade routes. One runs from
Essaouira in Morocco through the deserts of modern-day
Mauritania to Timbuktu. Another from the region around
Edjele in southeastern Algeria also goes through to Maurita-
nia and, halfway through, connects with another route that
comes from the Al-Kufrah group of oases in southeastern
Libya. Although these chariots are similar in all places—with
horses pulling a chariot, oft en with semicircular sides, on
which a person is standing—there have been doubts cast by
historians about whether a chariot was a common method of
transportation or merely a military vehicle or something for
public entertainment, as in chariot racing.
Many people traveling together had to travel by foot.
From the description of many North African towns of the pe-
riod, it appears that people heading from one town to another
would gather in the morning at a particular gate or market so
they could cross the farmland or desert in a large company to
inhibit assault or robbery. Bandits, violent peoples, and other
problems oft en made traveling by foot hazardous, and it ap-
pears that there was little land contact between many of the
sub-Saharan civilizations in the ancient world. Th is can be
clearly seen through the transmission of technology such as
the use of iron. Th e use of iron outside Egypt started in Nubia
and progressed over many centuries down the east coast of
Africa, missing many of the powerful inland kingdoms such
as that of the Buganda in modern-day Uganda. As a result,
knowledge of the technology traveled from Nubia to the coast
of southern Africa far more quickly than the comparatively
shorter distance to the kingdom of Buganda.EGYPT
BY AMR KAMEL
Written and pictorial sources from as early as the Predynastic
Period (ca. 5500–3100 b.c.e.) of Egypt record land and water
transportation. Besides its obvious importance in everyday
activities, transportation was deeply rooted in Egyptian reli-
gious ritual and beliefs, notably the solar cycle: Th e sun god,
Ra, who was born in the east, sailed during the day across the
“celestial wasters” (the sky) in his “day boat” before descend-
ing at sunset in the west into the hereaft er and the womb of
his mother, Nut. Th en he sailed from west to east in his “night
boat,” to be reborn again at dawn.
Approaching the hereaft er was a favorite theme of the
Egyptians, who in their tomb art oft en represented this fi nal
journey as a boat ride that took the mummy from the Nile’s
east bank (the living world) to the west bank (the realm of
the dead—the “Beautiful West,” as Egyptian texts called it),
where the gate to the hereaft er waited to be entered.Th ree factors especially aff ected the development of
transportation throughout the history of ancient Egypt:
trade, warfare, and mining and quarrying activities. Th e
creation of an extensive network of routes and highways
spanning the whole country facilitated not only the transpor-
tation of goods but also the movement of military forces, spe-
cifi cally along Egypt’s southern frontier with Nubia and its
northeastern one with the Near East. Th ese routes included
fortifi cations and way stations, which also formed part of
a communications system. As for mining and quarrying, a
government offi ce established as early as the Th ird Dynasty
(ca. 2649–ca. 2575 b.c.e.) and known as Masters of the Roads
was responsible for coordinating and maintaining the land
routes through the desert to quarries and mines. Th ese roads
required water stations and wells at regular intervals.
Besides these overland routes Egypt maintained a sea
road into the eastern Mediterranean. From the inland port of
Memphis large cargo ships descended a branch of the Nile to
the sea, carrying trade goods or, in wartime, military supplies
to Syria and Palestine. Because of the dominant infl uence of
the Nile, water transportation played a much greater role in
Egypt than in some other ancient civilizations. Th e Nile was
the principal communication artery and provided the easi-
est and cheapest means of transportation. When population
centers or other important areas lay distant from the Nile, the
Egyptians linked them to the river by digging canals. Weni, a
Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2323–ca. 2150 b.c.e.) administrator of the
southern province (modern-day Aswān), mentioned a canal
he built at the fi rst cataract of the Nile to ease the movement
of boats past these rapids. Presumably this was the same canal
later cleaned by Sesostris III (r. ca. 1878–ca. 1841? b.c.e.) to fa-
cilitate his military campaign into Nubia. Necho II (r. 610–595
b.c.e.) dug a canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea. Th is
waterway was later maintained and deepened by the Persians
and by the Ptolemaic pharaohs of the Greco-Roman Period
(323 b.c.e.–395 c.e.). Th e Greek historian Herodotus remarked
that two large ships could navigate the canal side by side.
Th e ancient Egyptians used boats and barges to carry
people all along the Nile (or simply to ferry them across it)
and to transport grain, cattle, and many other kinds of cargo.
Water transportation linked the royal capital with all other
cities and villages along length of the river. It aided in col-
lecting grain or taxes from these places and transporting
them to the central storehouses. River transport also fi gured
prominently in religious festivals. During the famous Val-
ley Feast, for example, statues of the god Amon; his consort,
Mut; and their son, Knonsu, were carried in an elaborate boat
procession from the Karnak temple down the river to Deir
el-Bahri on the west bank to visit their ancestors. Art from
private tombs at Th ebes as well as textual evidence show that
this festival was also an occasion for the public to cross the
Nile and visit their relatives’ tombs on the west bank. An echo
of this custom still exists in present-day Egypt, where people
celebrate certain feast days in cemeteries in which their rela-
tives are buried.1112 transportation: Egypt0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1112 1112 10/10/07 2:31:07 PM