The Origin Of Sailing

It is thought that sails were invented by the Egyptians around 3400 B.C Harnessing wind power for sea transport was a crucial factor in the development of civilization,enabling Egyptian sailors to carry the timber they needed from the thickly forested coasts of Lebanon,and later taking them to Cyprus where there were plentiful deposits of copper and to the coasts of Anatolia.Trade began to flourish in the eastern Mediterranean ,but of thousands of ships which came and went from Anatolian harbours,some were inveitably wrecked in storms.The ships and cargoes which sank to the seabed over the centuries are today providing illuminating evidence about maritime and commercial history.Since the first underwater excavations were carried out in Turkish coastal waters in 1960,much has been discovered about shipbuilding technology in antiquity and the commodities the ships were carrying.Undoubtedly,the most important wreck excavated so far is the Uluburun Wreck,which is the earliest of all,dating from the late ,Bronze Age.This ship sank 3300 years ago and is accounted one of the most important ten archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.The gold seal of Queen Nefertiti and a two-leaf wooden book,the oldest book in the world,are among the hundreds of remarkable finds.