People tended to live near water because it was a very important source of food and drink. In order to move over the surface of the water, humans used different things that float. The earliest means of travel were rafts or canoes. With time boats with sails were invented that allowed people to move easily upstream and down the river. One of the earliest known boats was made from planks of cedar in Egypt. It was 143 feet long and 20 feet wide and dating from around 2500 BC. Byblos was the most essential port for the export of the good quality cedar wood and for Egypt’s boat-building at that time. Through history boats and ships were evolving gradually and getting many new elements and different designs, but all the time they were an important type of transportation.
Boat- and shipbuilding impacted trade, science, social life and culture significantly. Using well-built ships people could travel long distances and obtain the products that before had not been available. This extended the range of goods available to the society and began to change people’s needs. They wanted to get not only products of primary necessity but also luxury goods. Shipbuilding contributed to the prosperity of sea trade. Great number of sailors, traders and explores led to integration of knowledge, economies of many previously isolated territories and to the mix of cultures. At the same time the opportunity to travel allowed humans to explore new territories. This started to change humans’ imaginations about the world and contributed to many improvements and discoveries in geography. New detailed maps and complex geographical literature were created; many new regions such as Iceland, Greenland, East Europe, and North America were discovered. Journeys to different places of the planet also furthered to the evolution of the navigation system. A cross-staff, a compass and other tools for the determination of roots were invented.
This website contains the images of ships and gives a good idea of variety of crafts that existed through history. http://connect.in.com/old-ships/photos-1-1-1-944b732804a93c605c24bba3b6bb0f7e.html#image_button
3 comments:
Sister In Arms, that picture of a raft is interesting because in the past a boat/ raft was huge because of transportation. I agree that a raft/boat helped trades and more because of easliy getting to transfer goods to one place to another to make money.
Maryna, great post. I recently visited Pennsbury Manor and the tour guide showed us a wooden boat that was used by the Penn family hundreds of years ago. What I found interesting was that the boat would travel down river to Philadelphia when the tide was going out(heading to sea). It was a 25 mile trip that took about 8 hours to accomplish. And when they were ready to travel back to the Manor, they would wait until the tide was coming in(returning from sea) to travel back up river.
Maryna, we have evolved from rafts to gigantic cuise ships. It is amazing how technolgy has evolved inorder to meet the needs and wants of our society. It seems like every year a biggger and more elaborate cruise ship is launched. These cruise ships are amazing, they contain movie theaters, swimming pools, work out facilities, malls and restaurants.
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