Square sail and seagoing plank boat
Vela cuadrada y barco de tablas cosidas
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Abydos and the Nile Delta, Egypt; Byblos, Lebanon
- Credited to
- Egyptians and Canaanite Phoenicians
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Hull of cedar planks sewn or joined with tenons, propelled by a square sail on a bipod mast and oars. The Egyptian 'Byblos ships' and the Abydos boats (c. 3000 BCE) inaugurate seagoing navigation in the eastern Mediterranean.
The earliest depiction of a sail is on a Naqada II vessel (c. 3300 BCE); the Abydos boats are riverine, and the first documented sea voyage to Byblos dates to the reign of Sneferu (c. 2600 BCE).
What it led to
- Regular maritime trade linking Egypt, Lebanon, Crete and Cyprus in cedar, copper, tin, wine and oil
- Minoan thalassocracy and trade networks connecting the Aegean with the East
- Wrecks such as Uluburun (c. 1300 BCE): the world economy of the Late Bronze Age
- Expeditions to Punt and state-sponsored voyages of exploration
Built on
- Copper saw and metal woodworking toolsc. 3000 BCE
- Papyrus-bundle boat
- Early sail (Naqada II)
- Copper woodworking tools
- Cedar of Lebanon
Made possible
- Stone anchorc. 2500 BCE
- Transport amphora (Canaanite jar)c. 1800 BCE
- Mortise-and-tenon plank-built hullc. 1320 BCE
- Direct monsoon sailing across the Indian Ocean (Hippalus)c. 100 BCE (tradición de Hipalo)
- Carrack (three-masted ship)c. 1420 (muy aproximado)
- Phoenician merchant ship
- War galley
- Artificial harbour