transportation: The Middle East Although many boats on the Nile were conducting official government business, apparently there were other craft operating for private profit Texts from the New Kingdom (ca 1550–1070 c.e.) mention lump-sum payments given to captains of these vessels as freight fees, part of which were portioned out among the crew at the captain’s discretion Literary sources regularly portray ferrymen as greedy and their fees as exorbitant Even the goddess Isis had to give the ferryman Nemty a golden ring to see her son Horus in his competitions with his uncle Seth In the Book of the Dead ferrymen make all sorts of excuses to the deceased about the unreadiness of their boats to cross the celestial river, presumably to extort higher pay The New Kingdom writer Amenemope described the character of the evil person in a telling comparison: “He acts like the ferryman in knitting words: He goes forth and comes back arguing.” Most of the mummies found in Egypt from the Greco-Roman Period gripped golden coins in their hands to pay the ferrymen in the hereafter The primary mode of land travel throughout ancient Egypt was by foot; even high government officials and armies normally traveled that way, as a set of model figures from the tomb of Mesheti at Assiut from the Eleventh Dynasty (ca 2040–ca 1991 b.c.e.) reveals Art from temples and tombs shows ancient Egyptians walking in funerals, in holy processions during festivals, and the like, in which the distance involved was relatively short, but for many centuries there was no alternative to walking for long land journeys as well Donkeys have been the principal beasts of burden in Egypt from prehistory to the present Art at Deir el-Medina shows donkeys carrying water, wood, grain, straw, hay, dung, and in one case an offering to a goddess up steep paths from the riverbank No depictions survive from ancient Egypt of people riding donkeys as their descendants in modernday Egypt, although one scene preserved on an Old Kingdom (ca 2575–2134 b.c.e.) tomb at Saqqara shows the tomb’s owner supervising his farm activities while riding in a litter borne by donkeys Several texts describe caravans of donkeys used for longdistance overland transport The biography of Harkhuf, a Sixth Dynasty caravan leader, reports that he returned from one of his many trips to Nubia with 300 donkeys laden with all sorts of trade goods Sabni, Harkhuf’s contemporary, mentions using 100 donkeys in his mission to the south to recover the body of his father, who had been murdered there Wheeled vehicles apparently originated in Sumer during the early fourth millennium b.c.e and were later adopted by the Egyptians The earliest example, from the New Kingdom, is a gold model of a four-wheeled wagon carrying a boat Although it is unclear whether the model is realistic or merely symbolic, heavy wagons must obviously have existed in order for it to be made at all Scenes of Ramses II (r ca 1290–ca 1224 b.c.e.) at the battle of Kadesh show an ox-drawn wagon, presumably being used to transport supplies needed on the battlefield Horses and the light horse-drawn chariots were introduced to Egypt from the ancient Near East around 1700 b.c.e 1113 as a means of transportation and quickly became invaluable military resources New Kingdom texts and pictures indicate that kings and nobles used horses for riding and to draw chariots for travel and in hunting expeditions in the desert However, horseback riding apparently was not greatly favored by the Egyptians The animal that many people automatically associate with desert transportation, the camel, was a relative latecomer to Egypt Domesticated centuries earlier in the Near East, the single-humped camel or dromedary came into widespread use in Egypt during the Greco-Roman Period Able to carry about five times as much as a donkey and to travel for extended periods without water, camels became invaluable for the long-distance transport of both riders and trade goods across the Egyptian deserts THE MIDDLE EAST BY KIRK H BEETZ In the ancient Near East early roads consisted of trails pounded flat by the feet of travelers over the course of centuries Here, as elsewhere in the prehistoric world, for many thousands of years transportation simply meant people walking, carrying on their backs such loads as they could bear The first pack animal (meaning an animal used to carry loads on its back) in the region was the donkey, which was domesticated in Africa or the Near East sometime before 3500 b.c.e Oxen, domesticated in the same general timeframe as donkeys, were used mainly as draft animals, pulling plows and towing carts in farm fields Although they were very strong, oxen were too slow to be of much use for long-distance hauling The first Near Eastern vehicles for carrying cargo were probably sledges A sledge is essentially a framework of wood on which loads are dragged across the ground Early sledges were soon improved by adding runners, which significantly reduced the resistance met in pulling them It is likely that the first wheeled vehicle was a modified sledge The peoples of Mesopotamia were not the only inventors of wheels: Wheeled toys have been found at ancient sites in the Americas The Mesopotamian insight was to use wheels for transportation The old notion that the idea for the wheel came from using logs as rollers for moving heavy objects, with the logs eventually wearing thin in the middle where the weight rolled over them, leaving wider “wheels” at the sides, is probably mistaken, because wheels cut horizontally out of tree trunks quickly fall apart Solid wheels needed to be made from planks cut vertically from tree trunks The actual inspiration for the wheel as transportation may have been the potter’s wheel The first known depiction of a wheeled vehicle comes from the Sumerian city of Uruk (in what is now southern Iraq) and dates to around 3500 b.c.e It shows a sledgelike body fitted with solid wheels The wheels were made of three boards laid side by side and held together by two boards that crossed them on the inside of the wheel They were fi xed to axles, and the axle and wheels rotated as one unit This made