d they were so hard that it was
believed they could never be pierced. Now, even if we had no other
evidence to guide us, the existence of these blocks of granite in the
Pyramids would afford the strongest presumption that the Egyptians of
that remote time were perfectly familiar with the arts of inland
navigation, for the stone was quarried at Assouan, close to the first
cataract, 583 miles above Cairo, and could only have been conveyed from
the quarry to the building site by water.

In the neighbourhood of Memphis are hundreds of other blocks of granite
from Assouan, many of them of enormous size. The Pyramid of Men-kau-Ra,
or Mycerinus, built about 3633 B.C., was once entirely encased with
blocks from Assouan. The Temple of the Sphinx, built at a still earlier
date, was formed, to a large extent, of huge pieces of the same
material, each measuring 15 x 5 x 3.2 feet, and weighing about 18 tons.
The mausoleum of the sacred bulls at Sakara contains numbers of Assouan
granite sarcophagi, some of which measure 13 x 8 x 11 feet. These are
but a few instances, out of the many existing, from which we may infer
that, even so far back as the fourth dynasty, the Egyptians made use of
the arts of inland navigation. We are, however, fortunately not obliged
to rely on inference, for we have direct evidence from the sculptures
and records on the ancient tombs. Thanks to these, we now know what the
ancient Nile boats were like, and how they were propelled, and what
means were adopted for transporting the huge masses of building material
which were used in the construction of the temples and monuments.

The art of reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions was first discovered
about the year 1820, and the exploration of the tombs and monuments has
only been prosecuted systematically during the last five-and-twenty
years. Most of the knowledge of ancient Egyptian ships has, therefore,
been acquired in quite recent times, and much of it only during the last
year or two. This is the reason why, in the old works on shipbuilding,
no information is given on this most interesting subject. Knowledge is,
however, now being increased every day, and, thanks to the practice of
the ancient Egyptians of recording their achievements in sculpture in a
material which is imperishable in a dry climate, we possess at the
present day, probably, a more accurate knowledge of their ships than we
do of those of any other ancient or mediaeval people.

By far the